somewhere between a sigh and a growl

I'm not sure what that noise would sound like, but it's what I'm making right now. Or rather, I keep alternating between sighing and growling, because like I said, I don't quite know how to combine the two. Suggestions?

There are several reasons for my frustration and crankiness, most of which I won't go into here, but one thing that's been bugging the hell out of me is my internal struggle over 1st vs. 3rd person POV in my current WIP.

When I wrote the first draft, I was just focused on getting the words on paper (or the computer screen, whatever) and I wrote some chapters in first person, some in third, as the mood struck me. There was not a lot of thought involved; I just wrote instinctively.

So one of the questions that's preoccupied me for the last year, since I wrote the first draft, is which POV to use. I felt like the story needed a consistent narrative approach. I ended up going with first person, largely because the protagonist undergoes such an emotional/mental journey as she goes through the plot conflicts. She transitions from anti-hero to hero, and during her journey, she makes some choices that most people would probably respond to with a well-deserved "WTF?" So I felt like the first person would heighten the reader's sympathy with her while supporting the tension between her (at times admittedly unreliable) perspective and the rest of the world.

Then, yesterday, I reached the halfway point in my first round of revision. I finished 25 of the 50 chapters (yay!), and felt great about how the story was going. I decided to take a little break, do some stuff around the house, and then read a bunch of articles about writing/revising/character/plot/POV.

That last bit was, I realize now, perhaps a mistake. Okay, definitely a mistake. I read some articles discussing 1st & 3rd-person narration, and the debate I thought I'd settled for myself just raged right up again. Except at this point, I'm halfway through making the novel a consistent POV, and nearly 30,000 words in is really not when one wants to be questioning one's narrative choice.

So, y'know. Little irritated. Part of my frustration is that it seems a lot of writers consider first person to be an "immature" choice of narration, which made me question myself and get all insecure about my writing abilities. But as Nathan Bransford says (not in the linked post, but often), if it works, it works, and I think as long as I'm aware of the possible pitfalls of 1st-person narration - and, even better, avoiding them - it may still be the right choice for this story.

So I'm going to press on with the 1st-person narration, finish the revision, and then go back and reread it carefully and critically. Hell, if I really feel the need, I can always go back and revise the entire book with 3rd-person instead (and won't that be a treat). It could be a useful exercise, and really, it's not like I'm on a particular deadline. I just hoped to get the novel in query-worthy shape sooner rather than later.

But ultimately, the important thing is that the story's told right, and told as well as possible. So if it takes an extra draft, I'm sure the extra work would only improve it. (Sigh. Do I sound constructive? I feel... tired. But I'm trying to convince myself to think positive anyway.) I was already planning to put it through at least two more rounds of revision, so an extra, massively long exercise in POV might not be too much of a detour. We shall see.

In the meantime, once more unto the breach, dear friends. Time to tackle the second half. If you have any thoughts on the pros & cons of 1st or 3rd person, I'd love to hear them!