There has been a lot of drama in the bureaucratic part of my school district lately including finger wagging, playing the blame game, and administration suspending. The teachers and I all wrote down positive things about the suspended administrator and planned to confront the bureaucracy at a meeting. Everyone read what I wrote beforehand and said how phenomenal it was. I think I was expected to speak at the meeting as eloquently as I wrote, but as soon as the tears started flowing in the room, I was useless. All I could do was try to silence my sobbing and sniffles. I guess that was okay because other people spoke instead, though I could feel people looking at me expectantly. This is why I’m a writer and not a speaker. And yet somehow I can speak to children with no problem.
Category: Writing
Editing + Revising = Fixing. I’m The Fixer!
While I edit my latest YA novel, the following song repeats again and again:
Yay, Pearl Jam!
My first draft felt rushed in some ways, and covered in a thick layer of dust in others. As I begin editing and revising, I’m slowing it down in places and polishing my computer screen with LemiShine. It’s working, I think. My house smells like lemons, anyway.
Knowing how the story ends has helped the editing process. I completely changed my original ending from one of Everyone is Skippy Happy to It’s Over, But Gee Whiz, Is Everyone Alive? I like the new ending better; it fits the entire tone of the book. What was I thinking with that original ending?
I’d like to pump up the word count, but it seems to be dropping. All the fluffy flowery writing has to go, though. Out with the unnecessary speech tags when the character’s action does the trick. Wave goodbye to”I looked, I watched, to me, at me.” They’re all gone. But when I get to the action parts, I’ll be like that Pokemon character named Slow Bro. Action sequences are difficult for me to write because I’m trying to keep up with how it plays out in my mind. I have to remember that no one else is seeing exactly what I’m seeing unless I describe it to them in perfect detail. Well, maybe not perfect, but as close as I can get.
Editing is hard, but super fun. I like my story enough, (who am I kidding – I love it!) that I’d revisit, play with it, revise it forever. As long as “The Fixer” keeps playing, I’ll keep fixing.