Recently, we had an interesting discussion at our writing group. At what point in the writing process to you turn something over to a first reader? There’s a lot of variables, but in the end the answer amounts to “it depends on the reader and the author.”…

I publicly committed to a deadline of June 30 for my editing pass, and that deadline has wooshed past. That’s the problem with arbitrary deadlines–there’s no way to tell how realistic they are.

It’s fair to say that before this point, I’ve never properly edited a novel before.…

As I noted earlier here, heads down in editing. No idea if my overall word count is up or down at this point. With the first pass on paper, there’s tons that’s crossed out, but lots written in margins too. The stack of pages left to do looks like less than 50, after which I get to attempt to read all my handwriting and type in the changes.…

With the long weekend in the US, I’m diving back into my VP novel for an editing pass. Not to put to fine a point on it, I don’t know what I’m doing. Previous attempts at editing novel-length fiction have typically taken a looong time, and while producing a greatly improved result, haven’t produced something I’d be comfortable pitching, say to an agent.…

Why 14 months? Because numbers are arbitrary, and there’s a better beginning, middle, and end this way. 🙂

The primary drawback of my choice of writing as an avocation is that on top of a sedentary, computer-centric work day of 8-10 hours, I throw on a few more hours of the same.…

Inspired by fellow VP alumni Miranda Suri, here’s a look behind the scenes at Chez Joel.

What I’m working on: Still plowing on my NaNoWriMo 2010 project. I briefly delved into a 6-year-old short story, which holds a special place in my heart as my first rejection-with-comments.…