First 250 Words Smash! #27

Most Wonderful Author: rook-on || rook-on @ Tumblr
Most Evil Critique Master: Sarah
Working Title: The Beginning

Run.

Every fibre in her body told her to run. She didn’t though.

Hop then. Hop if you need to.

She still didn’t. Instead, she fiddled with a stray piece of her brown hair nervously, waiting for something to happen. Body poised, she stayed crouched, waiting. Maybe an order from Snake, or Magpie would come through. Her ear piece was silent though, only static streaming through.

She felt nervous. Something should have happened by now. She should be on her way back to base by now... not crouching there like a petrified rabbit. Ironic, considering her code name was rabbit.

This thought did not make her smile though, or ease her frayed nerves. Alys wanted to be back in her room curled up where it was safe, reading. Back in a familiar environment. This should be a quick mission, checking out an area for Intel, see if they could save some children. She felt like she was in danger out here, where people could hurt her, harm her. She did not like the stillness, it made her feel unsafe, targeted. It made her feel like someone might shoot her-

Wait, there was an order.

‘Rabbit, go back to base. Everything’s clear, over and out!’  Her ear piece relayed, buzzing in her ear. Euphoria washed over her, and she quickly concentrated, the familiar feeling washing over her. She could see in her mind’s eye that it would take at least four hops to get near the base, maybe five.

Strong Points –
I like that the passage builds on tension right away. The question of conflict is a quick way to draw a reader right in, asking a big question that only reading on can answer. This can be a very tough thing to do in just a few paragraphs, but it comes through nice and strongly. The way she fidgets and the way she’s poised and ready and waiting are the strongest, clearest conveyers of tension while still giving readers something to picture. Even the mention of stillness really twists up the nerves.


Some Tips –
There’s a lot of unpacking that can be done with this, overall, but mainly we can sum it up in two categories:

1. Setting
2. Distancing phrases

I’m tackling the setting, specifically her surroundings, because I haven’t got a single bit of it yet. I was able to get a bit of Alys, crouched and waiting, but I couldn’t see where she was crouched, what the area was like around her. I didn’t have a place to picture the area she’s checking for Intel, or the stillness. Her fidgeting and her posture gave me a great taste of her, and a taste is a good measure for an opening scene, but I didn’t get any taste of the where. The World in Words exercise might help you out there, especially with the tips section.

Now, with distancing phrases (which you can read a little more about from the article I linked to you, a bit further down as well), as an example, feel/felt is used a total of five times in the passage. Phrases like this can be useful when trying to communicate a sense of uncertainty in what the character is feeling, or a sense of removal or distance, but that isn’t the case here. The main character is very close to her chemistry and what she’s feeling. The Breathing Atmosphere exercise help you with that.

Also, many other words are reused, such as “though”, “through”, “by now”, “washing/ed over her”. These words draw attention to themselves because, while common, aren’t common enough to go without notice. Also, they might be word tics. These are words that writers cling to, comfortable words that allow writers to coast instead of explore new ways to describe things. Try writing without using any of these words, break the habit, or search the entire story for how often you use these words. Then, you’ll start to see how often they actually do show up, and when you go to use it as you’re writing, you’ll be more aware of it.

The repetition also manifests in other ways, such as announcing “Wait, there was an order” just before giving the order, and then giving the order and announcing it after with, “Her ear piece relayed, buzzing in her ear.” These extra repeating phrases don’t carry their weight in the narrative. Paring it down to only the necessary bits, such as the ear piece buzzing and the actual order, would cut out a lot of fat and allow more of an opportunity for other things to be introduced sooner.

It might help to check out some of the other exercises, such as making description work harder, unpacking details, and maybe conveying mood. Playing around with these might help build on tools to bring out more details wherever possible.

Also, make sure to check out proper formatting for manuscripts, because bold is very rarely used.


Would I Keep Reading?
I’d rather wait to see the writing made stronger. For now, it’s a no, but I hope these tips help and I’d definitely like to see a resubmission!

Good luck! ♥

You Will Change as a Writer

The summer before my junior year of high school, I stopped writing.

The days leading up to the sudden collapse showed zero signs of what would eventually happen. I'd been stamping the keys from morning until night, and at my peak, I completed three chapters in one day. I'm gonna have to estimate the collective word count for that day was probably about 12,000.

Yikes.

Did I even take breaks to eat or, er, use the toilet? I don't remember. All I remember, with an unusual amount of poignancy, was finishing up, looking out the aged, dusty frill curtain of the single window, and realizing it was dark.

