The Difference Between Good Writers and Good Editors

First off, I have to say that I love my critique partners. They're fantastic writers who are at once supportive and insightful. They read every manuscript I throw at them, and they always have something helpful to say. They're also fierce defenders of those manuscripts, so when I feel like chucking one over a cliff, they're always the ones who talk me down from the ledge.

But while my critique partners are great writers and have great editorial insights, they're still not editors. And the difference is profound. When Shauna first sent me notes, they literally knocked my socks off. (I'm using "literally" in its newest sense, which is actually equivalent to "metaphorically" or, in other words, "not literally.") Shauna was able to see things that no one else had seen, including six CPs (two of whom are now published or about to be) and two offering agents (who've sold scads of manuscripts between them), and she was able to communicate those things in a way that got my creative juices flowing. As I've probably already mentioned, I ended up rewriting more than half of Steve (and now that we're nearing the end of the revision process, I'd say that less than twenty percent of the original scenes made the final cut).

I'll be the first to admit that when I'm critiquing a manuscript, it's hard not to tell the writer to just write it how I would have written it. Some things are right or wrong grammatically, and some devices are better or worse from a storytelling point-of-view, but lots of things are just different, and when you're a writer yourself, it can be harder to discriminate between the two.

Now, do I still think I'm a fairly decent CP? Yes. Do I think that qualifies me to be an editor? Not necessarily. Obviously, I couldn't do for Steve what Shauna did for Steve (and not just because I was the one who wrote him). She saw the story's strengths and knew how to help me magnify them, but she also saw the story's weaknesses and knew how to help me fix them. Good editors don't trade your words for theirs; they help you tell the story you meant to tell in the first place.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About R&Rs

Or at least some things...

Second only to an offer, a revise-and-resubmit--or an R&R, as they're often called--can be a fantastic opportunity to fine-tune or even completely reshape your manuscript. I've collected eight over the years (seven when I was querying, one since I've been on submission), so I thought I'd share a few thoughts.

What's the difference between a rejection and an R&R?

On the surface, an R&R might sound like a rejection. The agent or editor definitely isn't offering, and he even took the time to point out everything that's WRONG. But as soon as he says, "If you end up making changes, I'd love to see this again" or "If these ideas resonate with you, I'd be happy to take another look," it turns into an R&R. Agents and editors generally don't invite you to resubmit:)

How do you decide whether or not to do an R&R?

It all comes down to whether or not your vision aligns with theirs. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't have to throw out half the manuscript and draft dozens of new scenes, but the suggested changes should help you tell the story you meant to tell all along. No matter where it comes from, an actionable critique should make you feel excited to dive back into your story, so if you don't feel inspired by the agent's or editor's feedback, it might not be worth pursuing.

What if you decide to do the R&R but you don't agree with all of the agent's or editor's suggestions?

No agent or editor is going to expect you to agree with her on every point she raised, so I think she'll still be interested in taking another look even if you don't address every little thing. That said, she WILL expect you to at least consider every point she raised, so if you decide not to incorporate a specific piece of feedback, you should probably be able to explain--and defend--your decision.

Do you need to tell the agent or editor that you plan to do the revision?

Short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: Working on an R&R is a chance for both of you to get a feel for each other's working style, so you want to show him that you're a smart, savvy author who knows how to communicate.

How long should you take on the revision?

Less experienced writers might assume that the faster you turn your revision in, the better, but that's not necessarily the case. If you turn it in too quickly, the agent or editor might assume that you didn't invest as much time and effort as you probably should have. (Keep in mind that if she only expected you to tweak a scene or two, she probably would have offered from the get-go.) But if you take too long, the market might slip out from under you. In general (and these are VERY general guidelines--every revision will be different), I'd say that you should take at least a month on an R&R and no more than three or four.

How likely is it that an R&R will turn into an offer?

It's hard to say. As I mentioned above, I've received eight R&Rs, but I only pursued six of them. Of those six, only one turned into an offer (but luckily, that one came from Putnam!). Based solely on my experience, you might estimate that you have roughly a one-in-six chance of receiving an offer on any given R&R, but there are way too many factors that go into the result to be able to extrapolate from such a tiny data set. Take your time, do the very best job you can, and you'll have no regrets.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them in the comments!

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bonnie

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 73,000
Status: Line editing (as always)
Attitude: A little weary

I'm down to sentence-level changes on this latest draft, but the sentence-level changes are always the toughest, at least for me. I always feel like the clunkiest, wordiest writer on the planet when I'm trying to streamline my prose, and since I'm also trying to inject a bit more voice into the manuscript, the going on this pass is even slower than it usually is.

