Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Revision Girl

Tip of the Day: Teens will do just about anything if pizza is involved.

For the past few weeks, Emily’s Writing World has had the fortune to entertain Revision Girl.

Revision Girl posing as Wonder Woman

Unlike many writers, I actually love having Revision Girl around, sometimes even more than Writer Girl (but please don’t tell Writer Girl that, because she’s kind of important to the whole operation in Writing World and I like her lots, too). Because Revision Girl gets to karate chop sentences/scenes/chapters, whip a character into shape, and sparkle up the page with fun descriptions and details.

But after much time and work sometimes Revision Girl gets tired and starts to look like this:


And feels like this:



Which makes her want to stop Revising all together. And attempts such as: tricking her by letting her work for one hour then rewards of seeing Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice followed by chocolate begin to no longer work. Nor does a comfy new superhero outfit.

So because Revision Girl is quite shy and afraid to speak up on this blog, I am going to ask a question from her on her behalf. She’d like to know what you guys use to keep your own Revision Girls (or Boys) active and wanting to keep fighting crime one word and sentence at a time.

Is it the old Butt-in-Chair? A simple week off? Reading a Super-Awesome book? Or maybe a simple reminder that Revisions are an important operation?

Revision Girl thanks you dearly in advance for sharing and helping a girl come out of her superhero rut.

--Emily, Miss Awaiting an Agent



7 comments:

Ghost Girl (aka, Mary Ann) said...

Colin Firth...MMMM! Chocolate...MMMM! Yummy all the way around!

The story is what gets me excited and keeps my butt in the chair. As I start reading and realize, "OooH, this needs a little more this..." or "Holy Cow, what the hell did I mean to say there?!" or "oo...oo... what's going to happen nexts? (I love it when that happens!).

Of course a nice piece of dark chocolate is always a nice positive reinforcement, too. But there's something about simple forward motion and immersing myself in that world I've created that just floats my boat!

Dang! That lasso of truth really gets ya, Revision Girl!

Emily Marshall said...

I will pass along these comments to Revision Girl. I think she likes those moments too, maybe she needs to just keep plugging at it till the excitement happens again.

Kate Fall said...

Great post, Emily! I like to play with crayons and highlighters and unusual pens. I don't know why, but color gets me through revising sometimes. I'll come up with a color code for different plotlines or scene purposes. I use different colored index cards too. Not that I'm sure I'm using these things effectively ... but a box of crayons does make it more fun. Use the weird colors: like underline where you introduced new characters in neon magenta.

Actually, I think I'll start marking passages in need of rescue in red and blue for Revision Girl!

Emily Marshall said...

Excellent suggestion, Kate. Crayons do seem to make everything more fun, don't they?

Ghost Girl (aka, Mary Ann) said...

oooo! I love those little sticky flags, too. Lots of fun!

DeenaML said...

While I'm doing my revisions now, it helps me to:
1. print out the novel
2. read thru it and mark up the hard copy
3. make the changes from the hard copy to the electronic file, and
4. recycle the pages as I make the changes to each hard copy page! It totally makes me feel like I'm making progress when I get to throw things away!
Good luck, Revision Girl!

Emily Marshall said...

Deena, that's a good idea. I do like lists and more particularly checking off lists for that very reason. I like feeling accomplished. I might try that on the next revision.