Success breeds success, because if you do well one day you’ll want that great feeling again, so you’ll try to replicate it. That’s why I set goals and do my best to keep at them day after day.

Right now I’m asking myself to spend at least 1/2 hour daily on each of four projects. Quite often my 1/2 hour small bite of work will blossom into an hour or two, but if I require only 1/2 hour it helps me get started.

My current four projects are:

(1) Critique of a novel for a friend in my Silverweb Children’s Writers Critique Group. (By the way - we’re looking for new members - I’ll tell how to apply at the end of this post.)

(2) Oja - my NaNoWriMo novel needs to be finished. I’ve been working on plotting and character issues that need to be resolved before heading into the writing of the third and final act. I’m using the Snowflake Pro software to do this.

(3) River Girl - my 2004 novel, a short MG, is going through a fourth or fifth revision (I lost count!) My critique group friends went over it earlier this year and I’m now including their suggestions. I think this one is just about done.

(4) The Alyssa Project - I wrote this YA in 2002 and am working on the second revision. There’s still a lot of work left to do on it. Yesterday I revised chapters eight and nine… out of 63 short chapters. Once I get done with this revision I’ll use the Snowflake Pro software to improve the characterization and plot.

When I hit a home run, meaning: when I manage to get work done on all four projects, it feels so good, I want to do it again and again. I love that I’m getting so much revision work done. Reviewing my earlier writing and watching my characters develop gives me a charge unlike any other.

…

Now then, if you’re interested in joining a friendly critique group for YA and MG novelists, send a short bio and a writing sample of less than 1000 words to us at silverwebcritiquegroup[at]gmail.com. We will let you know whether or not you’ve been chosen to be in the group. We’ve got seven members now but some are inactive. We don’t have requirements for forced submissions or critiques… it is done on an as-needed and goodwill basis. Friendships before rules! Members can submit either full novel manuscripts or stories/chapters. So, if you’re interested, don’t be shy… we would love to know about you and your novels.

Now that I have two hours daily for writing - not counting the hour I spend writing morning pages - I’d like to clarify how these two precious hours can best be used.

1. Revision - I have so much of this to do! Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may know I’ve written ten novels, most of which have never been revised. If I was to revise one chapter daily for the next year - I might eventually have some novels worth publishing. In my dream world I’ll be able to hire an editor to help me with this project. Meanwhile, looks like I’m still my own editor and I should get to work!

2. Submissions - right now I have only one novel that I feel is revised sufficiently enough to submit - and that is The Scribe of Irohila, the first book in my Antediluvian Adventures.

3. Critiques - I belong to two writing groups. Silverweb is a small critique group for writers of middle grade and young adult novels. I get a lot of help there so I need to reciprocate as much as possible. We have two published authors in the group: Beverly Stowe McClure, author of Rebel in Blue Jeans and other YA novels, and Daniel Chase, co-writer of a book-length memoir, Lost in the Fog. My second writing group consists of twenty novelists over age fifty who met on the NaNoWriMo message boards in November 2007. I trade critiques with some of these angels as well.

4. Reviewing and Adding To My Writer’s Notebook - What good is a writer’s notebook if you never read it? I occasionally glance through mine to refresh my memory about all the good ideas I’ve stored there over the course of many months. And while I’m there, I often add notes. One of these days I’m going to start another notebook because this one is nearly full. That day is coming soon.

5. Planning New Novels - When I start a novel, I like to have a good idea of where it is going. I like to know the beginning, the end, and some worthy plot points. I’ve tried writing novels without these and honestly, I think plotting is better, though I don’t get too detailed because I love to have room for my imagination to roam while I’m writing.

6. Characterization Work - My strategy for novel writing includes a deep knowledge of my characters. I’ve found a method of characterization I love — I use Martha Alderson’s method which I learned from a video of one of her workshops: Blockbuster Plots Writers Workshop.

