"If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written."

Muphry’s Law (via jstn)

Revising Fiction by David Madden: Leading by Example (and with TOC Checklist) →

Jeff VanderMeer shares his appreciation for the book Revising Fiction (now out of print, sadly). VanderMeer shares how the book “radically changed” his perspective on revision:

I grew immeasurably as a writer and began to exhibit more control. In encountering questions I didn’t even understand at the time, I also came to understand that there is no such thing as “mastery” in writing fiction — that there would always be more to learn, more to look forward to internalizing. These two lessons, and the presence of masters of fiction ghosting through the text, soon made Revising Fiction and me inseparable. And I still return to it every year to see what else I can learn from it.

There are several used copies available for sale on Amazon, so I might consider picked one up eventually. In the meantime, VanderMeer provides most of the table of contents that is, essentially, a list of 183 questions to ask oneself while revising fiction.

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bobulate:

Editors at large are chattering about the official White House photo of Obama working on what appears to be his address about health-care reform to a Joint Session of Congress last September from here to here to here to here. It’s sort of delightful really to get a closeup of the details to see all the edits directly.

That kind of a heavily marked-up page should be a familiar sight for any writer.

"Writing…is compromised by doubt. … Writing can be so weighed down by doubt — if not of one’s talent then of paying the rent — that it cannot lift off into a trance. Editing is a different story. By the time we are ready to edit our first draft, we are, in most cases, past the first doubt, and too invested to give up. A fighting spirit defines and facilitates a good edit. We have put in our time, found (more or less) our purpose, and we will not accept defeat. We may sulk after seeing a shoddy draft, but not for long. Life’s demands gratefully interfere with self-pity. Soon enough, we will be editing with a vengeance."

Susan Bell, The Artful Edit

"The “real” reason you make films – or at least I do – is you get trapped in them, and you have to edit your way out."

Errol Morris

This applies to pretty much any big-idea creative endeavor. (via austinkleon)

(via austinkleon)

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I’m making a notecard for each scene in the manuscript, and in order to do that I’m spreading all the pages out on the floor. Ruby does not like it.