Last year I had cataract surgery. It was something like a miracle. Colors were suddenly bright and vivid. The sky was really really blue. The letters on signs were sharp.

I could, literally, see the world anew.

Revisions are something like cataract surgery. They take what you’ve got and make it better. They clean things up, sharpen them, tone them, focus them.

They are, as I said on the Love Is An Exploding Cigar blog, a second chance at getting things right in our fictional worlds. We almost never get chances like that in the real one.

I’m doing that right now with Flynn and Sara. I’m cutting and cutting and cutting. And every now and then I add something that seems to belong, that makes things clearer (I hope) and better.

By the time I’ve been through the book once and have a good draft, I have a feel for pacing, for mood, for the arc of the story. It’s sort of there in the synopsis stage. But there’s no sense of timing. Beyond the first chapter, I have no idea how long anything is likely to take.

Now I do. And that’s what I’m working on. Things are getting clearer and sharper.

The story is getting clearer. The book is getting better.

Keep your fingers crossed. I’m going to keep mine typing!

Before I find a box for the new book, I’m going to do some resizing of Flynn and Sara’s box — er, book. Turns out they are rattling around in there.

I knew the problem with this book was it feeling like a 75K book that had to be shoved into a 50-55K shape. And the biggest problem with that is it starts too slow. The build is there — but it takes too long for them to hit their stride. So I need give them a smaller box so they have less room to flail around — basically so they fit like this bunny in the box.

Yes, I know we were talking about ducks. But you have no idea how hard it is to find a suitable picture of a duck jammed into a box.

Anyway, I’m going to be cutting a bunch of words and seeing if I can punch up the ones left so that they get the job done.

Good comments by the editor, though I find them more helpful written down than spoken. So getting them on paper was a help (after we’d talked).

The interesting thing is going to be to see how to best trim things down — or how to shrink the box. I used to have an editor at Silhouette who was absolutely fantastic at that. She could look at a book and say, “You can cut this . . . and this . . . and this,” and be absolutely spot on.

The most amazing thing wasn’t that she could see what could be cut — but that it would work with virtually no revisions AFTER the cuts. It wasn’t a matter of deleting adverbs (been there, done that). It was “this whole scene is expendable. Nice, but expendable.” Oh, I wish she were here now!

Gotta get this done by June 9th. So if you don’t see me a lot, that’s why.

Don’t forget Theo’s contest! You only have until Thursday night to enter. 3 great books. Just go to my website and answer the questions in the space on the Contact Anne tab.

Also, on Friday I’m ‘guest blogging’ at Love Is An Exploding Cigar — a blog by several romance authors, including Samantha Hunter who invited me after my week on eharlequin talking about “world building.”

Stop by for a visit if you can. There might even be prizes!

I’ve been thinking about my empty box (well, empty besides Hugh-in-a-towel) — and what will go in it and how I can work with it.

Besides thinking about what’s going in it, though, I’m thinking about what sort of box it should be — big or small, plain or fancy. I’m thinking about the sides of the box, the top and bottom of the box, too. Everything about the box is significant because it creates the limits of my story — it provides the boundaries of the book’s fictional world.

Without a box, things get lost. Without limits stories don’t grow. They are a product of action and reaction. And a lot of times, the reaction is a result of some part of the story hitting the side or the top or the bottom of the box. They get a reaction. They test the limits. The characters grow based on what they encounter and how they deal with it. Without limits, it’s hard to get that to happen.

I found that out again when I thought I had the right box for Flynn and Sara.

I certainly had part of the box because I had a backstory for them that was given — I had story elements against which they had to act and react because those were part of their past. It was given to them because they’d met in The Great Montana Cowboy Auction and their paths were set there.

But I put them in the wrong box. I started that book in New York City to begin with — and that didn’t work at all. There was nothing in New York for them to react to. It was the wrong box. It had no top, no bottom, no sides as far as they were concerned. It wasn’t significant to them. It didn’t matter to them. They weren’t confined by circumstances in New York. Neither of them had a significant life in New York. Anything that happened there was somehow artificial.

It made logical sense for Sara to be in New York. But at the same time it was, frankly, out of character. And if I’d insisted on leaving it there, they would still be making that interminable walk between Sara’s brownstone flat and the coffee shop where she and Flynn were going to talk because there was nothing to stop them — there were no limits.

In fact, I am so sure now that it was the wrong place (after four months of trying to get them to go down that street) that I get a sick feeling every time I think about it. I just envision them walking and walking and walking. No limits. No story.

Fortunately for them — and for me — I finally found the right box.

I’m trying to do the same with this new book. I’m trying to find not just the stuff that goes in it, but the box that will limit the story. Then, if my characters decide to press the limits — push the edges, as it were — that will be fine. I’ll like that — because it will be energetic. Something will be happening. They can test the limits because they will exisit.

But first, as Twyla Tharp said, I have to find the box.