In the Jewish tradition, the number 18 carries special spiritual significance. That's because its letters spell out chai (pronounced "khai"), the Hebrew word for "life."
The Chinese also view 18 as propitious, associating it with prosperity and success. In numerology, 18 is equally positive; 1 represents new beginnings, 8 is also a number of success and 9 (1+8) is the number of completion. As well, eighteen is the age when we leave childhood behind and move into adulthood.
Why is all this relevant? This week I published my 18th book – The Heartful Art of Revision: An Intuitive Guide to Editing. And the fact that it's book #18 feels profoundly significant, even if I can't say how or why.
Funny thing about The Heartful Art of Revision: It had to battle with my other two books-in-progress to become the magical 18th. You see, I had already begun a fourth book in both my Legend of Q'ntana fantasy series and my Sara Stories series of novels.
If you have worked with me or read any of my other books for writers, you know that I view each of my books as a sentient entity with its own destiny and imperative. Because of that, I often have meditative-type "conversations" with them. (In fact, The Heartful Art of Revision's Revision Secret #7 is "Talk to Your Story!)
So when it came time back in May to decide which book to focus on next, I convened the candidates, along with my Muse. The meeting wasn't as contentious as I'd expected. In fact, for some reason known only to everyone else in attendance but not to me, my long-planned book on revision was the unanimous choice. (See "Birth of a Book," below.)
As all my books do, The Heartful Art of Revision has forced me to face many of my issues. That's why I like to say that I don't write my books; my books write me!
Despite those issues – or maybe because of them – I think this is my best book for writers yet!
Birth of a Book
It’s mid-1994, and I have been working as a full-time writer and editor for eighteen years. I’m good at my job, and I have an active client list that ranges from book and magazine publishers to universities, government agencies and corporate communications departments. You have to be good to make it as a freelancer, which I have been doing successfully for more than a decade, most of it in the highly competitive Toronto market.
But I can’t do it anymore. Not the editing part. I can no longer spend my days as a professional perfectionist. I can no longer live my work life largely from my left brain, not when I’m trying to live the rest of my life more holistically...not when I’m seeking ways to be more creative in my personal and writing pursuits.
By October 1994, I have wrapped up all my current jobs, let go all my editing clients and retreated a thousand miles away from the hyper-bustle of Canada’s largest city to the stillness of rural Nova Scotia. There, I apply the free-flow writing technique I have not yet dubbed “the Muse Stream” to completing the first draft of my first novel. It is as I settle into the radical rewrite that is The MoonQuest’s second draft six months later that I experience the glimmerings of a new approach to editing, a radical approach that runs counter to all the ways I have practiced the craft...to everything I think I know about the craft.
Without realizing it, I have created what I will come to call “the Heartful Art of Revision.”
Problem is, I’m not sure how to describe it, let alone teach it. It’s as though I know what to do, instinctively, but lack any conceptual awareness of what it is I’m doing
It will take another decade before I am able to grasp it clearly enough to include those glimmerings in the initial edition of my first book for writers, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.
Another decade passes, and I’m editing again — for others as well as for myself; no longer from that narrow-focused, analytical place that built my earlier professional success, but from the heartful, whole-brain place I have been cultivating since that second draft of The MoonQuest.A book on editing has been on my to-do list for much of that time. Yet although I now practice this technique with great success on both my work and my clients’ and although I teach the occasional workshop on the subject, I still feel as though I am missing the key that will make it possible for me to guide others with the kind of depth that a full-length book demands.
Then COVID-19 strikes, forcing me to recreate all my classes for an online-only audience. As I put together my newly reimagined revision workshop, one of those lightbulbs you used to see above cartoon characters’ heads when they had an epiphany flashes above mine. I have found my key; keys, rather, for there are two: vision and intuition.
As with so many of our aha moments, I’m stunned that I failed to recognize their significance before this moment. The cliché “hidden in plain sight” leaps to mind because both words are not only integral to all my work, they have been woven into this book’s title from the moment, years ago, when I conceived it.
Of course, just as editing is about more than vision and intuition, so The Heartful Art of Revision is more than a right-brain guide to the process.
No effective guide to fine-tuning your writing projects could be strictly a visionary one, any more than it could be strictly an analyical one. At the same time, vision and intuition form the foundation upon which everything else in this book is layered. Because without vision, there is no global creative concept for the many and myriad editorial changes every project requires. And without intuition, we are editing mechanically, soullessly and without discernment, something a computer could easily manage more effectively.
In drawing on all your gifts and skills, from both sides of your brain, The Heartful Art of Revision introduces you to a dynamic, cutting-edge practice guaranteed to carry you on a journey from first to final draft unlike any you have ever read about or experienced. It will revolutionize not only the way you shape and polish your creations, but the way you view them...and the way you view yourself as their creator.
Most important of all, The Heartful Art of Revision will transform your script or manuscript into the masterpiece it deserves to be...that you deserve it to be. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, you’ll never feel the same about editing again!
Adapted from The Heartful Art of Revision: An Intuitive Guide to Editing © 2020 Mark David Gerson