Patience v. Revising

You've slaved over your MS for months (years?) and you've finally, finally typed the very last line. It's rough. You know it's rough. You've been thinking about, but not allowing yourself to fix any holes until you actually finished the book.

You're fingers itch to start revisions right now. You don't want to wait. Why wait? You know everything there is to know about your characters and your story.

Right?

You don't need to wait for feedback from your CPs or betas. Just do it now and get it out to agents as soon as is humanly possible.

Right?

Have you been here? Does it sound familiar?

This is exactly where I am. I just recently finished the first draft of my MS. I stayed up until 3 a.m. to do it. I *had* to do it. I couldn't sleep anyway because it was all I could think about. I needed to get this story down on paper before I lost all my momentum. It felt great!

For about 3 hours. Then...I just wanted to dive right back in and revise, revise, revise. I'd emailed it to my  betas and CPs as soon as I'd closed the draft. My plan was to wait. Let them read it. Read their thoughts and THEN begin revising.

The problem with that is I really want to do it now. Like, right now. So what did I do? I asked a CP her opinion.

She said to wait. To draft a query letter. Try to get to know my characters better that way.

I did that. Then what?

Well, now I've decided to try my hand at an idea I've been putting on the back burner for about a month now. It's a bit frightening to start a brand new WIP, but at the same time, it feels good. Really good. And it's totally keeping me distracted, which is what I need right now.

Patience is not exactly one of my strongest attributes, but for this, for my dream...I will be patient.