Gone to the Trail

The Appalachian Trail calls - I will be out hiking Shenandoah National Park with a fellow section hiker. So I will not be blogging this coming Monday, but will when I return the following week (though it may be a few days late).

May you have prosperous writing days, and if you can, enjoy the fall colors!!

You Can Always Learn New Revision Techniques

This is me sometimes in the picture - frantically trying to make my manuscript the best it can be. Going over and over it, checking the flow of the story, checking grammar, checking for words that spellcheck misses. All important areas so that your story, and not the glaring mistakes, comes forth to the editor's eye.

For me, I tend to write and write whatever comes into my mind and worry about the rest later. I am not a proficient typist either, so the spelling is atrocious. Sometimes I will go back to spellcheck and it is so bad, I can't even figure out what it is I was trying to say! I did take a typing class in high school, but I have not gotten much better, even with the dozen books I have written! But going back over with spellcheck also enables me to go back over the sentences and the story in general. Even if I have to do it many times. And through that careful perusal, I am able to pick out places where the story drags, the sentences are in the wrong place, or even sentences that can be deleted altogether.

One of the best classes I took at the Philadelphia Write His Answer conference was on revising your work. Every author needs to take a course like this, no matter how many books they have published. There are always new things to learn to make your work shine even brighter. And I found out about redundancy with words, choosing the best of two actions in a sentence (not both actions), dialogue (such as the author "says" things, not does things when speaking such as sigh, laugh), and as this one teacher from the Christian Writers Guild said - "resist the urge to explain (RUE)" - such as - Sylvia was frustrated. She paced the length of the room. This can simply be stated - Sylvia paced the length of the room (as the frustration level is already implied by the action).

Now I have written quite few bocks, but these types of revision techniques were important to learn. Especially now, as I am working to revise my latest mss in progress. I can employ them to make my work tighter and shinier. And hopefully land that elusive contract as a result.

The World of Rejections

Rejection. What writer has not gone through the unpleasant phenomenon of having your life's work rejected by an editor as I did just today.

I have had all kinds of rejections concerning my writing. Some better than others, to be honest. I have received the printed form letter with no signature (before the advent of e-mail, that is). I have received the form letter with a one line written comment (which is priceless from the hand of a busy editor). I have had five rejections via e-mail sent in one day. I have also had a book contracted, the ms written, and still had it rejected and the contract nullified. And I have had my ms make it all the way to the publishing committee only to have one person out of the group say forget it and thus, the story rejected.

Yes, I felt like the cartoon - that I, along with my hard work, were cast into file 13. And I have had my interesting reactions too - from throwing away proposals in the garbage to refusing to write for three months, to sucking it in and getting back to work the same day the rejection came through. But this is really the time when I need to take stock in what has happened and ask God what to do and how to proceed. That His wisdom in infinitely better than anything I can come up with. On the outside it can look pretty hopeless when your ms has come back time and time again with the words NO on it. But with God there is always hope. And I have found that ms can be resurrected - perhaps in a different story idea or years later in a different form. God is the God of impossibility. What looks impossible on the outside is possible with Him and usually in ways we never anticipated.

Suffering the sting of rejection as I am today? Look up, not down! Though it may be dark now, the sun will still rise. And God is still in control of your writing destiny.