Revising a novel written over several years feels like pouring over an outdated road atlas. Remember those cumbersome things from the days before Google Maps and GPS navigation systems? Or the maps you could never manage to unfold without tearing (and swearing)? I’m spending an inordinate amount of time trying to decide what to leave in Corvus, what to revise. Some decisions are obvious; others map the course of my writerly development, and I somehow feel they belong even if I’d not write in quite the same way now. After all, we don’t tear up every last cobblestone in the historical sections of our cities, paving which has a charm and an integrity of its own; a forthright solidity. My understanding of metaphor, for example, is changing considerably.
There’s no perfect text, only an imperfect record of the streets and byways and tunnels and diversions of the terrain: always, roadworks.