I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but rewrites? They’re really hard.
I’m converting the novel I wrote from third to first-person. Usually, first-person perspectives are a little more intimate and tend to help readers engage directly with the characters in the story. I’ve written in first-person before (The Queen of the AIs is written in first-person) and, just like this time, that novel was originally written in third-person and then converted during one of the draft overhauls (I think between the fourth and fifth edits, in that case). Back then, like now, the goal is to make a tighter narrative suture.
But it’s a lot of work. You can’t just replace the character’s name with “I” everywhere and call it a day. It takes time and energy, and a lot of careful edits. I’m basically writing a new novel that just happens to be very, very similar to the previous novel.
Ah well! If this were easy, everyone would do it!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!