I don’t usually mirror entire posts from one blog to another, but this one, which is a Writing Craft post, is both pertinent to a current project (the Horngard I book) and to every writer, because all of us write a “bad” first chapter from time to time…and don’t fix it right away. What do Read More…
Tag: revision
Holiday Period
Whatever holidays you celebrate in this season….or firmly avoid, in this season…I wish you all as pleasant a passage from December to the New Year as possible. We will be having a quiet holiday season, since we can’t drive at night and thus can’t go to the Sing-Along Messiah, or any performances, or attend the Read More…
Agent Response
Great relief of writer to find that yes, the whole package is back…my agent called Friday and we had a good long talk. The book IS a book. It is a reasonably good book. It could use some work, but he enjoyed it, stayed up late to read it. Also, all the things he talked Read More…
Done-de-done-done
NewBook is done. Three rounds of revision, wrestled to the mat on space, time, person, place, etc. issues. From here on out it’s nitpicking time because it’s DONE. 172,125 words, counting chapter titles, datelines (actually places, mostly), 31 chapters (may need some chapters numbered differently, that’s an editorial decision I’d take advice on.) It’s a Read More…
Stage Three Revision
Stage Three overlaps Stage Two, because–especially this time–there’s no reason to ignore 3rd level problems while reading aloud to someone from the computer screen (there is no print-out yet.) So if I find an entire paragraph that’s now redundant (a Stage Two problem) I just delete it, or a temporal-sequence problem, I mark that section Read More…
New Beginning In
NewBook’s new beginning has now been approved by two different first-readers (and many thanks to both of them!!!) so Chapter 1 is now anchoring one end of the book and the Good Ending (which has no chapter number as yet because things are still fluid in the last third and I need *uninterrupted* working sessions Read More…
The Plot Thickens and the Writer Thins
Somewhere, somewhen, a philosopher or other authoritative person said that if you’ve learned something (was it something new? Anything?) you’re obliged to pass on that knowledge to someone else. The process is of course unequal and therefore stressful to the recipient of the knowledge/skill being passed on, so the good news is that reciprocal exchange Read More…
Baby Steps, Baby Steps…
So a long, multi-tiered discussion of my main characters with R-, *may* have kicked the chocks out from around the wheels and allowed things to move. It feels very…vulnerable…right now, so I’m not saying much, except that something under the surface is moving a little. I know some things Ky *isn’t* going to be doing Read More…
Revision Review
Since revision this time digs right into the foundation structure of NewBook, a post on where the revision is at the moment seems a good time to discuss the kinds of problems a book’s underpinnings or foundation–the deeper structure–can have, and strategies for fixing same. This is not a problem I have often, but it’s Read More…
Rewrite in…
Earlier this week I sent back the latest rewrite…and boy, should you be celebrating the fact that Editor held my feet to the fire and made me work the monster over again. It’s MUCH better now. (Editor may not think it’s enough better, as is Editor’s prerogative, but it’s definitely better.) Among other things, while Read More…