I think I have looked at this novel, scene by scene, from every possible direction and I’m still not done! This is my course novel for How To Revise Your Novel with Holly Lisle. I love this class, but it’s not a simple walk in the park. The good news is that I am thinking much more like a novelist than I ever have before. The bad news is that I started this course in December (I think) and I’m only half done! I’ll be finishing up Week 12 tomorrow. I can’t suggest it enough for a beginning writer. I don’t know how helpful it would be for a person who has written (and published) several novels because, presumably, you [...]

My plow guy has a commendable work ethic for an 18-year-old. He was here at 2:45 this morning, shoveling us out. One of the reasons we hired him was because he was about to become an Eagle Scout and we thought that kind of character development would show in his work. Unfortunately, he woke me up. As I lay in the dark, listening to him shovel I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep until he was done, so I got up and read through Chapter 6. I think the novel is starting to pick up in terms of the action and excitement. This is good, but it means everything before this point is on the dull [...]

40 more pages read through between last night and this morning. I am taking notes in hot pink pen, to cheer me up and I’m on my second pen. That’s a lot of notes. I’d like to be done with this tomorrow night, but I think that’s a bit over-enthusiastic as I still have 73 pages to go. Why yes, it’s a short novel, mostly because I don’t have nearly enough setting and character description. Whole pages have nothing but dialog, and not even dialog tags. I think the next time I edit a Nanowrimo novel I should go back and add in everything I missed first and then worry about fixing it up. Even though it’s only at 54k [...]

I’m starting the revisions to my novel. I’m calling it The Waste for now although I’m not fond of that title. I’ve read through the first 3 chapters making notes on everything that isn’t working and any place I have contradicted myself. This is not a pretty process. In fact, after the last chapter I decided to take a snuggle break with Josh just to soothe my soul a bit. This is a seriously flawed novel but I am encouraged to find bits of my characters’ personalities shining through. 7 more chapters to go and the last one is very short so I’m planning to do 3 more today and the last 4 tomorrow. I think it’s best to get [...]