There’s an old joke that goes like this:

“How do you eat an elephant?”

“One bite at a time.”

Last Friday, I went outside to clean the moss off my basement steps. There are four steps leading from the yard down to the square of cement in front of my basement door. I can’t recall the last time I cleaned them off. Quite possibly never, if I’m honest. Since I’ve lived here for 26 years, that’s a whole lot of not-cleaning, but they’re just a few steps in my backyard. I’m not even certain whether they’re stone or cement, although they’re perfectly squared off, leading me to suspect they were poured.

A few weeks ago, as I was walking down the steps, I slipped. Just a little, and I didn’t fall. The thought flashed through my brain that I should clean off the moss that covered the steps, but then I moved onto the next thing and forgot all about them. Then, last week, I slipped again. Again, it was just a little bit of slippage, and I didn’t fall, but it occurred to me that if I actually did fall and sustained injury, I’d be on my own. Only a person standing in a certain part of my backyard would ever see me. My neighbors might hear me if I could manage to be loud enough, but if I were to hit my head and be knocked out—more likely that I’d be a late-night snack for one of the bears that is frequenting our neighborhood.

As I wrapped up work on Friday, I decided it was time to clean off the steps. How big a deal could it be?

Not big at all, as it turned out. Not only did I clear off the steps and clear out the cement square at the bottom, but I started pulling the weeds from the back garden space that I’d successfully ignored all summer. The weather was unseasonably cool (which is exactly how I like it), I was listening to a podcast on sovereign immunity (continuing legal education credits), and best of all, it turned out that the job wasn’t particularly onerous. Yes, I worked up a mild sweat, but nothing unbearable. In fact, I hauled the detritus down into the woods, and as I tramped back up the hill to the house, I found myself contemplating pulling more of the weeds-gone-wild. Soon, I told myself.

Soon turned out to be this evening. With the weather just a touch too cold for swimming, I traded shorts and flipflops for jeans, socks, and sneakers (all sprayed with tick repellant), sprayed the rest of me with bug repellant, and started pulling and cutting the weeds that had grown unchecked since the spring. An hour and a half later, the space running along the side of the house and around the back was essentially weed-free. I’d even spent some time hacking away the nasty prickers and invasive ivy-type plant that were choking the flowering quince (which, in fairness, I haven’t missed since it literally blooms one day of the year).

There’s still a lot more to do, but I’m kind of amazed at what I’ve accomplished in just a couple short after-work stints. All summer, as I watched the weeds grow, looking messy and unhealthy and overwhelming, I did nothing because the idea of cleaning up the area felt so huge. But as it turns out, these tasks were manageable. The secret was to break them into bite-sized pieces and fit them into convenient pockets of time. Little bites of the elephant.

Such pearls of wisdom are rolling around in my brain these days as I prepare to pick up Draft #3. The draft has been sitting in a folder on the piano for a solid month. Other than work and cat bios, this blog post is the first thing I’ve written since July 17, when I printed out the draft. I know I’m getting ready to tackle it, though, because lately, I’ve been reading books about writing. Last week, I finished Writers on Writing, Vol. II, a book of essays on writing from the New York Times. Right now, I’m switching back and forth among Letters to a Young Writer, by Colum McCann; Dear Writer, by Maggie Smith; and Novelist as a Vocation, by Haruki Murakami. (All highly recommended, by the way.)

As I read what all these very different writers have to say about writing, I find myself thinking about my own next draft. Should I concentrate first on big-picture issues, such as ensuring that story arcs and internal logic are sound? Is it okay to start to play with language and sentences, or would it be a better use of my time to resolve the big issues (and I know there are some) first? Would I be better off waiting for notes from the person who is currently reading it? Is it okay to dive in simply because I want to?

Inevitably, I think about the size of the manuscript. Like most of my mid-process drafts, it’s more than 140,000 words—143,261, to be exact, and this is with at least a couple of scenes missing, so if it were complete, it would be even longer. I need an overview, a map of what’s happening, when, and to whom throughout the book, the entire 492 pages.

The whole thing is overwhelming—which is why I need to remind myself to take small bites. Step #1: pick up the printed manuscript and start reading. Not marking, not making notes—just reading as if I were a regular reader. See what my first reactions are to whatever happens. Notice when something seems bumpy or abrupt or unending. Pay attention to the blips I instinctively want to explain, but don’t do anything about them. Just read.

The weed analogy isn’t perfect, of course. Weeds will always come back, while once I’ve cut something from the manuscript, it’s gone. (Okay, not really: if I cut a large block of text, I save it in a document labeled “extra lang”, just in case I ever want it back.) But I think the comparison works, at least to a certain extent. Both weeding and editing are huge jobs that can be wildly intimidating if I forget that I don’t have to do everything at once. Just as I can always put down my pruning shears and go inside for a drink, I can also stop working on a particular scene and do something else book-related, like reviewing my research for a few more vivid details that can enhance a moment.

Or maybe, I could focus on just one scene at a time. One paragraph. One sentence. Sometimes, just a single word.

Because that’s how you eat the elephant.