Thursday, April 22, 2010

Why I Love Author2Author

Tip of the Day: When you blog, always remember to tag your entries. It really helps you find stuff later on!

Ok, there are dozens of reasons I could tell you about why I love Author2Author but I'm going to focus in on one particular thing. The archives. Every time I'm going through something in my writerly life I check through the Author2Author archives to see a) Did I go through this before and how did I deal with it then? and b) Did the other Author2Author girls go through this before and how did they deal with it then?

Take right now. I'm smack dab in the middle of revisions on my third book, Pumpkin Princess. And I'm at the stage where I keep thinking to myself will I ever be able to straighten everything out and have it all make sense?! Part of me wants to hide the editorial letter under my bed and pretend it doesn't exist. Lalalalalala. But I know I can't. It's kind of like walking into a room where your kid has puked ALL over the place (sorry for gross visual) and you sigh deeply, push up your sleeves, pull your shirt up over your mouth to cover the smell, and tell yourself, "I've got to do it." Nobody else is going to clean up the mess. It's up to me. So everyday, when I look at my editorial letter I tell myself to just get in there and get it done.

Which brings me to why I love Author2Author. I was trying to remember how the heck I handled the first revisions on Espressologist and Fake Boyfriend and of course I'm blanking. So I look under Blog Labels on the bottom right of the page at Revising/Editing and see that, Lisa felt the same way when she was revising Far From You. And how Em turns into Revision Girl to fight bad grammar and whip manuscripts into shape. And I read how Deena keeps herself from getting distracted during revisions. And how Kate has to print out the entire book and hold it in her hand to revise (me too!)

And it all reminds me that I'm not alone and even thought this latest revision looks so hard I'll get through it too!

Kristina, Miss See Me On the Shelves

2 comments:

Lisa Schroeder said...

Yeah, it's so important that we don't feel alone when we're in that place where we are asking ourselves, IS THIS NORMAL???

Glad you got assured that yes, it is (unfortunately).

I'm guessing my editorial letter for THE DAY BEFORE will be coming sometime in the next month. I'll have to come back to this post then, so I don't feel all alone. :)

DeenaML said...

Check things off the "to do" list. That usually helps me feel accomplished and like I'm moving forward, lol! :)