Manuscript

As I am making my latest changes and edits to The Flower of Knighthood, I am realizing something. It's not at all that there was so much wrong with the manuscript. I was happy with it when I thought it was done, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, and I would have started working on publishing it at that point if I had not started writing Parsifal. It's more that I really am different than I was three and a half years ago when I finished writing the first draft of it, and am more evolved even from when I completed my copyright submission draft a year and a half ago. This is one argument for editing it like I am now, because I've written so much more in the interim that my expression has improved a lot, and it's also one argument that I need to stop working on it at some point very soon. I don't want to change it so much that I lose that excitement of a first book by refining it too much. I also realize that I was rushing it back then, because I wanted it to be done, but it has improved with the mellowing of some age. However, it's becoming clear to me that since I am always growing and changing, I could go on editing it forever, if I was crazy enough to do so, and that alone makes me want to respect its integrity and just leave it be at some point. It's a real balance that I need to find, and I think I am near to achieving it. There are some small word changes that I can make that get closer to what I actually wanted to say, to make it just a little more streamlined. I don't want to miss an improvement that I can make that will indeed help the final version. I keep saying this same thing about the whole process, but it really is totally worth all of this effort. Even when I tweak some tiny little thing that makes a line flow better or have a tighter rhyme, I feel great. It's reached the point where I go for pages before I change anything, so I am almost there.