Polishing Apples, or Is That Revision? Does Revising Your Manuscript Paralize You?

How do you write? Make a mad dash to the "end" and then revise? Or, do you revise as you write? I'll confess I revise as I write, especially at the beginning when I'm still figuring out my characters. One thing's for sure though. No matter how or when you revise, revision is the key to good writing.

Everyone has their own way of keeping track of how they revise. Every writer should know their weak points ... better than anyone else, including your editor. One fault-finding list I found helpful was a guest post at Pen & Muse by Dahlia Adler. Her check list will help you get the most out of your critiques. Maybe even help you clean up your manuscript so your critiques are more gentle.

Brownie points with Glitter go to the people over at Operation Awesome. They published a guest blog by Gennifer Albin on how she revises. Why the glitter? She mentioned a technique I had never heard before. Using  the text to speech function on Word. Now I have to get up the gumption to try it. -- [I'm scrunching up thinking about sitting at the stupid computer longer.]

I can't wait to get my other desk cleared off so I can start working through the above with an actual manuscript in front of me. Probably one of the shorts festering in my computer.

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Progress? Well, yeah ... sort of. Did get another chapter finished on Hag Stone Magic ... but then realized I had to go back and revise to make Mac more wary and aware of her surroundings. She's not a paralyzed scaredy-cat... Will probably wait until my critique group tears apart my draft though so I can go back and revise all the pieces all at once.

Then, The Pig Wars are still being fought. Not wrestling too much with the revisions though. Have decided to send the novella out to some e-publishers to reject before I self-publish. Then, Troublesome Neighbors will be free.

You can get Troublesome Neighbors for free now if you are willing to read a PDF file ... and hopefully give me a review on Amazon, B&N, and/or Goodreads. All you have to do is send a request to mkkaytheod[at]yahoo[dot]com.

Oh, I'm working hard on getting an author website up. The copy is about half done ... but I haven't quite decided on the template yet. Found one I liked ... but it's way too dark and can't be lightened.

NaNoWriMo Madness

Do dogs drool over meaty bones? I'm beginning to think writers drool over NaNoWriMo. 

Went to the monthly Northern Colorado Writer's, and they devoted a fair amount of discussion to the Time-of-Writing-Frenzy. I knew the two independent book stores in town, sponsored writing tables for NaNoWriMo participants. I didn't know our public library was also in the act of encouraging writer to pound out the words. They even ran "classes" for teen and adult writers.

Even if you aren't participating, I recommend you read the blogs that mention NaNoWriMo. There a lot of good advice on the mechanics of producing words. Breaking through writer's block. Setting up your characters. Plus, much more.

Over at Operation Awesome, Lindsay gives her reasons for not doing NaNoWritMo. She's into quality more than quantity. More important, she gives some links to other blogs with great craft tips.

Morgan Bailey takes the opposite stance in her blog asking: Are You Ready for NaNoWriMo? She even hides some writing tips hidden within the text which will help you whether you join the madness or not.

Then, there's me.  I don't expect to come out of the month with 50,000 new words in the computer, but I'm doing it any way. I hoping that pounding out words, without thinking much about them, will help me break my 500 words a day habit. -- I may be planning to shoot myself in the foot. Thanksgiving's at my house, as usual, plus I start my Christmas baking about that time.

Think ... I sort of ... get NaNo ... though. Writing is mostly a solitary activity except for critique groups and writing buddies. In November, writers party and write for the heck of it..

Adventurous Fluff

The Read ...

The book the family lending library gave me provided lots of adventurous fluff to enjoy -- the second volume of R. L. LaFevers Theodosia series, Theodosia and the staff of Osiris.  Think of all the mummies in London, public and private, coming to life and running around after the staff of the Eqyptian god, Osiris, in the dead of night.  All this is complicated by the police inspector who tries to solve the mystery -- without a clue that magic is happening under his nose.

At the beginning of the book, Theodosia is presented with a major problem for an eleven-year- old girl.   Her veddy proper grandmother insists she have a governess so she can become a proper lady, ie. stop mouthing off to the adults in her life  --  In spite of her being smarter than 80% of them.  Of course, all the governesses are despicable and complicate her life, limiting her ability to solve the mystery of the over-active mummies and neutralize the secret societies pursuing her.  [Yes, that was plural.]

LaFevers' plot rolls downhill gathering speed.  The main villain is the Serpents of Chaos come back for another round of trying to best Theodosia, of course.  As the plot twists, possible villains turn into friends.  Friends turn into villains, and possible villains are just red herrings.  As I said, a delightful bunch of fluff.  I wish all the books I read entertained me so much.

I'll close with the pitch:  "Once again, Theodosia takes on secret societies, evil curses, and dark magic too sinister to imagine!"
 

Web Stuff ...

Dark Urban fantasy writer, Justine Musk  blogged on the elements of scenes that make them building blocks of your novel.   There's lots more info in the blog, but I thought this quote should be read by every writer.

"A scene is the basic building block of your novel. A scene is like a novel in miniature. It has its own tiny plot. It starts out in one place, builds tension, reaches climax, and then ends up in a different place."

Looking for critiquers?  Or, just maybe a litmus test to tell you where you need to revise your current WIP?  Isolated without a good writer support community?  Well, Operation Awesome recently posed a blog on identifying the garbage in your writing.  The blog gives some places where you can get some knowledgeable fresh eyes to make some comments about your writing.

Then, there's all that conflicting query writing advice.  Nathan Bransford has a great blog on what to do with it.  [No, not that.] One of the founts of information I picked up from his blog is how fast the publishing industry changes.  I think all the agents who blog are acting like yeast in the setting of preferred styles.  Then, there's that thing called "voice".  Does that mean:  to thy own self be true?"

All sorts of good stuff seems to popping up in the blogs.  Guess the end of summer rejuvenates the brain cells.  If you're fussing about querying like me, you will be interested in agent Mary Kole's blog about how she evaluates manuscripts at Kidlit.  She's also doing a Webinair, but it costs.

Progress ...

The revision of Voices is coming along.  I keep finding holes I need to fill and infodumps I need to dramatize, and all sorts of stuff to delete.  Haven't gone after the nags -- "to-be-forms", "lys", "ings", passive verbs, etc yet.  [Ain't revising fun!]

Haven't done much with querying ... for any of my manuscripts.  [You do know I hate marketing?]  I do need to send out a couple status queries.  Which comment means I have to go back to websites to see if  "no answer" = rejection.

Did send my Hattenel Half-Elven story to Untreed Reads because Smashwords was much too complicated for me to figure out how to format.  Now I don't have to think about the story for three months ... or more.  Don't have to worry about cover art either.  If I'm lucky, they'll accept and do the formatting for me.

Trivia ...

We were going to take a day trip to Estes Park, Colorado yesterday, but the smoke clouding the hogback some three miles from our house changed our minds.  You may have heard of the Boulder, Colorado mountain subdivisions threaten by fire.  We're about 50-75 miles away, north and east.  Hopefully, the winds die down, and weather pumps some moisture into our air.  Everyone needs more rain than fell yesterday.