Voice isn't generally something I have to think a lot about; it just kind of flows. But somewhere in the switch from MG to YA, I lost some of my mojo. I know a lot of people think it's tough to nail an MG voice, but I, for one, find it much easier to write a precocious twelve-year-old than a mature seventeen-year-old who's interesting enough to spend three hundred pages with (and who doesn't bug me to death).

To that end, I asked my Twitter followers to share their favorite YA reads with non-slangy, non-snarky characters. I got some great suggestions, so I thought it would be fun to share them with you:

I'LL BE THERE by Holly Goldberg Sloan The best thing about this book is that it's written in third person, and not particularly close third, either. I'd forgotten how much you can do with an impartial narrator who kind of floats above the story. I considered whether or not it would be worth it to flip Bonnie from first to third but ultimately decided against it. Since Bonnie is so personal, I think switching it to third would create unnecessary distance between the reader and my MC.

THE QUEEN OF KENTUCKY by Alecia Whitaker The MC in this book had a very distinctive voice, but it read too young for me. Now in Ricki Jo's defense, she WAS only fourteen, so I guess she had a good excuse. As my mother can attest, I was a basket case at that age:)

SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT by Sarah Strohmeyer Of all the books I've read to educate my YA voice, this book was the one that spoke to me the most. I loved Gigi, Bea, and Neerja, who were interesting but not annoying, witty but not sarcastic. They were just the sorts of girls I would have wanted to hang out with in high school (if I'd been the sort of girl to hang out in high school, that is). If you love contemporary romances with strong, well-developed characters, definitely give SMART GIRLS GET WHAT THEY WANT a read.

DAIRY QUEEN by Catherine Gilbert Murdock I'm not finished with this one, but I've already enjoyed it quite a bit. D.J. is a great character with a ton of voice and charm. Actually, I think she and Ella Mae would get along famously, which is the main reason I don't want to draw too much inspiration from this book. I just don't want to write the same character over and over.

Are there any other books you think I should pick up to educate my YA voice? And how are YOUR works-in-progress coming along?

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bonnie

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 67,000
Status: Out of my hands
Attitude: Exhausted

Well, it finally happened. For a few days last week, I officially hated Bonnie. It didn't last long (now I'm only tired of her), but I can confirm there were a couple of moments when all I wanted to do was pitch her over a cliff. Thankfully, I didn't (I think I'm thankful, at least), and now she's safely into the hands of her next round of readers.

I don't know why, but these moments of self-loathing always take me by surprise. At the outset, I expect to love every project for every second I'm working on it. I forget how hard, how painful, it will be (it's kind of like childbirth that way), so when the self-loathing hits, I worry that something's wrong, that I've wasted the last six months or whatever on a manuscript that's going precisely nowhere.

But what I hope I'll remember from here on out is that it's ALWAYS like this. I always decide at some point (usually while I'm line editing) that every project is hopeless, that it's the dumbest thing ever, that I should give up right now. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if I don't hate a project at least once in the process, I'm probably not giving it everything I've got. That's kind of nutty and counterintuitive, but at least in my case, it's also true.

How do you get through those moments of self-loathing? Or maybe I'm the only one who hates her stories at some point...? (Bonus points for using as many parentheses as possible!)

This Is Not One of Those Overnight Success Stories

This is the post I've written a thousand times in my head but never needed to put down on paper. This is the post I've dreamed about but never dared to hope I'd write. But then, life has a way of surprising you, and as far as surprises go, this one is pretty good:

From Publishers Weekly: Author of the popular blog Mother.Write.(Repeat.) (www.motherwrite.blogspot.com), Krista Van Dolzer, sold her debut novel, The Regenerated Man, to Shauna Rossano at Putnam. Agent Kate Schafer Testerman at kt literary handled the North American rights deal, and the book is scheduled for winter 2015. The middle grade novel is set in postwar California and, Testerman said, has elements of science fiction, as it follows a young girl who becomes the sole defender of “a bio-engineered Japanese soldier.”

Steve, otherwise known as THE REGENERATED MAN for the uninitiated, has had a bumpy road. When they say publishing slows down (read: comes to a standstill) in the summer, they mean it, so by the time fall rolled around last year, I was already feeling down and out. We'd given Steve a college try (whatever that means). Maybe it was time to pack it in and concentrate on the next manuscript.

