NATURAL BEAUTY

Dolly Parton's character in Steel Magnolias swore there was no such thing.  And I have a tendency to think that's also true of literature.  There is no novel that springs forth out of anybody's head straight onto the page looking fabulous (just as nobody wakes up honestly looking like a magazine spread).  It takes work to look good, as Truvy was wont to say.

It's such a girly comparison, I know...But who among us hasn't sat in a beauty parlor, with bated breath, almost beside ourselves with anticipation as we cooked beneath a dryer?  We just knew we were going to look so fabulous as a brunette / blond / redhead / with sleek, straight hair / short hair / extensions / spiral perm (ah, the 80's—I spent eight hours solid in a beauty parlor back in '88 to get my spiral)...Who has not honestly believed she would be a new woman when she left that parlor?

That's the revision process.  It's putting your much-loved manuscript under the dryer, and just knowing that it's going go walk out looking like a NYT bestseller.

And now, back to my revisions...