OK, the e-ink is still wet, but I just finished going over the last piece. I have completed the revision. It was, as I broadly hinted in the last post, extremely humbling and difficult, but it is done. Next is putting it into some kind of order, and that is going to be hard too. Right now the pieces are in large buckets according to general theme (Los Angeles, mental health, work, body, etc.) but the question of how to order them has plagued me from the start.
The thing is, I don't see this underlying story as chronological in the usual sense. The process of letting go of my plans was not linear at all, that path has loops and tangents and curlicues. I decided definitively to move on roughly 17 times. So laying it out in order would not read as orderly. And I'm not sure how much I mind that, though I'm told the average reader needs it to make sense. :)
I can't really know whether that will be problematic if I don't get to work and try it out. Maybe it will be easier than I think -- if my history of overly anxious anticipation of nearly everything on my horizon is any guide, it definitely will be.
I'm also planning on (don't kill me) another round of edits. I want a second opinion, to make sure I'm not getting in my own way, to make sure it makes sense now to new eyes. Concurrently, I plan to pursue next steps -- licensing rights to use the lyrics to a song, cover design, interior design, etc. I do want this to be a real book sooner rather than later, all evidence to the contrary.