Thank goodness Kate doesn't move on as easily as I do.

Long story slightly shorter: Shauna read the manuscript in a few weeks last September, then took it to her ed meeting. They liked it but had some issues. A few weeks later, she sent some notes, and I revised, revised, revised. I loved this manuscript so much, so I was grateful for the opportunity to make it even better. By Christmas, I was spending almost as much time revising as I was sleeping. By the end of January, I was (finally) done.

After Kate read the revision, she used words like "wow" and "amazing" to describe it, but we still had to wait and see what Shauna thought. And wait we did. Shauna was already swamped, conference season was just beginning, and in the ensuing weeks, I convinced myself that she was going to say no, that she would like it but not love it, that we'd be right back where we'd started. Even when I heard she was thrilled with the revision and taking it back to ed meeting, I didn't allow myself to hope. And when things didn't immediately come together, I told myself I'd told me so.

Then one morning, Kate sent me an e-mail. It was Putnam's offer.

How did John Lennon put it? "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans"? I've certainly found that to be true, especially in this business. But maybe, just maybe, that's part of its charm. Having everything figured out is kind of overrated. I'd much rather make it up as I go along.

#

A huge thank-you to Shauna for loving Steve as much as I do and fighting for him as long and hard as I would have. Another huge thank-you to the amazing and insightful critique partners who read and commented on early drafts: Liesl Shurtliff, Myrna Foster, Amy Sonnichsen, Jenilyn Collings, Ben Spendlove, Kelly Bryson, Mónica Bustamante Wagner, and Tara Dairman. I also have to give a shout-out to the KT Lit Sub Club, whose cheerleading and encouragement kept me (mostly) sane: Elizabeth Briggs, Susan Adrian, Erin Danehy, Sara Beitia, and our newest addition, Amy Sonnichsen. Last but certainly not least, a tip of my hat and a heartfelt hug to the incomparable Kate, granter of wishes and weaver of dreams. I must say, there's something to be said for boundless optimism:)

Oh, and one last thank-you to Honey Bear, our kids, and the rest of our family, but mostly Honey Bear. I don't know how I always manage to leave you out of these. It must be because you're always there, my only constant, the one person in the world who feels so much a part of me that I sometimes forget you're not. Nothing would be quite as bright if I didn't have you to share it with.

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bonnie

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 65,000, maybe?
Status: Constructing the second draft
Attitude: Still smitten

I'm not sure about the word count because I'm literally constructing the second draft from scratch*, copying and pasting scenes into a blank document, writing new ones as I go (sometimes on the backs of random scraps of paper). I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm usually a VERY LINEAR writer, so this is new territory for me. And it's EXCITING.

It also helps that I am completely, one-hundred-percent in love with both the concept and the characters. This is my first attempt at YA contemporary since I was in high school, and so far, the thrill hasn't worn off. I described Bonnie a little in my interview with Kate, so I'll repeat that here in case you missed it:

My current work-in-progress is a YA contemporary told in alternating time frames. In the first chapter, seventeen-year-old Karina stops a boy from jumping off a bridge; the second chapter flashes back to the day fifteen-year-old Karina found her older sister dead after she swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills. The front story moves forward and the back story backward from there.

Blending the time frames has been tough, but it's also stretching me in ways I haven't stretched for a long time. I still have a long way to go--it's very possible these time frames only make sense in my own head--but I'm excited about the journey. And that's something to blog about.

So where are you at with your works-in-progress? Are you smitten, energized--or ready to poke your eyes out with a spoon? I'm sure we can all relate to both:)

*I know you rabid Apple folks are going to tell me to try Scrivener, and I do plan to check it out someday. But since I'm usually, as I said, a very linear writer, I've never found a need before.

(Work-in-) Progress Reports: Bonnie and Clyde

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 64,000 for Bonnie, 43,000 for Clyde
Status: Wrapping up Clyde’s latest round of revisions and Bonnie’s first draft
Attitude: Focused

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that, in the seven-plus months since I signed with Kate, I’ve written well over 100,000 new words and (almost) completely revised one full manuscript. That’s the most writing I’ve ever produced in a seven-month period BY FAR.

I suspect the reasons for this are twofold. First, I had two ideas come to me at about the same time. I feel pretty strongly about releasing a debut and a follow-up that will appeal to roughly the same readership, so I already knew I wanted to write another MG. But not long after I started Clyde, another shimmering idea came to me that simply refused to be set aside. So I started Bonnie, and I’ve been juggling both ever since. (At least they’re both contemporaries, right?)

