A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

So, Brexit happened.

Le sigh.

And in completely unrelated news, I have editing whiplash. This is what I call the extreme mood swings which accompany the very-involved revision process. Namely, this is due to two things--the aw shit moment when you realize that your talented editor has found actual flaws in your baby...erm, book...and the hallelujah feeling that accompanies turning in your oh, so brilliant edits. 

Since there are lots of rounds of this, you do start to feel a bit like you're being teased by some naughty goddess of literature who is playing keep-away with your faith in your skills as a writer.

Don't get me wrong--revision is worth every blood-tinged drop of effort. There's something incredibly satisfying about watching your book transform before your eyes as you see it anew and shape it into something better. And every time I come across a passage that I've diligently worked on in a previous round of edits, I can reread it with gratitude towards the process--the book is getting better. 

But there's also something demoralizing in getting a pass back and having to acknowledge that you are still not perfect, and neither is the book. I would really like to be perfect. Le sigh 2.0. 

Also, I took the title of this blog post from a quote by Mary Poppins, then realized that Disney might sue me for using it, so I looked it up to see if I could afford to beat Disney's lawyers (I can't), only to find that Disney stole the line from the poet Keats first. Which means I won a mostly-theoretical battle against a giant corporation today. And that my expensive years of graduate school left me unprepared for random drive-bys of poetry in kid's movies. What the hell, Dr. Bathes! You had one job!

In retrospect, Pepe Le Pew is a psycho stalker who will end up murdering Penelope and hiding her body in a garden. He's very, very creepy.