Happy new year! This week JJ and Kelly are back after a holiday hiatus, traveling through time with an episode recorded in 2015 about REVISION! Once again, apologies for the mouth-breathing: winter is a rough time for JJ’s sinuses.
Show Notes
You can browse all our Revisions posts at PubCrawl via the tag! (Check out our Resources page too.)
So You Finished Your First Draft—Now What? by Jodi Meadows
Tackling Revisions by Susan Dennard
Intro to the Art of Revision: Part 1 and Part 2 by Kat Zhang
Correcting Problems with Pacing by Julie Eshbaugh
Kill Your Darlings by Erin Bowman
Revision for Pansters by JJ
Things we discussed in the episode:
LET THE MANUSCRIPT REST. No seriously, put it aside for as long as you can.
Have a clear vision for your work.
Revision is different for everyone, but JJ works from the biggest issues to smallest, generally pacing.
The skills needed to revise is mostly patience.
"Kill your darlings"—keep all your beloved bits in an "Orphans" file.
Be wary of your emotional attachment to your initial version of your book, especially if the story is going in a different direction.
What We're Working On
Kelly's been making paper snowflakes!
JJ is procrastinating on writing her middle grade by writing other things in her middle grade universe.
What We're Reading
The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff
The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon
Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George
These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly
Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Off-Menu Recommendations
Writing Excuses podcast
Still Hamilton, you guys
Hilariously, we mentioned wanting Serial to come back, and then the day after we recorded, Sarah Koenig dropped the next season like she was the Beyoncé of the podcast world
That's all for this week! Next week we got back to our Publishing 101 series, this time with a more advanced course. Publishing 201, if you will. We'll be covering MONEY: advances, royalties, etc.
12. Revisions