English: Fight between the French Confiance (Robert Surcouf) and the HMS Kent.
Am I a bad writer mom? I'm halfway through a major revision and I'm ready to hole the ship and watch it sink with all hands. It would cut my words from just over 100,000 to about 50,000 and that's a good thing, right?
This is my first revision since I began sending out query letters. Before that, I did about six full revisions and I'm really sick everyone in the novel. They are annoying me. When I wrote the book, the characters took on a life of their own. All I had to do was record their actions. It was fun. It was exciting. It was surprising. Sometimes the next day, when I read over what I had recorded, I'd be astounded. Where did that come from, I'd think. How did that get on my page?
It was magic.
In revision, however, everyone in the manuscript seems inept and unable to do anything for themselves. They are milling about on the stage, waiting for the director to force them to their positions, and hoping the catering truck will not be late. They have to be taken by the hand and dragged from place to place. I have to put words in their mouths. I have to make things up. It is like having two sets of newborn quintuplets to care for at once. It is exhausting.
Is it wrong for me to want to the wipe them all out? Have any of you other writers experienced this desire for a fight to the death during revision?
