I’m now through Chapter 2 of the revision of Signs and Shadows. Double-spaced, that would be about 44 pages, I guess. It’s moving a little quicker now that I’m out of those first scenes, now that we’re deeper into the action. I know it’s a good sign when I reach parts where my eyes glide along the page and I’m not conscious of snags I need to fix.

The earliest chapters are the hardest to revise for two reasons: 1.) As we all know, the opening pages — the opening lines — of a book are absolutely crucial. They have to be as near-perfect as the writer can get them, because it’s in those first few seconds of the reading experience that browsers in a store — and long before them, editors at publishing houses — will decide to throw down the book and move on with life. You get about a paragraph to hook people. 2.) Those first pages of the book are farthest from the ending: in real time, in unfolding story, and in writing experience. If, by the end of the book, the writer has sort of figured things out, then it’s the beginning where he’s fumbling around. I didn’t know my characters then. I didn’t know where the adventure would take me. In those early pages, I have really been working on first impressions. How shall I introduce characters? What information shall I disclose — and how, and when? In what order? There’s a lot of weeding-out that takes place. I’m putting bushels of garbage out at the curb. But I’m also adding a lot of shading and highlighting. Because I know what happens later, I now have the grace to be able to set those things up. Fun, fun, fun!

This is, in general, SO much more fun than that journey into the blank unknown that is the first draft. (That can be exhilarating in its possibility — the book can go absolutely ANYwhere, and be anything . . . but with that freedom comes the weight of responsibility. And there’s the constant figuring out. Am I going somewhere, or walking in circles?)

Here’s the nugget I really wanted to impart, an insight I had tonight, partly because of a movie we were watching about getting ready for a musical play. The joy of the revision is this: it’s very much like rehearsing for a play.

The story is complete. Revision is going over this complete story to make it scintillate. You want to communicate the story that exists to the audience, in all its fulness and grandeur. Nuances make all the difference. Rehearsal takes ink on paper and turns it into a participatory experience for the audience. How is the timing going to work here? What will trigger the nostalgia that makes this the reader’s own? What scents shall we bring in from the olfactory department? How is this person going to deliver this line? No, no, no — do it again. Once more, with feeling. Work with me. Move this flat back three feet. More powder on that nose. Get more light right here. I want it here!

I’ve got to tell you a high-school band story. As the new school year became imminent, our band would come out to the football field for three days at the end of August — three grueling days that left us aching and exhausted and ecstatic. It was hotter than blue blazes. The football team would be practicing in the distance, crashing into dummies, doing their footwork, etc. We’d learn the spectacular half-time show, all carefully choreographed for us on paper by an expert at a big university. “Spanish Opener” . . . “Spirit of the Bull” . . . lots of brass and drums and flair. (I really felt sorry for woodwind players during marching season. That was not their arena. But playing brass in the fall — Carpe diem!) Our places were marked by our tromping feet in the grass. Whole paths on the field were rubbed bare by our dogged passage. Our intervals were measured out by the director’s stick — a long 2×2 with rings of tape around it, just the right distances from one person to the next — put this tape mark at your hip bone. Find it!

In the dizzying heat, one arc of players would glide forward, feet rising and falling, mouthpieces grinding against embouchures, little flip-folders of music bouncing at every stride. Thirty-degree rotation. Shoulders back, but relaxed. Bell of the horn up, up, UP! Stand for the solo. Burst for a count of ten. Mark time. Sweat trickling. Grass shimmering. Crop fields to the horizon, with the high school at the center, the center of the Earth. Sun coursing through the sky, morning to afternoon.

The director’s piercing whistle. Mr. Smith in the bleachers, all in black, long coat and band hat, every detail like Harry Dingle, the band director in Funky Winkerbean. His voice crackling over his megaphone: “Find it, man, find it!” Don’t just go through the motions, Mr. Smith taught us. Every single time we do this, do it better than before. That’s the point of doing it fifty times today — to make it fifty times better. Tomorrow, we’ll do it hundred more.

That’s one of the most important bits of wisdom I brought with me out of high school and into life. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Do it better every time. There’s a Joan Baez song, “God Is God,” that contains roughly the same message: Every day we’re here is another chance to get it right. Keep working. Break new ground.

So that’s what revision is. You’ve got these characters you know and love. On every page, in every paragraph, you’re striving to coach them, to help them get it right.

Okay, guys. Once more, with feeling! Excelsior!