Photo by Cara Lopez Lee My husband and I are selling our Denver, Colorado home at the same time I’m revising my novel. I can’t help but notice parallels. Let’s look at a few: 1) Staging my house: A real estate agent told us it might take two weeks to repair, repaint, de-clutter, and clean. It took five weeks, more than twice what we expected. Revising my novel: Last August I hoped to finish my novel revisions by February. That would have been six months. It’s August again, and I won’t be done until October. That’s fourteen months, more than twice what I expected. I’ve always believed, “Everything takes twice as long as you expect.” Since “twice as long” is what I expect, sometimes I double that. 2) Staging my house: While de-cluttering our house, I began deciding what to keep and what to throw away for our move to Ventura, California. I recently watched a video about the book,  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up , by Marie Kondo. Here’s my favorite of her tips...

I follow the “social media maven” Kristen Lamb’s blog. She is a zany, savvy writer and social media marketer. Here are excerpts from a recent blog post “ Five Warning Signs Your Story Needs Revision .” I ditto her remark, “To maybe make you guys feel better, I’ve written well over a million words in blogs and articles alone. I’ve also written three books, two novels and scads of short stories. As much as I have written—and EDITED—even I have to seek outside editors to look for these issues.” Photo by Andrea De Stefani ,  via Free Images Kristen’s warning flags: 1. If Your Novel has More Characters than the Star Wars Prequels, You Might Need Revision. Whenever the author takes the time to name a character, that is a subtle clue to the reader that this is a major character and we need to pay attention. Think Hollywood and movies (good ones, NOT the SW prequels). If the credits roll and there is a named character in the credits, then we can rest assured this charact...

Writers write because they have an idea. Something comes into the writer's head, be it a compelling opening scene or a character that won't quit talking to the writer, or a dream or even a particular phrase that catches the writer's imagination. Something causes the writer to begin writing or plotting. Before you put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper, I recommend you pause. Do you know where this character's story is heading? Do you know what this fabulous scene in your head means? Is it the opening scene or the culminating scene? If the protagonist is speaking to you, is what s/he's saying the beginning of the story? Are those five (or twenty) words that will cause chaos and be the catalyst that changes lives? If you don't know, take time to try to envision where the story is heading. If you can do that, you will save yourself a lot of time and work. A few years back, a character came into my head and would not go away. So I began writing her words. I w...

Some might read the title and say, "But editors write and writers edit. What are you talking about?" Yes, I know they do both; however, writers need to understand that not all editors write when it comes to their editorial services. And knowing this, and researching accordingly can help the writer get the exact services he or she needs. As an editor, I have a site where I talk about my philosophy of editing, state the type of editing I do, and offer prospective clients the opportunity to read what past, current, and repeat clients have to say about my services. I explicitly state what I do on the site: I edit . Prospective clients go there and they know what I am about. When I talk to these prospective clients, I give them my spiel, much of which is expressed on my site. My goal as an editor is to help the client develop the strongest project he or she can. In my evaluations, I try to talk about what I see in their works in a way that teaches the writers, that gives t...