Second, now that I have an agent, I kind of feel like I have this obligation to write that I didn’t have before. Don’t get me wrong--Kate is supportive and chill and never makes me feel like I have to work harder. But I WANT to work harder because I know I’m not the only one relying on my efforts anymore. And because this lifelong goal seems so close I can practically touch it. I just want to get there, get there, get there!

Besides, I’m in this for the long haul; I want to sell many, many manuscripts over the course of my lifetime. And if that’s going to happen, someday I’ll have deadlines and multiple books under contract, so I figure this is good practice:)

How go your works-in-progress? Anyone out there juggling more than one project, too?

In Defense of the Less Editorial Agent

First off, an apology: Due to unforeseen circumstances, I’m cancelling this month’s round of “An Agent’s Inbox.” And because of the general contest weariness I’ve noticed around the blogosphere/Twitterverse of late, I’m holding off on scheduling another until after New Year’s. I’m so sorry to anyone who was counting on entering a round this year!

The online writing community has always seemed a little preoccupied with the Editorial Agent. Someone asks about an agent's editorial-ness in almost every interactive interview I host, and it’s one of the criteria Casey McCormick regularly highlights on Literary Rambles.

I understand the preoccupation. We writers are an insecure bunch. When people tell us we’re crap, we tend to believe them, but when they praise our writing, we tend to get suspicious and make excuses for their opinions. (“They don’t really think that, do they? They’re just saying that to be nice. Or maybe they just have no idea what they’re talking about. I mean, last time I checked, this manuscript was pretty lame.”)

This attitude can be especially destructive when we start receiving offers on those “pretty lame” manuscripts. We want to sign with someone who’s going to rip our stories apart, make them swifter, better, stronger, so we might shy away from those who think our manuscripts are already good to go simply because we suspect they’re joking or stupid or both.

But just because an agent thinks our manuscripts are pretty good--or even great--as-is doesn’t make her wrong. She may just be a less editorial agent. And she may know exactly what she’s talking about. Here’s why:

1. I’ve noticed less editorial agents often have more clients, more sales, and more experience than their more editorial counterparts. This doesn’t hold true for everyone, of course. Some agents, no matter how long they’ve been in business, want to work with their clients on fine-tuning their manuscripts, and even some newer agents are better negotiators than editors. But usually, newer agents have more time for everything, including client revisions, so their interest in revising is more of a reflection of where they’re at in their careers than the condition of our manuscripts.

2. Because less editorial agents usually have more experience, their instincts are often right. Amazingly enough, agents who’ve sold a lot of manuscripts tend to know what sells. So we shouldn’t discount their opinions just because we’ve conditioned ourselves to discount anyone who says our writing’s good. We should take those opinions as compliments.

3. Sometimes, revision doesn’t make a manuscript better, just different. Every agent, every editor, and every reader is going to have a different vision for our stories. Some visions are better than others (“Oh, wait, you think I should cut the wizard out of my YA contemporary?”), but some are just different. So editorial agents may have a million and one ideas for tweaking our manuscripts, but that doesn’t mean those ideas are necessarily an improvement over what’s already there.

I really don’t dislike editorial agents; in fact, I suspect that if I were an agent, I’d be an editorial one. And when you’ve got offers on the table, you should always weigh your options rationally and go with your gut. But don’t let whether an agent is more or less editorial hold undue sway. Remember, an agent’s job isn’t really to edit your manuscript--it’s to sell your manuscript to someone who will.

In the Pipeline

Just popping in to say I've had very little time to blog over the last few weeks, as I've been hiding out in my revision cave. But lest you think I've blown off the blog entirely, here's what's in the pipeline for October:

A new installment of "Interview with an Agent" with Kerry Sparks of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency

Another informative "Agent-Author Chat" with Andrea Somberg of Harvey Klinger, Inc. and one of her newest clients, Melodie Wright

October's round of "An Agent's Inbox"

I'm also working on my answers to "The Next Big Thing," which will include a few tidbits on Clyde, and I'm sure I'll end up working on a few unexpected posts along the way. You never know when the blogging bug will strike...

In the meantime, what have I missed around the blogosphere? Feel free to leave a shout-out to a must-read post in the comments!

The Fickle Market

Or “Whatever Happened to That Other Manuscript I Was Querying?”

