Receiving Editor's Notes: Stage P

I have not quite emerged from the haze of editing, but I'm very close. It's been a very busy, very focused month. On the day that I received the editor's notes for my dear Stone Curse, I experienced a wash of emotions... and at the time I began to jot a few of them down, as I realized they could make an entertaining series of blog posts. These are emotions I have experienced many times, as this was not my first time receiving editor's notes, but it's the first time I thought about using the experience for a blog post or two. It was fun to jot down notes and my head jumped from one knee-jerk reaction to the next, it made me kind of laugh at myself the entire time - so by the time my husband arrived home that evening, ready to give me a hug or go get me cheesecake, I was actually in an extremely good mood and ready to get cracking on actually doing something with the story. We went through the notes together and for the most part my responses were, "Yep, they're right."What? Writing is my coping mechanism!Anyway, it struck me, as I was processing the edits, that just as there are supposedly stages one goes through in the grieving process, there are stages one must go through upon receiving editor's notes. Not everyone will go through the same stages, and not everyone will go through them in the same order. However, I believe that many of us authors will be able to identify with at least one, if not all, of the stages I plan to discuss about in my little series.(Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist. I know very little about psychology. This series of posts is meant for entertainment value only.)There.All righty. The first stage of receiving editor's notes, for me, is:P - for Panic.This is the moment you first open the file containing the editor's notes. Perhaps it is pages upon pages of prose telling you in great detail everything that is wrong with your story. Perhaps it is your story in a Word Document filled with comment boxes (and you notice right away that more is commented on than not), perhaps it is a paper document covered in red ink. Whatever it is, that first stage for me is panic.Thoughts such as: "How in the world am I ever going to be able to fix everything that is wrong with this?" flow through my heart and mind. "It's not even possible to fix this!" It's incredibly overwhelming.This stage generally doesn't last very long, actually. But that is only because I tend to move fairly quickly into the second stage... which I'll talk about more tomorrow!