I’m a novelist. I write books more than I write anything else, and I learn with every project that I work on. Last March I finished a draft. I hoped it was in better shape than it actually is- because my writer’s group will finish it next month. (We have two meetings next month, and they’ll finish it at the second of those meetings.)

They’ve been reading it for me for over a year now, partly because I started and I needed them to keep me on track with writing it, and then because I outpaced them and I hold to our limited word counts per meeting. It’s hard to remember where we started, and it’s hard to think about the feedback they’re going to give me when they finish.

But since our meeting this week, I’ve been rearranging this book in my head to be two books, and how that would look like. I agree with most of the feedback I’m getting, and I’m really lucky to have such a great group to work with.

Sometimes the hard part is thinking about all the things I’ve learned and remembering there will always be more. It’s true of any topic out there, and it’s good to be reminded that even the experts are still learning.

Then I started writing my thoughts down, and probably after the yoga class I teach today I’ll break out the colored note cards and an actual notebook and see how these things fit. They also gently remind me that there’s still too much in my head, so as I’m writing an alternative introduction I’m looking at it as if I haven’t met these creatures yet. That’s the hardest thing.

The writer’s group isn’t all bad news, though. I may have to rewrite it again but they’re excited about the characters and each one seems to have a different favorite. They’re excited to read more from these worlds. That excitement keeps me going even though I know this task is huge. The good news is it’s writing season.

I might actually mean editing season.