Resting on top of the Mountain

It's not very far from the Pharaoh to the Promise Land, but the children of Israel wondered in the desert for forty years before they got there. After all I've been through it feels like I'm halfway there but I'm on a mountain top looking further up the trail. The 'mountain' is a completed first rough draft of my book, which I finished on my holiday break. Three years ago I finally got out of Egypt, sat down and started writing this book, seriously, and then I allowed an interruption for a year to take a professional position again, I went back into 'bondage'-it sucked up my intelli-juice for writing. But I got back on track due to some wild wonderful circumstances, some might say the hand of Providence. Friends have asked me repeatedly, when will you be done? If getting to the land of milk and honey was just a walk through the desert I'd have been there years ago. If writing a book was only typing, I'd have been done in a couple of months. I'm still not done-done, of course, but the target is in the cross hairs as never before.

In "the story of the story" of writing the book, I've come to Act III so to speak. The final battle and the view from the Mountain I've wanted for so long. I'm sitting on a a spiral bound stack of the whole thing with edits and revsions in red/blue/black and highlighted ink. I drained a red ink pen doing edits and scribbling revisions in the margins. Now all that work needs to be blended into the book. It's a lot. And, stuff needs to be removed.
I tried to dive right into it but the weight of what I’m about to do overwhelms and intimidates me. It's going to take much more heavy mental lifting to finally get there. I wondered if I have what it takes to do it. I'm going to need to be better than I've ever been. I have to bring my very best game to this. I stared at the blank page for an hour and had to admit to myself that I need a break.

I kept thinking of all the revisions and thematic emphasis, they are huge and must be handled subtly and with nuance....and something else: arrangement. I think I need to arrange events a little differently to increase the emotional impact of the big moments. Also, I've adapted my styling toward the end. Having been impressed with George R. R. Martin's work, I wanted to write in third person limited, each chapter restricted to one character's point of view. However, as I got deeper into story I started feeling/seeing peripheral characters' points of view more clearly, so I started writing those in as well. When I edit and revise I'll include more POVs per chapter. I also developed a better background mythology.
  
I've been off the internet a lot working. Thus my writer's platform (presence on the web) has suffered, as it will from time to time.. Writing is a writer's number one priority, not his platform. There is a time for everything I need to do under the sun but now is the time to write!