“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

DISCLAIMER
I always try to be upfront and honest with people about my skills. I am not a professional editor by any means. I do not have any kind of degree in English or Literature or anything else remotely related. My degree is in Early Childhood Development...a far cry from a English Major. I've been writing most of my life but only took on the challenge of a novel about 7 years ago. I actually pitched my first novel, Dream Weaver, at a writer's conference after I finished a second draft...that was incredibly awful and nowhere near ready for anyone's eyes. It's no wonder my submissions were rejected. I had no clue what I was doing, what I needed to do to flesh out the story, I assumed, incorrectly, that an agent or editor would show me how to fix it all, because, of course, my concept would 'wow' them and they'd automatically sign me. I couldn't have been more wrong.

SO WHAT DID I DO?
MOST WRITERS CALL 'EM BETA-READERS
First, I asked a handful of people to read the story and give me feedback...a sixty-four page manuscript does not a novel make. My mom ended up being the one who asked the most questions and giving me the best feedback to grow my story into a fully fleshed out novel. She pointed out areas that where I had plot holes or things that just didn't make sense. She even gave me ideas of different directions the story could go. Now, with all the connections I've made from building my social platform (from the last post) I have fellow-authors and friends who are willing to beta-read my manuscripts for me. With these people though, I usually wait until I've done a lot more editing before I send the story to them. Sometimes, we are so close to our stories and it all makes sense in our heads, but that's not how it actually reads. It takes a fresh set of eyes to see our mistakes.

At one of the writer's conferences I attended, I met a girl that lives not far from me and we exchanged manuscript for critiques. I was so confident that she would come back and tell me how great the story was and that it was ready for release...just like I imagined the editors and agents would do. We met for coffee a couple of weeks later and she did tell me how great she thought my novel was, but she questioned if my protagonist would really respond the way I wrote her. Ugh! yet one more edit. But because she was willing to challenge my thinking, Dream Weaver became a better book and made my protagonist more powerful.

(Just as a side note: several years ago I read some great Christian books by an amazing author named Bryan Davis. I emailed Bryan to tell him how wonderful his Raising Dragons books are, and ended up befriending him. Because I live in Washington, and he lives in Tennessee, I helped him find stores, schools and organizations to set up some book signings and presentations here. I asked him what was the best thing I could do as a writer. He strongly suggested attending a writer's conference. And I took his advice. I can absolutely tell you that a great majority of what I've learned, was gleaned from the writer's conferences I attended.)

BOOKS ABOUT WRITING BOOKS
At that same writer's conference, I attended the closing session and the keynote speaker was a woman named Elizabeth Lyon, who spoke on editing your manuscript. At the end of the session, I got to meet Miss Lyon and have her sign a copy of her book, Manuscript Makeover, for me. That book became my bible of writing. It has more highlighted passages and tabbed pages than my actual bible. I highly recommend that every new writer get a copy of this book or one similar...Stephen King also has one, On Writing. In Manuscript Makeover, the author explains the basics of editing, story arc, all the way to how to write a query letter and synopsis...if you're thinking of going the traditional publishing route.

TRY A TEXTBOOK
A friend from work gave me one of her son's old English composition textbooks (Writing with a Purpose). It covers basic to complex sentence and paragraph structure; proper use of  past and present verbs; proper use of a comma or semi-colon...They can be a great resource for answering quick grammatical questions.

"When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done." Stephen King, November 1973

JUST DON'T DO IT!
I'll go into more depth in my next post, but please please do not present your baby to the world before it's ready. If you're self-publishing it's very frustrating to authors who have polished their work to a gleaming shine only to have to compete with books that others threw up for sale after the first or second draft. If you decide to go the route of traditional query letters and submitting your work to agents and editors, save yourself some grief of rejection letters that could completely disuade you from continuing your dream. There's not much sadder than the death of a dream.

THE DEATH OF A DREAM (An anecdote)
A few years ago, our neighbor had a little sports car he dreamed of fixing up. But life got in the way, as it often does, and little to nothing got done on his car. After years of the thing collecting dust in the garage, his wife convinced him to get rid of it. A few days later, a flatbed pulled into the driveway and they rolled the old car up onto the truck and fastened it down. I almost cried as the truck pulled away with that little sports car. Anyone else watching wouldn't have thought much of it. But to me, standing at my living room window...I saw his dream driving away without him...I saw the death of a dream.

DON'T GET DISCOURAGED
Just like a real baby, you want your story baby as developed as possible before you present it to the world. And if you're on your first, second or even third or fourth edit, don't be discouraged by the idea that you've got to do it one more time. It takes work and time to prepare a child to release into the world, and you're novel is the same. Hang on to your dream and never let go.

“Just remember that Dumbo didn't need the feather;
the magic was in him. ”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

My personal theme has been Dare to Dream. 'Dare' is a powerful word and though 'dream' seems to be the focus of the thought, it's the daring that holds the power. If you dream of being a published author, hang onto that dream. There are a lot of things that could discourage you from giving your dream wings, but never let anything clip those wings.

A Quote for Zecharias Sweet (Dream Weaver)
"Dare to dream, for in the daring there is defiance to live beyond your circumstances..."

So, I challenge you as I challenge myself...
DARE TO DREAM!
And,
Have a DARING day!

Su