Dear Editor Revision Week Finale with Peter Economy

Ta da! Dear Editor ends Revision Week with a bang. Nonfiction author Peter Economy shares his insights on revising, and with 60+ books he has been down that path.

Check out his books, including Writing Children’s Books for Dummies. 

Day Three of Dear Editor Revision Week Contest!

Ya gotta love an author of books titled Snoring Beauty and Underwhere. Bruce Hale is funny and loved by kids and adults alike. And he acts! And he wears a beret! And he produces books on writing! Check out his blog.

And also check out his take on revisions at Dear Editor’s Revision Week blog today (3/27.) Great insights on the writing process of a successful author.

The Dear Editor blog continues with phase two of Revision Week. This opportunity for a partial review is from author Laura Griffin. Her fun books (if you like murder and mayhem) include the Tracer series. And what great titles: Twisted, Snapped, Scorched.

How about a series for the pre-published who haven’t resorted to crime–yet. Rejected, Snarked, Ignored.

If not, read her helpful comments about revisions here.

Dear Editor is quite dear to us….Revision Week goodies

This is Revision Week from the Dear Editor blog, and the first author is fabulous Larry Dane Brimner. He has been writing for young people during a twenty-year teaching career, his award-winning books ranging from picture books to Middle and YA. Birmingham Sunday, about the Klan bombing that killed four little  girls in a church, is a must read. (And took 49 drafts, he says.)

Check out his fascinating blog post about his revision process and enter for a chance to win a 10-page look at your WIP! (His is the first interview in the week-long series.)

 

 

 

 

Coolest. Map. Ever. About. Writing

Rev up your engines and race over to YA Highway for the coolest writing resources map ever. It’s drawn like the front of the book maps I love to flip to, ie Lord of the Rings, Graceling and others.

You’ll find links to topics like critiquing, sequels, story structure: everything about the writing and publishing process. There’s Writer’s Realm with YA Wharf and Sentence Shire, and Industry Island with Cliffs of Career and Marketing Mountains. Clicking on these and more leads you to useful posts from YA Highway. 

Finally, a map I don’t mind getting lost in. 

Nathan Bransford’s The Fifth Sort of Annual First Paragraph Contest

Anything former agent and now MG novelist Nathan Bransford does is wonderful, so check out the contest and read first graphs from hundreds, plus one lucky winner — who will receive his agent Catherine Drayton’s look at a partial.

Check out his books, too:  the Jacob Wonderbar series. Fun stuff!

 

 

First Five Pages contest…..I’m being critiqued!

I’m so excited to be in the First Five Pages contest, where five lucky writers get to have their first five critted.

I’ve had VERY HELPFUL comments so far…..including insight about the dangers of starting YA books with characters that are peripheral….and don’t show up again. Kids don’t like to start to identify or learn about characters that disappear.

Which totally makes sense. And which I totally had to revise my first five as a result of doing.

The workshop includes two revisions and comments from the other writers being critiqued, along with comments from Adventures in YA Publishing bloggers.

And if that isn’t enough, a published author always participates. This month it’s J. Anderson Coates….and I’m quoting here from her blog:

She writes historical fiction set in the middle ages that routinely includes too much violence, name-calling and petty vandalism perpetrated by badly-behaved young people. Her work is represented by Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. The Wicked and the Just, J’s first book, came out 17 April 2012.

I can’t wait to read her book, which came super fast from the big A. Just sayin’, if you love YA historical fiction. Gorgeous cover and the first five pages, were….shall we say….in NO NEED of workshopping.