Extravagant revision

"A penny saved is a penny earned," says Ben Franklin (or St. Ben as he's usually perceived here in Philly). It's a maxim that our "buy now, pay later" culture would do well to heed when it comes to financial matters.

The problem comes in extrapolating this idea to every area of life. There are times when being parsimonious, frugal and thrifty are not good. Dickens dramatized a life of thrift taken to extreme in A Christmas Carol. In Ebenezer Scrooge we see a frugality of money and of feeling. Scrooge's background explains much of his parsimony, and at his core is a soul cut off from the sources that could heal it. He learns in the course of the story that true wealth is found in extravagance and generosity.

I've been deep in the revision process for many months now, and I'm realizing that parsimony has no place. This is not the time to hoard hard-earned words. The more I resist completely chucking pages, the more I become a Scrooge. I become hardened and closed to my characters. They don't speak to me, and the story dies.

Early drafts are a road map, not the treasure itself. Be brave, friends, and willing to freely and extravagantly rewrite every single word of your book if necessary. That hard-earned currency of character and story that came in the drafting process needs space to breathe and the freedom to surprise you still in revision. Open the window and toss out the coins like Scrooge on Christmas morning. The generosity will repay dividends you can't yet imagine.

Do you struggle with a frugal heart in your writing and revising? What scares you about being an extravagant reviser? How does Scrooge's story encourage you?