A linked list of all posts from Revision Month can be found here. I think I have figured out a workable solution to my problem with the section that was in the wrong place. Part of it has to do with the novel as a kind of web, the way that each part can hopefully…

A linked list of all posts from Revision Month can be found here. I, like the wise and wonderful Stacey Swann, whose editing tips are included below, have always courted organization. Though I am far less successful in my daily life than I wish to be in my writing, my mind has always worked analytically,…

A linked list of all posts from Revision Month can be found here. Revision as sports movie, as cleared-out room, as changing lenses, as — as in today’s essay by Cam Terwilliger — ballet. Will we ever get enough of metaphors? Below, Terwilliger talks about some of what I was trying to talk about yesterday,…

A linked list of all posts from Revision Month can be found here. We start out today with an essay by Kate Racculia, author of This Must Be the Place. The Uglier the Ugly Stage My ninth grade art teacher, Mr. Nick Todisco, gave me the single best piece of writing advice I ever heard,…

A linked list of all posts from Revision Month can be found here. To celebrate our Independence (from first drafts), I’ve compiled 20 or so snippets on revision from some really wonderful writers. Due to my own lacks, most of the thoughts are on fiction, though I promise we’ll hear from a few other poets…

A linked list of all posts from Revision Month can be found here. When I asked writers to chime in with their revision thoughts, I also asked some of The Good Men Project fiction authors to say something about how much I bothered them by making them revise/edit their stories. Only the super-honest Mike Meginnis…

A linked list of all posts from Revision Month can be found here. Here’s the selfish reason I wanted to do a Revision Month. I wanted other people’s knowledge. Maybe that’s what we do as writers: suck the experience out of others and use it for ourselves. We’re as fascinating and frightening as vampires (the…

A linked list of all Revision Month posts can be found below. I am amazed that the good and wise Steve Himmer has let me have the run of the place for a month. I am going to mess this house up and only talk about how to clean it. For July, I have decided…

Before you break into the prizefighter’s basement, you ask around again, trying to prepare yourself for what’s coming. But the legend about the prizefighter is always changing, isn’t ever the same, has variant plotlines depending on who’s telling the story. Kids at the skatepark say the prizefighter spent time in the military. Kids at the…

Note: For the duration of my time as writer in residence, I will be serializing a longish improvised story on Mondays, posting work by other writers in response to games on Wednesdays, and posting assorted sundries on Fridays. Part I: Him What Died and Gave it Up You tore your grandfather’s character sheet to shreds…

This is just a very brief post to sign off from what has been a hugely enjoyable month as writer in residence over here at Necessary Fiction. Now that April is coming to an end, I’m looking forward with some trepidation to a May filled with piles of student papers in need of grading. Having…

Yesterday I posted an extract from my forthcoming novel, The Descent of the Lyre, so today I thought I would say a little more about the book. And because I thought that an interview might be the best way of doing this, I have called in Lupe Varos to do the job. I invented Varos…