You may have noticed that I took Bob’s pitch and query down several weeks ago and replaced them with Steve’s. (Or maybe you haven’t noticed, since you probably don’t scour my sidebar as thoroughly as I do every time I stop by the blog.) I officially stopped querying Bob and started querying Steve in the middle of this month.

I’ve thought about doing a big statistics post like the one I did when I finished querying Bob’s predecessor, but my heart hasn’t been in it. Quite frankly, it takes some doing to crunch the numbers and make the graphs look as pretty and uniform as I want them to look, and I just haven’t wanted to invest the time. (Besides, a lot of those numbers are nearly a year old now, so I’m not sure how useful they would be.)

Instead, I decided to blog about something that really sums up my whole Bob-querying experience, and that’s the fickle market. But first, a little--okay, a lot of--background. (For those of you who’ve been around the blog for a while, a lot of this will be old news, but bear with me.)

I started querying Bob last fall, in late October. He was the third manuscript I’d queried, so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the response that Bob received. My first three query replies were all partial requests, and one of those partial requests turned into a full request literally overnight. I was ecstatic. I was impatient. I was certain I would have an agent within a week or two.

But then that full request came back as an invitation to revise and resubmit. I told myself this was a victory--not quite the victory I’d been hoping for, but a victory, nonetheless--and buckled down. The agent had some good ideas, and I knew the manuscript would be stronger if I incorporated them. Besides, I could work on the changes through the holidays, when it probably wasn’t wisest to send out fresh queries, anyway, and not lose a lot of time. I didn’t want to lose momentum, after all.

I finished the revision in mid-January and e-mailed it to the agent. A week and a half later, I received her reply. It was kind and complimentary, but she still wasn’t in love enough with the manuscript to take it on. At the time, I was devastated. Now, I look back and realize that agent’s tastes and mine probably wouldn’t have been very compatible over the long haul, anyway.

After drowning my sorrows in a good cup of hot chocolate, I took my stronger manuscript and sent out a fresh batch of queries. I also sent it to the agents who’d requested more material during the weeks I’d spent revising it. Once again, the response was pretty positive. My request rate was over fifty percent, and I pulled in several more partial-turned-full requests.

Then more R&Rs appeared. I picked up my second one in mid-February; by the first week in March, I had three more. I looked at everything they said and decided to undertake a massive revision: flip-flop the narrative responsibilities for my two POV characters and make Adair, the female lead, the more prominent one. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I felt good about it, really good. So good, in fact, that I believe I said something like, “I think this is the story I’ve been trying to tell all along,” in one of my query updates during that time.

This revision--although, in all fairness, it was really more of a rewrite--took me three months. And when I finished, I knew it was the best thing I’d ever written. It really was the story I’d been trying to tell all along.

By this time, I had something like eight agents waiting to read the revision, so I sent it to them straightaway. I tried not to get my hopes up, but deep down, I let my imagination get away from me. Surely at least one of these agents would love the manuscript enough to offer. Surely this was a done deal. And as the days stretched into weeks, then months, and the rejections piled up, I realized it was--but not the kind of “done” I’d hoped for.

The rejections were all eerily similar. They started out by praising various aspects of the manuscript, then finished with some variation of one of these two lines: “But I just didn’t fall in love,” or “Unfortunately, though, the market has really softened up in the last couple of months.” Whereas six or even three months earlier, every agent and her pet Labrador had been trying to sign the next THE HUNGER GAMES, no one wanted a YA dystopian anymore. Editors were no longer biting. The market was saturated.

Did this market saturation account for all of Bob’s rejection? Of course not. If an agent had really loved the manuscript, the market probably wouldn’t have prevented her from offering representation, and I can think of a few YA dystopians, including Mindy McGinnis’s, that recently sold for good money. But the fact remains that during those months when I was working on the revision, something changed. The market shifted. What had been a hot commodity was now barely a lukewarm one. I sent out a few new queries, but my request rate was nowhere near what it had been before.

Moral of the story: The market is a living, breathing thing, and none of us will ever be able to control it. So instead of worrying about the things we can’t change, we’d do better to worry about the things we can. And sometimes, we just have to know when to let go of a manuscript, especially a trendy one, and get to work on the next project.

"You See, You Can't Please Everyone, So You Got to Please Yourself"

As many of you know, I’ve been neck-deep in reader feedback the last couple of weeks, and as many of you also know, it’s driven me a little batty. Knowing what feedback to take and what feedback to leave is almost as difficult as writing the stupid manuscript in the first place.