7. Adding to My Chapbook - I’ll bet you didn’t know I’ve got a chapbook in progress. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it in this blog before. The chapbook is being written for people living in the river valley I live in, or for those who used to live here, who still want to read about it. The chapbook will contain a couple of short stories or poems featuring characters from some of my novels… which I hope will intrigue my friends and neighbors enough that they’ll want to buy my novels once they’re published. The novels I’ll feature here all have some relation to this area. Anyhow, you can expect a variety of Klamath River Valley stories, poems, and articles in this.

8. Writing Practice - I’m constantly writing about the value of writing practice sessions. I write some of my best flash fiction this way. Great hobby!

9. Digitizing My Songs and Poems - Back in the day, I wrote lots of poetry, and evenually became a song writer. Most of this work is still on paper. I need to collect it in a digital file, and think of some way to publish it.

10. Writing a New Novel - This is always the challenge, isn’t it? For the last year I’ve been very hesitant about writing more new material since I have so many novels in need of revision. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop myself. I have two young adult novels in progress.

I used to write poetry daily. In fact, for a while, it became quite an obsession. I also delved deeply into songwriting — the musical side of poetry. But I gave it all up in favor of sanity, long ago.

Lately I’ve dabbled at a bit of poetry, for the fun of it. I’m not diving into the deep end of the Mariana Trench this time.

A few weeks ago I wrote some limericks for a contest. Here’s what I came up with: The Irish Story of Frank Martin and the Fairies, Retold in Limericks.

Today I wrote an autobiographical prose-poem, free-verse style: A Baby Boomer Defines Life After World War II.

I’ve been working on a series of middle grade to young adult novels. They are each about 50,000 words in length. After revising the first one several times, it is down to 48,000 words. It is nearly ready for submissions.

The Scribe of Irohila

This is a middle grade adventure about a 12-year-old boy, Raoli, who lived in a civilization so ancient, no historical record of it exists on earth. Raoli sees strangers floating downriver near his village, Irohila. He is convinced his village could benefit from knowing more about where the strangers came from. The novel chronicles his search for the village of the strangers. This novel has been revised six times and is ready to submit.

The Seagull Rebellion

A minor character from the first novel takes center stage in The Seagull Rebellion. Maralin, a 13-year-old girl from the inland city of Halekalo, goes with her father to Valeka, a huge city beside the ocean. There her father’s attempts to study wildlife bring on hostilities from a nearby group of primitive villagers, and Maralin’s life is endangered.

The Legend of Kao Pao

Back in Irohila, Raoli, now age 14, is about to participate in a coming-of-age ceremony called Jakata, but he rebels against the tradition of having to announce his choice for a future wife. Meanwhile Irohila has its first visitor from outside the culture, a woman who serves as high-priestess in the Halekalan temple of Kao Pao, a deity whose earthly messenger, Berendi, was born in Irohila three hundred years earlier. The first draft for The Legend of Kao Pao was completed in 2006.

The Valekan Migration

Maralin, now 15, is forced to evacuate along with thousands of other residents of Valeka. She embarks on a journey north along the coastline, and in the process, redefines who she is and what she will become. The first draft was completed in 2007.

I may write more after this; I’ll have to wait to see how the series is received.

Tonight I finished the fourth revision of The Scribe of Irohila, a novel I wrote in 2001. Sorry to say, I feel I must revise it again. It is getting close to completion, but I’ll be checking for a lot of useless words and double checking that all the characters are consistent. I also need to add some descriptions. It seems that a writer’s work is never done! Of course one of these days I’ll have to give it up, send it to publishers, and concentrate on something else, but for now, I’m still sure I’ve got work to do.

For example, the word “just” is practically useless. I scanned the entire manuscript for the word, and found it way too many times. Even though I know it is a useless word that has almost no place in a novel, I’d skipped over it about two dozen times during this last revision. With my scan, I deleted almost every “just” I found, though I kept a few I thought were appropriate.

