artwork by Michelle Haas

New Year's resolutions aren't something I typically cheer about. I end up frowning at the mirror a month later, wondering why those five pounds didn't melt off while I was eating my weight in carrots. That doesn't mean I never make writing goals for myself ... a little nudge, shall we say, to keep me writing all year long. With 2019 just a couple days away, here is a list of writing goals to incorporate in the new year with hopes of improving not just one's writing but one's chance of publication in 2019. Cheers!

Write daily. What I learned from participating in the 2018 NaNoWriMo challenge, and writing 50,000 words in November, is that I must set daily writing goals to truly immerse myself in my writing. It's fine, and even healthy, to take a day or two off between stages of perfecting a manuscript, but it helps to keep that bus a movin' as consistently and often as possible, so as not to lose touch with your characters and plot. Otherwise, you might find yourself having to backtrack and re-read much of your work, just to get back into the rhythm of the story.

Query. As a staff writer for a Pittsburgh newspaper, I really didn't take the time to do much querying of my fiction work over the past several years. I plan to rectify that in 2019. Though the (exhausting) process requires researching viable agents/editors, perfecting the query letter/synopsis/pitch, making sure the submission is truly error-free and follows submission guidelines (which vary widely), etc., it's important to remember that the manuscript or personal essay or poem isn't going to publish itself. If the goal is to publish, you HAVE to eventually take that leap of faith and put it out there.

Organize. With three completed young adult and picture book manuscripts ready for submission, plus an additional three young adult WIPs and one women's fiction WIP, I'd be a dolt not to organize my queries. Don't annoy your favorite agent by inadvertently sending a second query, for the same work, because you didn't keep track of your submissions. There are many ways of organizing your queries. I used to use a basic notebook, handwriting in every submission with contact info, date, response, etc. This past spring, I developed an Excel spreadsheet that allows me to keep a digital record. Here's my query template. Feel free to use/alter. Writer's Digest has also created a number of excellent writing tracker spreadsheets, available for free download here.

Save. Saving your manuscript only on your computer is risky business. My husband finds it hilarious that I have a sizeable box of USB flash drives with every copy of everything I've ever written. I keep one such flash drive in a location outside my home. Another option, something I intend to do in the new year, is to upload files to an external hard drive or cloud storage using Google Docs or Dropbox or the like. Periodically emailing recent copies of WIP files to yourself, or a trusted other, may also suffice. I've done that with recent work, but none of my older files. Again, risky business. If your home office goes up in flames or computer crashes, you want to be able to retrieve your work digitally, somehow.

Read what you write. In 2019, I plan to read at least two books a month in my writing genre. Since I write mostly picture books, young adult and (just recently) women's fiction, I must make time to read books in those genres. Read. Read. Read ... what works, what doesn't work, and everything in between. You will be a better writer for it.

Write what you love. I love reading epic fantasy but have never tried my hand at it, because the world-building seems like it would be beyond my capability. If you love reading a particular genre, but have never given it a go, maybe 2019 is the year to get out of your comfort zone and write what you love.

Finish. I won't lie. Two of my WIPs began their journey over five years ago. I'm about 150 pages in on each of them. Sometimes it's easy to start a new project but also easy to give up when the words stop flowing. I am making it my goal, in 2019, to really take a good look at what I've got in my WIP folder and determine what is worth finishing. Then do it. Just do it. If you have multiple projects that got off the ground quickly but stalled, maybe they are worth another try. Finishing takes work. If it didn't, everyone would be a published author.

Rah, rah, ree ... Kick 'em in the knee. Have a fantastic start to your new year, my writerly friends. Hit your goals and make 2019 something to cheer about! I'm rooting for you.

Artwork by Michelle Storm Haas.

#SundayRead #WIP #writingtips #writingtip #writer #SCBWI #amwriting #amquerying #powerofpages

Spell check is an amazing tool, but it can only do so much. No matter how many times a writer edits a draft, some words are commonly confused. I usually spend a ton of revision time doing a "search" of my Word doc to confirm I haven't mixed up a "their" or a "there" or a "they're." Below is my own personal list of least favorite tricky words worth a double-check, because sometimes my fingers type one thing while my brain is thinking something else.

Accept/Except
Accept - to agree to do or receive - e.g., I happily accept this book award.
Except - not including - e.g., Everyone is going to the library except you.

Bated/Baited
Bated - in suspense - e.g., I waited with bated breath for the next Robert Galbraith novel.
Baited - with bait attached - e.g., I baited my readers with the promise of a new revision blog by the end of the week.

Climactic/Climatic
Climactic - forming a climax - e.g., The thriller's climactic ending left me breathless.
Climatic - relating to climate - e.g., The suspense thriller, set during monsoon season, included climatic elements such as high winds and pouring rain.

Defuse/Diffuse
Defuse - to make a situation less tense - e.g., The librarian had to defuse a fight over who got to shake the best selling author's hand first during a reading.
Diffuse - spread over wide area - e.g., The librarian diffused the collection of board books, creating reading areas in every corner of the elementary school library.

