1. Let’s start where it counts: readers. We hear all kinds of distressing news about societal and cultural and technological changes that – doom, doom, doom – seem to signal a decline in thee numbers of people who are interested in getting information, inspiration, and delight from the written word in some form. But if you add e-book sales and audio book sales to physical bookstore sales, I think we’re not running out of readers any time soon.

2. Good writing: Yes, there are teenage celebrities having ghost writers pen their memoirs of rehab, and copycat Harry Potters and Da Vinci Codes that peter out eventually, but there are also breathtakingly good writers exploring existing genres in style and crossing genre boundaries to create tasty new fiction.  A fistful of wonderful new biographies have recently come to market, and some YA fiction is bringing gown up cred to that field.

3. Publishers, traditional and new media. The print publishing industry has taken quite a few hits in the last decade. Editors can be forgiven in these hard times for their dazed expressions and fear of buying a book that won’t sell a gazillion copies. Meanwhile, the new media crew forged ahead, their eyes on a different future, and haven’t slowed down. Sure, there are wrinkles and conflicts, and writers have every right to be nervous as we squint at Christmas Present and wonder what the hell Christmas Future will look like. But editors and publishers are buying books, albeit not as many. They haven’t given up their own visions of a literate and excited readership, so neither should we.

What are you writers and readers thankful for? Any good news to share?

Final Revisions

Here I am, so far past the first draft of the second book that I can’t even remember what it was. “Final” sent to agent, who loved it, but suggested small shift in one character. Okay, good idea. Done.

Asked a talented writer friend to give it one more read to see if I missed anything. She asked me a damn good question I couldn’t answer properly. Okay, that definitely merited some work.

Agent was waiting, but assured me she was willing to wait until it was “perfect.” I froze. Perfect? Was it perfect? Okay, new printout of 256 pages so I could read it word-for-word one more time before sending it on. This will be my sixth or seventh full read over an 18-month period, but the first I’ve attempted in a couple of months of looking at sections, sentences, and single tracks.

My take on revisions? It can be disappointing, terrifying, and eye-opening to sit down and read your book straight through after focusing on scenes, subplots, grammar, etc. Here’s what I find rises to the top of my final revision checklist:

1. Redundancies – hey, I already showed the reader my protagonist’s thinking about that situation.

2. Clichés – it’s embarrassing to have someone point them out because it screams “lazy writer!”

3. Verbiage – I’m in slash and burn mode on this last read and wondering why I often thought I needed so many words to say something?

4. Ditto – the overuse of specific words, especially in proximity to each other is almost always avoidable and, therefore, should be avoided – whoops.

There’s more and I’m sure every writer has her own mental list of tics to watch for in the final revision stage. Good luck with your own final revision, be it a memo to the boss requesting a big salary bump, or your debut novel!