Month: July 2009

I usually know when I’ve got something difficult to write because my house is really clean.  In other words, I’ve resorted to cleaning as a form of procrastination.  But it’s more than that.  Cleaning the house is something I can control, it has a clear beginning and end, and it makes me feel that I’ve accomplished something.  Now to accomplish some writing…

For further procrastination, check out this great interview with YA writer Sara Zarr.  Her book Story of a Girl is one of my favorite recent YA reads.  She nails the voice of a teenager and presents teen sexuality is a complex and truthful way.  I loved it!

When I knew I had this major revision in front of me I put a call out to some writer friends to get their thoughts and ideas about revising a novel.  What I was able to glean, from their helpful hints and a lot of web research, is that everyone has their own way of going about it.  (DRAT! I was hoping for an easy answer!)

I got some great words of wisdom from the fabulous MG writer Deva Fagan (author of the recently released Fortune’s Folly) a few of which I would like to summarize here.  You can check out her blog where I believe she posted the longer version.

One thing she mentioned was that she keeps a file called “big cuts” where she pastes in the big chunks she removes as she’s revising.  This is helpful in case you cut something and then want to add it in later, but it’s also kind of a writer’s security blanket.  All those words are still there if you need them, and it can help you to cut more freely.

One other thing she mentioned was a little index card she keeps next to her computer which says the following things.

1. Protagonist must protag
2. character/setting/plot = scene
3. What changes?  How is the story advanced?

This little card reminds her of the basics as she writes and revises and also reminds her that no matter how great the writing is, it has to be contributing to the book in one of these ways.

Today I finished the new ending for The Fills, my YA science fiction project that is currently in revision.  Reach hand up over head and pat back. This ending is the original ending I envisioned when I started writing (before I got freaked out about how long it was and decided to end it prematurely) and it feels good to be there.

I wonder which YA series started out as one really long book and got broken up, versus books that were always envisioned as a series or books that became a series though the author never originally envisioned them that way.

If there is one thing I have learned in the revision process it’s that you can’t hide your “problem areas”.  If you (meaning me) think there is a major issue or problem in your novel, there probably is.  I ignored two major issues in order to just finish writing a first draft of my YA novel and lo and behold at the end of the first draft there they still were.

Sometimes it is good to ignore problems in order to churn out that first rough draft, but you can’t ignore them forever.   Other people, in this case my very savy agent, will see them too.  On a positive note, these problems are good because they represent an opening, an opportunity to vastly improve your book, and the good news is, you already know what they are.