From the Desk

Revision has a different texture than drafting.

Drafting is momentum—moving forward, discovering what the story might become. Revising is slower. Quieter. It’s the work of standing still long enough to notice what the story is already saying—and where it’s asking to be clearer.

Lately, I’ve been back inside Out of Time.

Not rewriting it from scratch. Not tearing it apart. Just returning to it with different eyes. Time has passed since the initial draft, and that distance matters. Scenes that once felt urgent now ask for restraint. Others, surprisingly, want more room to breathe.

Revision, I’m learning again, isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about listening for what’s slightly out of alignment.

Some of the work has been structural—tightening transitions, clarifying cause and effect, making sure the internal logic holds even when the story bends reality. Some of it has been quieter still: trimming lines that explain too much, trusting moments to carry their own weight, letting silence do some of the work.

There’s a temptation in revision to chase polish. To smooth every edge until nothing catches. I’m resisting that. Stories need texture. They need friction. What I’m looking for instead is coherence—the sense that every scene knows why it exists, and that the world behaves consistently even when it surprises.

Progress, at this stage, is measured differently. A paragraph that finally sounds like itself. A chapter that stops arguing and starts cooperating. A realization that something doesn’t need to be added at all—it needs to be removed.

It isn’t finished. But it’s moving again.

Tomorrow, I’ll sit back down and see what the story allows next.