Essential Revision Supplies

I'm in the middle of my first past revision for the second book in the Sweet Venom trilogy, which is due in to my editor June 1st. Although my writing and revising process tends to change from book to book, there are a few essential supplies I must have in order to get through it.

1. Sticky Notes — I use these, in various colors (sometimes color-coded by type of comment, sometimes by character, like in Sweet Venom) to: mark my daily page goal, flag the first pages of chapters, and to add large sections (a sentence or more) to the manuscript. Right now, I'm using green ones for Grace's notes, orange ones for Gretchen's, and pink ones for Greer's.


2. Highlighters — These are mostly for fun. I'll either highlight the chapter title (color-coded to which girl's POV I'll be in for that chapter), use them to mark up my countdown calendar (green for writing days, orange for revising, pink for days off when I can get life stuff done), or just to pretty up pages of notes in my book notebook.


3. Pen and Pencil — These are for the real work. For marking directly on the manuscript page, I use a mechanical pencil (Pentel in .9mm lead, if you want to be specific) so that I can erase and rewrite (over and over again) as I'm trying to get the line just perfect. For longer additions on the sticky notes, I use a pen (Uniball Vision Elite in micro) so it doesn't smear when I smooth the sticky note into place.


4. Manuscript — I feel like an eco-fraud every time I get my manuscript printed out for my revision pass. But I have discovered that my brain just does not process revisions in the same way on the screen as I do on the printed page. And I do get the manuscript printed on recycled paper, to offset the waste. I contain the manuscript in a big white 3-ring binder with a cover page that has the working title of the book.

So that's what I need to get through my revision process. Do you have any special supplies that you absolutely must have can't live without while you're writing/revising/doing homework?

Hugs,
TLC

teralynnchilds.com
@teralynnchilds

And Just When Life Got Back to Normal...

Whew! I finally made it back to Oklahoma City from a summer in Las Vegas and Orlando. I got a lot of my emails answered and the rest organized to answer soon. I even started to thin out my closet and pack away my bookshelves in preparation for my upcoming (hopefully before the new year) move.

And then...

My editor scheduled a phone call about revising the first Medusa girls book (which actually has a tentative working title, but I'm waiting to see a cover comp before I give a final opinion). A phone call is, um, rarely good. Not at the revision stage, anyway. At the buy-the-book stage it's awesome.

Anyway, an editorial phone call is usually a way to soften the blow of a less-than-minor revision. And also to talk through ideas and confirm that author and editor are on the same page, but mostly the former. In this case, I was already expecting a somewhat massive revision for three reasons:

1. This book is very different from the others I've written. Instead of one main character, there are three. All in first person. Instead of writing it one book at a time, it's a predetermined trilogy (not that there can't be more, but there are at least three) which means a three book story arc. Very complicated.
2. When I wrote the first draft, I stuck very close to my outline. Which is great, direction-wise, but not-so-great depth-wise. Before I turned it in I did a lot of fleshing out for myself, but I knew there was going to have to be more.
3. I (we) want this book to be extra special. It's darker. It's triplets. It's mythology. It's monster-hunting. It's longer. It's more complex. It's a book that I hope will appeal to an even wider audience than my first two series. That all means that I have to work even harder to make it the best book it can be.

All of the above add up to a pretty significant revision, no matter how you look at it. And, since my revision packet arrived yesterday, you can guess what I'll be doing for the next couple-to-few weeks.

On top of the revision, there's also the fact that my dad has accepted a one year teaching position at OSU in Stillwater, Oklahoma. That's a bit over an hour from where their house is in Oklahoma City. After his second day of commute he announced that the round trip drive cost $25 in gas. Gasp!

Guess what this mean? Even before I get my act together to move to Seattle, I'm going to pack up and move (very temporarily) to Stillwater. Thankfully I've got a few weeks to pull that off, and I can combine it with packing for the move to Seattle, only keeping out what I absolutely need. Still!

Add to all that the fact that I think I broke my baby toe yesterday on a shopping cart, and, well...

Even though my life is "back to normal" at the moment, you can see that there really is no such thing for a writer and daughter of theatre parents.

At least it's never dull.

Hugs,
TLC

teralynnchilds.com
@teralynnchilds