Revisions. And Do-Overs For Yesterday...

It's revision time!! Actually it's BEEN revision time. And it will be, for many weeks to come.

It would be so cool if life had revisions. At the end of the day I could skim through my mind and adjust things I said and did... or after a major mistake just hit the delete key, hehe. Delete-delete-delete!!!

If life had revisions, here would be mine for yesterday (yesterday was a pretty good day, so revisions should be easy):

1. Revise to show me cleaning the syrup from breakfast off the table. (This means I could delete the unnecessary "Ants All Over the Table" scene later on).

2. Revise to show me wearing shorts to the picnic at the park, instead of the semi-short, flowy peasant skirt I DID wear. (I didn't realize it would be windy. Changing this would mean I wouldn't have to endure the "Constantly Clutching the Sides of Her Skirt to Avoid Flashing Both Friends and Strangers" sequence).

3. Revise to show me skipping the ENTIRE "Vacuuming the Stairs" scene, even though friends were coming over later. (First off, real friends don't care about stair cleanliness. Second, it would delete the "Vacuum Falling Down the Stairs and Taking Diana Down With It" scene. The vacuum fell ON my left middle finger, which now hurts like crazy! I fell DOWN the stairs, luckily landing on my bottom but I landed hard and now I have a gross bruise and ouchiness, boo-hoooo me, all because of that stupid vacuuming the stairs idea!! REWRITE PLEASE!!)

4. Revise to show me lending Mockingjay to my Best Friend instead of my Good Friend. (We were all going to dinner and a movie-- they were coming over first and this is why I even vacuumed. Good Friend stopped by the house like an hour before Best Friend. Subsequently, Good Friend saw Mockingjay on my bookshelf first-- a whole hour first-- anyway, revising this scene would delete the "Best Friend Pouting" sequence I'm enduring now, and also "Diana Feeling Guilty" *sniffle*).

Anyone else have some revisions from yesterday? Want to share?

And oh yeah... 5. I would revise to show myself remember to bring my purse to dinner and a movie with friends. The revisions just keep going!

Since we're on the topic of revisions, here is a Mini-SCBWI Conference Learning Moment if anyone is interested...

At SCBWI I learned that editors typically give about three to four months for revisions, depending on the author, and a bunch of other variables, of course. (When are there NOT variables in publishing?!) One editor at a workshop said that-- in her experience-- an author being too speedy on revision turnaround usually meant revisions would have to start again, because often the author who returns revisions too quickly rushed through them. Every writer is different, so I'm assuming she meant in general... if anyone out there revises like a hot rod and it works for you, then great! And I personally don't know whether she's right or not... what do you think? Is her experience surprising? Did you figure that revising "too fast" would mean a less-than-thorough job? I have to admit, I thought that editors wanted revisions completed as quickly as possible-- the faster the better! Good thing for me that I was wrong, I guess, because I go through scenes over and over when I'm revising and it takes time to do that with a whole entire book!!! Hopefully I'm not too slow either...

Finished

Last night around nine pm I finished reading Mockingjay. My head keeps going over everything that happened. Relentlessly.

I love these books. Brilliant. Horrifying. Beautiful. Scary. Real. Important. Human.
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Am Reading...

Mockingjay.

Here are my thoughts on Hunger Games and Catching Fire in case you're curious.

Next post... Mockingjay Book Talk.

Mockingjay Chapter 1 Read by Suzanne Collins

Below is a video of Suzanne Collins reading the first chapter of Mockingjay. She has an accent!! I was sooo not expecting that!

Thank you to my lovely critique partner Dana at A Squirrel Amongst Lions for emailing me this link.

If you're curious about my gushing thoughts on Hunger Games and Catching Fire, click here .

Since this is the OFFICIAL and authorized sneak peek direct from Scholastic, I share without guilt and encourage you to enjoy... here it is, Chapter 1 of Mockingjay:

Five Bucks at the Mall and a Mini-Writerly Moment

I was at the mall with my little sister (my other little sister, not the one from the Beach-Day-From-Hell [see the post BEFORE the last one. *shudder*]), and while we were there I had a mini-writerly moment...

First, a little about my sister. Like the previously mentioned sister, she is also awesome, also into clothes, but unlike my other sister, this one counter-acts the mojo that makes crazy things go wrong on family trips. Seriously, when we all went beach camping a few weeks ago, nothing crazy happened throughout the whole weekend!! Unheard of! Until we were getting ready to leave and she drove off first. Then there was craziness but ANYWAY, a story for another time people. The bottom line is, this little sister has a calming effect on the world.

So, the mall. We didn't have a reason for going to the mall other than to talk and hang out. We decided that this time, we would have a strict five-dollar rule, because otherwise talking and hanging out could get really expensive (as we've learned before *sad, sad sigh* *cringes, pushing away bills*).

At first we joked about what we could possibly find for five dollars at the mall, but really, finding something for five dollars is not the hard part; the hard part is knowing that once your five dollars is spent, you have no more money to play with. It became like a game... bracelets or hair clips from Claire's Accessories? How about something from Old Navy? Flip-flops, tops, stuff on clearance? Then there were random small shops with eyeshadow and nail polish, or layered tank undershirts... and The Disney Store-- haha, our favorite store ALWAYS-- had clearance ball caps for under five dollars, plus a bunch of little things that so rocked, like a keychain viewfinder and sparkly princess lip gloss!! We couldn't decide! It was an embarrassment of under five dollar riches!

We had a ridiculously good time trying on sunglasses and whatever else we could find-- everything under five bucks was manhandled and used for our sarcastic amusement-- but in the end we spent our precious cash at... wait for it... waaaait for it...

The Sweet Factory.

Candy. YES, we spent it on candy. Pointless? Maybe. As Charlie said in Willy Wonka, candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy. Hanging out with my sister was the point *gasp* and we both didn't care about buying more crap we didn't really need. So that's when I had this mini-writerly moment.

At SCBWI one of the workshop presenters emphasized the importance of character development. One way to check this in your story is to see if what your character WANTS at the beginning of the book is what they NEED at the end of the book. As I munched on strawberry cheesecake jellybeans and sour peach rings, I realized my sister and I had semi-illustrated this. At first we wanted to spend five dollars, but through the course of the day we realized we didn't NEED to spend the five dollars. We just needed to be together *sniff sniff* *group hug*

Had we known this in the beginning, we might have just stayed home to talk and hang out on the sofa, but would we have had as much fun? No!! The same with our characters. If they knew what they need at the beginning of the story, they might not go through the whole crazy adventure in the book we're writing, but that's what makes it fun. They get to figure it out.

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