Revision Blues

Again I'm rewriting "Bestfriend," a memoir of J., my best friend who died eleven years ago this November. I began working on "Bestfriend" in 2001 or 2002, started sending it out to publishers in September 2005. Nibbles but no bites. When I finished the MFA program in July 2008, I looked at "Bestfriend" once more and did some revising. Now I'm tweaking again--while visiting J's mom and looking through photo albums, I read a letter J. wrote to Cardinal B., pleading for a ramp for her church. J.'s spirit leaped off the page. Why not insert J's own words? And I could update the aftermath section to talk about the ramp that was built, albeit after J's death.

I'd love to sell "Bestfriend" and split the money with J.'s mom. But revision is grueling. I can only work on the manuscript for so long and I need a break. I mean, it's a tragedy--she dies. In my update, I mention that her brother died last year--her parents have lost three of their five kids. How the **** do you add comic relief to a scenario like that? I try to add hope--that J. is looking down on us--that life has a pattern we just don't see yet, noting the ramp she'd pushed for was finally approved, believe it or not, the day she died. And in the early sections, I did put in funny stuff--how we'd go through J.C. Penney, J. honking the bicycle bell a coworker attached to her wheelchair. How people laughed--but they were smiling, much better than the usual stares.

Still...one friend who read "Bestfriend" worried that it would be "too much" for the reader. Of course, J's death--being in a coma two and a half months before she died--was too much in real life, too. Still--I do want to sell this. May the force be with me!