Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology horoscopes pop into my inbox weekly; they are often wonderfully baffling, but sometimes, like this week, they hit the nail on the head:

ARIES (March 21-April 19): As I meditated on your immediate future, I got a vision of you making your way through an obstacle course--scurrying across booby-trapped terrains, shimmying through tunnels, climbing over barriers, leaping across ditches. Curiously, there was not the least bit of stress etched on your face. On the contrary, your eyes were wide and your expression was exultant. You seemed to regard this not as an ordeal, but as a welcome opportunity to expand your resourcefulness.

This reminded me so much of the revision process, which I am in the thick of. It does feel like an obstacle course, full of challenges, but I am enjoying it tremendously. The process is stretching me and making me ask hard questions and helping me whittle the story into its rightful shape. My editor is so brilliant. She is able to see things I never could have caught on my own--overuse of certain words, unintentional rhymes, habitual sentence structures, etc. She has such a clear view of both the microcosm and macrocosm of the book. I am learning so much from her guidance.