This time I wrote a summary of each chapter as I read through the manuscript. These summaries are version one of my synopsis. My next project will be to revise the synopsis until it sounds like an exciting novel any agent or editor would love to read more of. I’ll do that and start revision five.

The Scribe of Irohila starts out slow and ends up as an exciting, eventful novel that’s hard to put down. I love the characters and the locations, and everything about this novel. I look forward to the day I feel ready to share it with the world.

I’ve been struggling with revision for years. It used to be so easy - before I was struck with the necessity of getting an entire novel ready for publication. I’ve read so many suggestions. Some go-getters advise only two edits - one for correcting typos and getting rid of excess verbiage, and one for adding details. Others say a novel should be revised ten times or more! What’s a novelist-in-training to do?

It appears that since there are so many methodologies of revision being promoted, we who are writers must go by our own instincts to know when our novels are ready for submission. Personally, I prefer to edit more than just twice. I’m on my fourth revision of The Scribe of Irohila, and this is a major one. I’ve added several scenes. I’ve cut entire paragraphs without regrets. I may try to combine two chapters soon. I’m not sure about that, but I’m considering it, to make the introductory section of the novel move faster. I’ve never done these things before and for me, it has been a nightmare to learn it.

Maybe if I cared less about my novel, it wouldn’t hurt so much. Somehow I’ve picked up the feeling that touching my novel is scary because I might scrap something that should stay. Or keep things that should disappear forever. Either way, it seems that what I’m facing is an irrational fear that I may be incompetent to revise effectively.

The truth is that I’m very competent as an editor. I’ve been working for the last six years as an editor for a small town news business. Yet when it comes to my own novel, I’m having a terrible time getting revisions done. At this point, I’m somewhat desperate. I need to get this project off the ground because I have quite a few other novels begging for my attention.

I believe after the first novel is edited, revised, and done with, it will be easier to do the others. I’m just sorry it took so long to get the first one done. (I wrote it in 2001, in only 17 days!)

I know that the opposite of fear is love, so my plan, to overcome this irrational feeling, is to love my novel into readiness. And that’s realistic. I truly do love The Scribe of Irohila. Every time I read through it, I enjoy it and am pleased that I wrote such an unusual novel for children. But there are so many tiny details that must be coordinated to make the novel work perfectly. I’m probably going to finish this revision soon and find other people to read it through. I need another person’s perspective to let me know if something is missing or out of place.

I’m still working on revisions for my 2001 novel, The Scribe of Irohila - this is the fourth revision - and at the same time I’m writing the synopsis. I’ve been terribly slow at getting this novel ready for publication. I wrote the original manuscript in only 17 days, but getting to the first edit took months because I’d never done it before and because I wanted to give it a rest period before reading it for the first time.

When I get this revision done I’ll be sending copies out to a few people for reading and reviewing. I have a few family members wanting to do this for me, but would like to have some children’s book writers look at it too, so I’m interested in trading book reviews with someone else who has a manuscript revised and ready for a first-reader.

This is a coming-of-age type middle grade novel set in a primitive society; fairly realistic, not much fantasy to it.

Here’s where I’m at with my novel projects:

1. The Scribe of Irohila - written in 2001 - has been revised four times and is just about ready to be submitted. I’m still working on the synopsis, and have decided to send it to agents first in hopes of getting help with the sale.

2. River Girl - finished in 2004, I think - has been revised a couple of times but still needs a major revision to flesh out the descriptions.

3. The following novels have never been revised:
The Seagull Rebellion - 2002
The Legend of Kao Pao - 2006
Curious Woman - 2003
Far Out - The Journey to Oblivion… - 2004

4. The following novels either haven’t been finished, or require major rewrites:
The Escape - 2001
The Alyssa Project - 2002
Primal Harmonies - 2005
Watching Hazel - 2006
Perfection - 2005

5. The following are short chapter books for young children, each about 10,000 words:
Cierra and the Fairies - revised, but needs more revision
Danielle’s Story - I’ve never even read this one and can’t remember what year I wrote it.