But today, a few lines from Ricky Nelson’s “Garden Party” came to me while I was weeping and wailing and generally making a fool of myself, and they were so appropriate--and yet so seemingly mundane--that I knew I had to share:

But it’s all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself

It may sound silly and cliché, but it’s also true: We’re not going to please everybody with our writing, so at the end of the day, we only have to worry about pleasing ourselves. I mean, wouldn’t you feel terrible, absolutely TERRIBLE, if you changed something in your manuscript because someone else insisted on it, and then you sent your precious manuscript off to your top agent, and she loved it and really got it, EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE PART, and she was going to offer you representation, but then that one part changed her mind?

I can take rejection, but I don’t think I could take that kind of regret.

So in the spirit of making decisions and not letting your writing drive you completely nutty, here are a few questions to ask yourself when you’re staring reader feedback in the face:

1. Am I excited about making these changes?

2. Do these changes match my vision for the project?

3. Deep down, do I think these changes are the right changes to make?

If your answer to any of these questions is no, you might want to take a step back and think about things a little longer. And while you’re thinking, check out Jessica Tudor’s brilliant blog post on the topic. (Did I mention it was BRILLIANT?)

Happy writing, happy revising, and if you’ve been feeling a little down lately, for heaven’s sake, have a chocolate.

What About Bob?

Several people have asked about Bob's progress of late, so here's a quick update. At the moment, I'm in the middle of a silent read-through, and then I'll only have one more out-loud read-through to do. (I didn't used to read my manuscripts out loud at all. Now, I can't stand the thought of NOT reading the whole thing out loud at least once.)

While reading, I'm tweaking small details, shaving words, freaking out. Mostly freaking out, I'm afraid. (He's awful. He's wonderful! This is taking forever. I'm finished! I'm not. He's awful. He's wonderful!) I'm planning to finish sometime in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully, I shouldn't have to live like this for much longer. I haven't been myself lately.

And now, since I'm a card-carrying member of the Society for Math Nerds, Geeks, and Dweebs, a few numbers:

Current word count (to the nearest thousand): 79,000 (and falling)
Highest word count ever: 80,000
Lowest word count ever: 59,000

Number of betas who've read any part of Bob: 9
Number of betas who've read all of Bob: 7
Number of betas who've read all of Bob more than once: 3 (thank you, thank you, thank you, Myrna, Kelly, and Honey Bear!)

I can't say enough about my awesome, awesome beta readers. Honestly, they've made all the difference. Thank you, all nine of you, one more time.

Where are you at with your works-in-progress?

Catharsis and Enlightenment

Last night, I had a bit of a meltdown. I’m sure you can imagine what it sounded like: “Aw, my writing stinks! I’m a horrible writer and a horrible person! I’m ruining Bob, absolutely ruining him!”

Now, in my defense, I was tired, and I’m generally not my best when I’m putting together a revision outline. Honey Bear wisely told me to go to bed, and I did. And this morning, I had an epiphany: I’ve been doing this revision-outline thing all wrong.

In the past, I’ve organized my revision outlines by chapter. I’ve made a list of all the changes I want to make within each chapter and added a short list of general changes to the top of the outline. Then I’ve picked someplace to start (which is rarely the beginning), fixed that problem, and moved on to another item in my list (which is rarely the next one).

There’s no method to my madness--I just change whatever I feel like changing whenever I feel like changing it. I try to start with the biggest problems first and work through to the smallest ones, but that’s sometimes easier said than done. Last night, for example, as I was going back through my outline, I was getting bogged down in the little chapter-by-chapter issues and forgetting the big picture.

To put it another way (and to use yet another cliché), I was getting lost in the trees and losing sight of the forest.

The feedback our betas give us is invaluable, but if we want to make good use of it, we have to learn how to separate major issues from minor ones. I’m still relatively new to this whole beta-reader thing (Bob is the first manuscript I’ve written that anyone but Honey Bear and my mother has read), so I’m definitely still developing this skill myself. Last night was just one more lesson in the all-inclusive education Bob has been giving me.

All of this has been a really long way to say I’m going to try organizing my revision outlines by topic instead of by chapter. That way, I’ll be able to see at a glance the major issues I want to tackle. Then I’ll add bullet points under each of those big issues to flesh out the specific changes I plan to make. Hopefully, this will lead to less meltdowns.

Or maybe not:)

P.S. For more information about the revision process, check out Kayeleen Hamblin’s awesome post, “Pulling the Weeds.” Whether you’re a writer or a gardener (or both), you’ll appreciate her analogy.

