Theme

My novel, The Willow Maiden has a theme. I really worked this out last summer at Odyssey, but was forced to revisit it for a synopsis I have to put in the mail tomorrow.One of my POV characters, Elma, expresses the theme best when she says, "Love requires enormous mutual sacrifice. It is the hardest work you will ever do, but the only work worth doing."Sappy, perhaps, but I firmly believe that.I've barely touched the novel since the fall, except for jotting an occasional idea. I know I need to overhaul the whole 140,000 word darn thing (it will get shorter, I promise), and I've been dreading it. But I'll be damned if it didn't feel great to get back into it by way of having to write a brand new synopsis, taking into account some of the changes I plan to make. Why didn't I do this months ago? Now the rewrite seems less daunting.Not only that, but I remember why I love writing, and also why I sometimes have to force myself to take a break. I had such a great time working on this that I hated to stop to go teach. Then, though I had the opportunity to go to a dance tonight, I could hardly wait to get home, happy as the proverbial clam, to dive back into the synopsis.Thank heavens for deadlines.