My head aches, my eyes burn and my brain wants to take a vacation. My writing hand rebels against picking up a pen to scribble notes across my manuscript. I'm sure that's for the best. As it is, I can barely make out the words I wrote two days ago. Chapter Three is full of edits I have yet to input in the computer, mostly because just looking at these pages gives me a migraine:

I've got three different colors of highlighters throughout my manuscript. I've got post-its galore stuck all over. It's reaching the point where I don't even know what I mean with all these notes and arrows and highlighted sections. It's enough to make a girl go gray. Oh, wait. I've already got grays.

But, in spite of all this stress and madness, I have rediscovered a love for dollar stores. I found all this:

at a dollar store. They're extra-big post-its that I can fit lots of words on. So long, cramped, illegible writing! I'm sure I've mentioned my love of office supplies before. Post-its are like my crack. I love them. Almost as much as I love a new pen (got one of those, too by the way). These things help to make my revision process a lot easier.

I'm getting excited about this round of revisions. Even though I'm so stressed most of the time I can't see straight, I'm making progress. I've been tearing down and rebuilding the first four chapters for the last two weeks and I'm finally getting somewhere. And I'm thrilled. It's a crazy love-hate relationship, this writing gig. But I'm still madly in love. And I'm taking advantage of every single second of it.

So here's the scene. A crowded dining room at a not-so-local McDonald's, my table littered with loose-leaf pages of my third draft, my laptop sitting on a stack of papers and a half full cup of sweet tea to my left. Outside, the sun is shining so bright I have to squint anytime I look out the window. There's a highway right in front of the restaurant. It's one of those food/gas combos and people have been non-stop bustling in and out ever since I arrived over an hour ago. Dana and her mom dropped me here and left for a work-related picnic and I have been (kinda) hard at work ever since. I keep drifting off into a daydream involving me, that sunshine and the beach. I want it so bad I can almost feel the sand between my toes. Alas, here I sit.

I shouldn't really be complaining. I have been flooded with ideas and questions and suggestions for the first couple chapters of my novel, thanks to a couple lovely ladies who volunteered to beta read for me, as well as Dana. I have been elbow-deep in reworking the first scene in Chapter One and the last scene in Chapter Two. My pages are covered in blue and purple ink pen and my notebook is filled with chicken scratch ideas. This is the part of revision that I love. The exhilarating, creative, scribbling all over anything resembling paper, revision. The part where your mind is racing a million miles a second with ideas and dialogue and changes to make. I'm sure once I get to anything past Chapter Five, I'll hate the entire process again, but as of right now, I am in love.

In fact, I'm gonna get back to my new love right now and try to banish visions of sandy beaches and blue waters out of my head. Wish me luck!