P.P.S. Some of you may be wondering about my “Interview with an Agent” series. I’m still working on it, so no worries, but this spring has been tricky. Lots of agents are agreeing to do the interview, but they’re taking a bit longer to get back to me than they have in the past. This probably means they’re busy signing clients and making awesome deals, but I’ll keep plugging away!

Fear

The notes from my latest round of beta readers are starting to come in, and as I’ve spent the last few days going through them, I’ve realized that I’m a lot closer to the end of this revision than I am to the beginning. And that realization has filled me with one thing.

Fear.

Fear that all these agents will end up saying no. Fear that, after all these months (and almost years), Bob still won’t be good enough. Fear that, after years and years of writing, I’ll be right back where I started.

It’s irrational, I know. On the one hand, I can see that I’m closer now than I’ve ever been before, that the writer I am now is a hundred--a thousand--times better than the writer I was three years ago. And I know that the changes I’ve made and will make to this latest draft of Bob are the changes I needed to make. But on the other hand, I worry that it still won’t be enough, that published books all have some special, secret Something and I’m still trying to figure out what it is.

I probably feel this way precisely because Bob is so much better than anything else I’ve ever written. I’ve invested so much time and energy into this project that I really don’t want to believe all my effort’s been for naught. The other day, Honey Bear said, “It’s like you’ve got nine slow pitches coming at you, and they’re all right across the plate,” and I replied, “Exactly! And I don’t want to mess them up!”

I like to think I’m not the sort of person who is paralyzed by fear--that I’m the sort of person who attacks it--but this revision has definitely made me slow down, take a step back, and think things through a little more. With these pitches coming at me nice and slow, I definitely want to take my time to swing.

The Writer's Creed

I am a writer, and because I am a writer, I will stick my butt in front of that computer, and I will write. I will spend more time writing than I spend blogging, surfing the Internet, and picking my nose combined. I am a writer, and I will write my manuscript.

I will read. I will read so many books my friends will stop asking librarians and independent bookstore owners what books they should read and start asking me. I will read so many books that if Ken Jennings ever challenged me to a duel on Jeopardy, I would totally own him in the “YA Literature” category.

I will revise, revise, revise. I will keep revising until I actually start to like it. Then I’ll revise a little more.

I will write an awesome query. I will not whine about how hard it is or use it as an excuse to not submit my work. I will become the best possible marketer for my manuscript.

I will query my book. I will research, research, research until I can list every agent who represents my genre in alphabetical order forward and backward. Then I’ll research a little more. And on those days I don’t want to query anyone, don’t want to take the risk, I will force myself to send that e-mail, and on those days I want to query every agent in the universe, I will force myself to wait. I will find the best possible advocate for my book. I will.

I will rise above rejection. I may cry a little and even throw my keyboard across the room, but I will not let it defeat me. I will send another query. I will write another book.

I will not compare myself to others. I. Will. Not. Compare. My journey is my journey, and I take ownership of that. When others succeed, I will rejoice with them, and when others fail, I will mourn. Even though we are competing for the same agents’ attention, for the same few spots on our favorite houses’ lists, I will not see them as competitors. I will see them as fellow writers. I will see them as friends.

I am a writer, but I am also a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter. I will let writing define one small part of my life, but I will not let it define the rest. Because if all I ever did was write, I would have nothing to write about.

I will live my life, and I will write my words, and they will make each other beautiful.

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bob

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 66,000 (and rising)
Status: Incorporating feedback from my latest batch of betas
Attitude: Fluttery

Fluttery because I’m excited. Fluttery because I’m nervous. Fluttery because I’m fast approaching Bob’s first birthday and I can’t believe it’s been a YEAR.

This week, I plan to put together what I hope will be my last revision outline, and then I’ll only have to pretty up each chapter according to said outline. (Well, I also plan to try that dreaded out-loud read again, but as we all remember how well that went a few months ago, I’m still kind of ignoring it…)

My first batch of betas caught the major problems with my plot and story construction, and my second batch uncovered some issues with characterization and world building. That’s just how it should be, I think--the first batch found the biggest problems, and the second batch the second biggest problems. Interestingly, none of my second-batch betas brought up the same major issues my first batch did, which (hopefully) means I fixed those plot problems. Phew.

Depending on how I feel about this fifth draft once I finish it, I may decide to give Bob to a third round of beta readers, but for now, I’m thinking these two will be good. Which means I’ll probably be ready to query by late September.

Wowsers. Querying by late September.

And that’s why I’m all fluttery.

