Remodel? Or Revision?

http://dir.coolclips.com/Industry/Trades/Construction/Carpenters/renovations,_construction,_carpentry_vc003592.html

Lately I've been a bit irregular in my blogging due to several interruptions. Christmas holidays, of course, but the most recent one is preparing our house for a modest (but disruptive) kitchen remodel. For the last ten days, while updating my Facebook page, my photo albums, while revamping my blog, I've also been packing up dishes, pots and pans, food and spices, etc., in order to empty shelves that are going to be ripped out Wednesday so that new ones can be put in. We are having a dishwasher installed as well, so we had to go purchase one. (Yes, all these years we've been washing dishes by hand.)

http://www.clker.com/clipart-packing-boxes.html

You never know how much you've accumulated until you have to empty your kitchen of every single item that isn't an appliance. This has also turned into a "down-sizing" event in general: I've been combing through drawers and closets in other rooms as well as the kitchen, sorting through items and taking bags and boxes to various thrift stores in the area--all the while wondering, what on earth makes us accumulate things we don't use or need? I actually started some of this purge before Christmas on the premise that someone else might have a happier Christmas as a result of my clean-out. One person's "cast off" really is another person's "great find". I know, because I hang out at thrift stores. The purge has also progressed to the basement and the garage; and I have to say, it feels great to be less encumbered. 

http://www.freeclipartnow.com/education/books/books.jpg.html

But as I've been sorting, deciding what to keep and what to eliminate, I couldn't help noticing the parallels to revising and editing a book. (See? Once a writer, everything becomes relevant to writing.) Isn't that what we do in a rewrite? Pare down. Pull out what isn't essential to the story. Decide what to keep, what to eliminate. (In some cases, what to save for another story with a better fit--not too different from trundling items over to another location, like a thrift store, where they can be put to better use.)


Maybe it's the effect of the year turning--out with the old, in with the new--but I seem to be revising and editing everywhere I look: my WIP, my blog, my Facebook, our home. "Eliminate clutter" is becoming my mantra for the year--and it wasn't even on my list of New Year's resolutions.


Feels good, though.


How about you? What revisions are going on in your life at the dawn of this new year?

The Best Laid Plans

I think I got over-ambitions with my recovering foot.  I did not accomplish everything on my list in my last post as soon as I meant to. Over about three days, I did get those three poems sent out, and I rewrote a short story for a fiction contest and entered it. I did visit websites, etc. for agents I want to send my MG mystery to, and made my list.  And then I just got plain tired.  I will spare you the details of foot excercises three times a day, 20 minutes each time.  But those exercises, plus walking around a little, really wore me out.

So, I've been reading again.  Not fiction, because I think I reached "fiction glut" rather than "reader glut" last week.  Instead, I've been re-visiting books on the writing craft and doing some more research for my current WIP under revision, my MG ghost story set in 1919 Sacramento. My characters are Irish-Americans, so I've been especially soaking in anything Irish, and the book I just finished reading (and thoroughly enjoying) is Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization, a wonderfully written account in a style that makes history truly exciting to read.


The writing books I've been poring over are: Self-editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King, and Novelist's Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes, by Raymond Obstfeld.  The latter is really for writers of adult fiction, but, except for the chapters on murder mysteries and sex scenes, the advice and examples are superb for children's writers as well.  Both books are good.  I've read them before, they are part of my library, but you never can revisit a good book on the writing craft too many times.


So, now the foot is better, the energy is back, and it's forward and on to my revision of Granny's Jig, and query letters for Imogene and the Case of the Missing Pearls -- although my computer time will be in smaller doses for a few days. (I have learned my lesson.)

Hope all of you are   writing well, and look forward to visiting your blogs again soon.  Ciao for now.