Programming Note: MONDAY IS THE START OF AUTHOR CRUSH MONTH. So very exciting. Who will our fav authors be? Come on back and find out some tips from our lineup of stellar authors.
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Wow, what a month we have had learning about revision from Margie Lawson. My brain hurts. How about yours? Did you catch this [...]

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My favorite part of James Scott Bell’s Revision & Self-Editing is the epilogue, “The Trick That Cannot Be Explained.” Here Jim shows us the parallel between magic tricks and fiction writing – the more tricks you know, the greater the sense of awe and magic in the audience. I love when I’m reading a book [...]

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Programming note: Before we get on to Margie’s last blog with us, I just wanted to announce our second annual Author Crush Month. In honor of Valentines Day in February we are taking the entire month to have our favorite authors blog with us about their writing routines. (Use our search tool to find our [...]

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          Kitty’s post sent me to my bookshelf looking for books on revision. The one I searched for had some good information. The one I found was even better.
          ”Getting the Words Right: How to Revise, Edit and Rewrite,” [...]

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This week I received some feedback on my thought-I-was-so-close-to-being-finished WIP. The feedback pointed out a problem that I knew was there but I was hoping wouldn’t matter. Grrr. Lesson here? Listen to your gut.
In this case, I had made certain choices because I was trying to keep my manuscript in the realm of middle-grade novel [...]

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I told you I own two books on revision, so I thought I’d share some of the insights I’ve gleaned. The first book is Revision: A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction by David Michael Kaplan. One of the things David says about revision is that it’s a re-envisioning of your story. That re-envisioning [...]

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Programming note: Today is number three out of four of Margie Lawson’s special guest blogs. Oh boy, but here is just a glimpse of what you can learn from her. Get out your highlighters because your manuscript is about to get a workout. (Notice the RWA ladies in the picture below? Their highlighters are at [...]

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          As I mentioned previously, I’ve changed my focus from creating fiction to finishing several non-fiction projects. As I’ve reviewed the projects and decided on completion dates for each of them, I’ve noticed something interesting. I create and revise non-fiction exactly the same way as fiction. [...]

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James Scott Bell in his new book The Art of War for Writers mentions a Writing Improvement Notebook. He includes these sections: Exemplars (good writing examples), Outside Comments (feedback about your work), and Self Study (setting up a thesis question about an area of craft you need to work on—then answering it.)
Two weeks ago I [...]

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Last week I told you that my first steps in revision are to print out my entire manuscript and read it through in one sitting, creating a revision list as I go. I write down everything that occurs to me including questions, ideas, answers to questions I’d written in parentheses, repetitive words and phrases, inconsistencies, [...]

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