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bob

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 63,000 (barely)
Status: Finished with the third draft!
Attitude: Relieved

I usually don’t post on weekends, but I just wanted to drop in to say…I’m finished! Bob is currently sitting in the inboxes of my first two beta readers, and I couldn’t be more excited.

As for my last (work-in-) progress report, I gave up on the whole reading-Bob-out-loud thing. I decided that should be one of the last edits I do, and so that out-loud read is still several months away.

What have I been doing, then, this past week and a half? Filling in all the little holes, as I mentioned in my last report, and using the find-and-replace feature to get rid of too-common words and phrases. I’ve never used that technique, but now I can’t imagine NOT using it. (Yesterday, for example, I eliminated about two hundred “justs,” “rights,” and “backs.”) I’m sure I missed a few, but I'll leave it to my beta readers to point out the next several hundred to me:)

And speaking of cutting words, I’ve cut some the past few weeks. Bob was at 59,000 words by the end of the first draft, up to 66,000 somewhere in the second, and now he sits at around 63,000 (even though this third draft has been largely about ADDING words). For the most part, the words I’ve cut have been unnecessary dialogue and action tags. (“Hi, my name is Krista, and I’m a dialogue and action tagger…”) Sometimes the characters just need to speak for themselves, you know?

Well, that’s all for me. Back to the manuscript I’ve been beta-reading for the past more-than-a-month…

Bob Meets Wordle

Subtitle: “My Worst Fears Just Confirmed”

There. I just said it. I have a just problem. It’s just that just is such an easy word to throw into a sentence--just about any sentence, really. In fact, if you just think about it, you could probably write a whole book in which just about every other word is “just.”

Ahem. So I finally finished plugging up all of Bob’s little holes. (That is, I finally finished filling in EVERY blank, so now there are no more missing words). But before I did the rest of my tweaks, I decided to plug him into Wordle to see what word cloud popped out. And “just” really popped.

As far as I understand it, Wordle takes whatever words you give it and arranges them artistically, making the most common words most prominent. It ignores words like “and” and “the”--pretty much all conjunctions, articles, pronouns, and minor prepositions--and focuses on the important ones. Like “just.”

So what other too-big words popped up? “Back,” “like,” “one,” “still,” “looked,” “right,” “thought,” and “know.” I plan to do a find-and-replace search for each of these words (and several other words and phrases I know I overuse), and then I think I’ll be ready for my first round of beta readers.

So what about you? If you plugged your WIP into Wordle, what words would you expect to pop?

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bob

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 65,000 (and falling)
Status: Reading him out loud
Attitude: Defeated

I thought I was almost there. I thought I was just about to send him off to betas. But now that I’m reading him out loud, I’m finding parts that are just AWFUL. They roll off the tongue about as well as pond scum. And it’s killing me. It’s killing me that I’m suddenly so far away again. It’s. Killing. Me.

Any advice? Encouragement? Commiseration?

(In lieu of flowers, please send chocolate ice cream.)

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bob

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 65,000
Status: Exactly halfway through the second draft
Attitude: Antsy

Because I really, really, really, REALLY want to get Bob off to beta readers, even though I know I’m still (at least) a few weeks away. Like the first draft, this second one has been progressing more slowly than I’d like--but in the past week, week and a half, I’ve finally made some progress.

I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m a better writer now than I was when I started Bob, so I had to spend some extra time bringing those earlier chapters up to snuff. (Anyone know the origin of that cliché?) Two possible explanations for this phenomenon: First, the more you write, the better you write, so you’ll always be a better writer by the end of a manuscript than you were at the beginning. Second, anytime you take a significant break from writing (which I usually do after I finish a project, and which I especially did between Bob and SEE THE SAMELINGS, as I had a newborn in the house), it takes a while to get your voice back.

And so. The second draft has been coming slowly, but it’s gaining momentum. (Woohoo!) I’m sure you’ll be the first to know once I finally finish it:)

In other news, I’ve been playing around with pitches lately, as you can see from my sidebar. (I added a new one today, in fact!) Although I feel pretty good about writing a two- or three-paragraph pitch a la the query letter, I still find one-sentence pitches tricky. (And what is it with all these parenthetical asides…?) Awesome agent Nathan Bransford shared some fabulous tips in a recent blog post, but I’m still tinkering. And tinkering, and tinkering.

So how are your works-in-progress coming along? Slowly, quickly, wonderfully, awfully? And I’d love to hear the pitches for your latest projects. Share away!