NESCBWI conference part 3

That's it. The last period. You have just finished the first draft of your masterpiece and you are sure that this is the one. This is the piece you will send out and not get back in that SASE. This is the one that after a few months, you will hear the phone ring, you will pick it up and an editor's voice will be at the other end of the phone line. You print it and leave it on the printer. Go away, you say. Get some space, you say. Read it later. So you go and you get some space and when you come back, you read it aloud and...It stinks. Time to revise.

Linda Sue Park gave a wonderful (in her words) "tough love" speech for aspiring authors. As I mentioned in the previous post, her ideas were not especially new. They just made me aware in a different way at a different level. The idea that stood out the most was her renaming of revision as Play. "Try it," she urged. Try a new point of view, new wording, take out a character, make the character more important in the scene. Play. She compared cutting a manuscript to the old game show, Name that Tune. She suggested saying to yourself, "I can tell that story in 800 words." Then again, "I can tell that story in 600 words." At some point you will find the place that is just right.

A huge thanks to Linda Sue for her words of wisdom as "tough" as they are to take sometimes, they ring true. Now, it is time to Play.