Disinterested/Uninterested
Disinterested - impartial - e.g., Many writers have a disinterested group of beta readers, instead of a biased parent, take a look at a manuscript before sending it to an agent.
Uninterested - not interested - e.g., The young adult novelist was typically uninterested in writing picture books.

Flaunt/Flout
Flaunt - to display ostentatiously - e.g., I like to flaunt my book collection by storing all my titles in wall-to-wall shelves in each and every room.
Flout - disregard a rule - e.g., And I sometimes flout the rules and begin a sentence with a conjunction.

Loath/Loathe
Loath - reluctant - e.g., I am loath to put down a really good book.
Loathe - to hate - e.g., I loathe a poorly edited manuscript.

Peek/Peak
Peek - to glance or look quickly - e.g., I never peek at the last page until it's time.
Peak - highest point - e.g., J.K. Rowling is at the peak of her writing career.

Their/There/They're
Their - possessive - e.g., I like their book.
There - a place - e.g., I would go there to find a book.
They're - contraction of they and are - e.g., They're going to the library.

Your/You're/Yore
Your - possessive - e.g., I like your book.
You're - contraction of you and are - e.g., You're going to the library.
Yore - past or former times - e.g., The books of yore were written on parchment paper.

**Affect/Effect
Easily one of the most common, if not THE most common tricky word combos, I spent 20 minutes trying to do this justice and gave up. Essentially, affect is usually a verb, and effect is usually a noun, but there are exceptions. Go to Grammarly's full-length post on this for more details. And good luck!

With the new year just around the corner, here's hoping this helps all of you with personal goals of cleaning up that work-in-progress. Don't let those tricky words get you down.

Time to revise, my writerly friends!

Thank you, Michelle Storm Haas, for your always lovely artwork.

#amediting #amrevising #WIP #NaNoWriMo #amwriting #writingtips

First drafts can be messy. There are a gazillion ways to go about revising a novel first draft. I've found the following basic steps, done in the order presented, help me wrangle the monster and push forward to something resembling a second draft. These initial steps do NOT cover the fine line editing that a final draft will need.

1. Properly format. Using industry standards found here on writersdigest.com, format your manuscript. This should include one inch margins on all sides, a 12-point font such as Times New Roman, an automatic page number in the header, double spaced lines, etc. I have found the Writer's Digest format info to be the safest bet for submitting a clean manuscript.

2. Set chapters. Even if you aren't 100% sure you know in what order they will end up, determine chapters, give them a working title, and "insert" a hard page break after each, so the chapter becomes its own entity.

3. Print a hard copy. I've always worked best by going "old school" with physical paper in my hot, little hands. There are many benefits to using a hard copy during the first draft editing process, as my next revision steps will attest.

4. Post-It. When reading the first draft for the first time, have handy a red pen and five different colored sticky Post-It notes. While reading, make notes in the margins and use the Post-Its to physically color-code the following initial concerns:

• Plot: Plot issues should be noted and dealt with as a first priority.
• Requires research: Indicate anything that requires further research. If your story includes something based on something real (city, person, type of job?), and you don't know enough to write intelligently about it on your own, mark the spot with a designated Post-It.
• Character: Post-It any character concerns, such as stereotyping, ineffective voice/dialogue, poor choice of name (too close to another character's name, not right for the time period), and so on.
• Pacing: I usually use a red Post-It to note any area of my manuscript that seems slow. A novel will naturally have highs and lows when it comes to pacing, but too many red notes too close together in the manuscript will literally serve as a visual "red flag" that your pacing needs work.
  
• Formatting: Note issues such as a lack of chapter headings or paragraph indention, missing punctuation, a blank page after a chapter, etc. Basically, you're looking for anything that looks off about the formatting. Because this is a first draft (and, likely, there will be many others after it), this step must be done each time you finalize a new draft, as changes have the potential to create new formatting issues.

5. Rearrange. Once I've read through my manuscript and Post-It noted all initial issues, I decide if rearranging any chapters/scenes would help my plot, pacing, or character introduction. This can be tinkered with harmlessly by shuffling hard copy pages until you like the changes.

6. Revise. Before I start digital revisions, I save my first draft under a new file name, keeping the original first draft file in case something goes horribly wrong. Using the new version, I take care of any plot and research edits first, including moving any chapters/scenes as I determined during the rearrange phase of this process. I then work my way through the Post-It notes, by color, which allows me to focus on very specific issues one at a time. This helps me complete individual mini-goals and not get overwhelmed by the sheer number of edits.

Once I have completed each phase of the editing process, I can consider myself the proud, or not so proud, owner of DRAFT #2.

Which is a whole other type of messy.

Stay tuned for future blogs about revising your little darlings!

#editing #amediting #amwriting #WIP #SCBWI #nanowrimo