But writing marathons were normal for the summertime. I mean, this was back when we had one computer for the whole house to fight over, but I'd claim the titanium beast early in the morning and cling to it all day, and I'd been ready to pick up the next day where I left off. I wasn't writing with much of an outline, but I had a fairly clear idea what I was going to do, and I had predicted about eight chapters were left before the spectacular end. I was ready to get there. I had finished four manuscripts before this, and I was ready to mark this my fifth.

I never finished the next chapter.

I never finished the manuscript.

Originally I told myself I had burned out. Maybe I had. But I also told myself I only needed a break -- all the stresses of life as a seventeen-year-old picking up a million broken pieces of bad times had definitely impacted my ability to create. It was the whole reason why I had decided to leave public school for independent studies at home for a year, after all. Healing was in order.

But as the weeks dragged into months and the months into years, I didn't finish another manuscript. I didn't finish anything. When I received my first laptop for Christmas, the first thing I did was open up the basic word processing program ad start a new story on it. I got about five chapters in and stopped. I started project after project and finished none of them. I wrote with friends until we weren't writing anymore.

Senior year, I went back to public school and decided I couldn't be a writer because of this. I went into art instead. I graduated without honors because depression had ruined my freshman and sophomore GPAs. I got a job at my father's law office. I coasted.

With Victoria across the country, we wrote together to get ourselves through problems with home life. When she finally moved down here after her own graduation, something had changed. I picked up what was about to be the first rewrite of the Marionettes Saga and I finished the first book. It took eight long months, but I finished it.

Some financial ceilings crackled and came down on our heads. We moved to Pennsylvania, but two months later, I picked up writing the second book. I finished in five months, after we came back to California. I moved right onto the third book and finished it in less than four months.

I jumped into the brand new fourth book, but this thing was a monster, and I took a long break toward the final quarter to write more with Victoria. We wrote a ton. We finished books and moved onto new books, and we didn't keep track of the word counts. We wrote because we couldn't not write.

I also took a break because I had decided to write to be published, and this is a pivotal change for any writer. I can confidently say that 99% of my growth as a writer occurred because I had decided I was going to make myself into a writer of publishable quality, which meant actively looking for ways to improve. I had problems with writing reasonably sized stories because, one, Victoria and I never cared about word count when we wrote and, two, I didn't even know there was a "reasonable size" for stories.

I learned a lot because I had a lot to learn, and I wanted to learn.

My first manuscript failed to get agent attention because I hadn't yet learned, but then I wrote another manuscript and I kept learning.

Failure taught me a lot. I failed over and over again, and I gave up a few times because of failure, but I kept writing because I still couldn't not write. Phases of stress and depression came and went and were tough to endure, and I did little to no writing during these periods, but not only did things around me change, like circumstances and setting and people, but things inside me changed too: where I was emotionally, the things that I found inspiring, the things that I had learned and was learning, so on.

I wrote more books. I kept writing books. I finished books and moved onto other books. I kept teaching myself how to write better. I built up endurance. But I never stopped having thoughts of "Am I good enough?" or "Would people actually want to read this?" or "What if this is actually really bad?"

Those thoughts won't stop. I'll never tell you they will.

Some writers can write with utter confidence and then get up in front of thousands of people and talk intelligibly about their story and entertain the masses and smirk like a true author in the portrait on the inside dust jacket flap.

The rest of us are only human.

But wherever you are right now, it doesn't have to stay that way. Keep moving, coast if you need to take a break, and then start moving again. Any step forward is still a step, no matter how small. Even if you've made a big step, that can be daunting, because then we put the pressure on ourselves to match or even top the stride, down to the placement of the toes and heel. Big steps make our little steps look like nothing.

Your little steps are not nothing.

If you start fifty stories and never finish one, you're still writing and you're still making those creative juices work. Keep wanting to do better, keep working, keep making little steps, keep learning. If you have to coast for a while to catch your breath, do it. If you have to look over you shoulder every once in a while and check to see if you've made progress, do it. If you feel like giving up sometimes, it's okay. You're not less of a writer for thinking you'll never be one. Your feelings are perfectly legitimate. I can't tell you how many times I had decided to give up, and I can't tell you how many times I realized I just couldn't give up.

Writing is a dream, but it's also a nightmare.

Keep yourself immersed in everything that is writing and reading. Take breaks to take care of yourself. Come back knowing that you're not in the same place you were before, even if everything around you looks exactly the same.

And when you think there're a ton of writers who're better than you and write more than you do, who the fuck cares? You're not writing for them.

You're writing for yourself, and you're writing for the people who will eventually fall in love with your characters like you have.

First 250 Word Smash! #26

Most Courageous Author: Dr. Snakes 
Moustachioed and Villainous Editor: Victoria
Working Title: Life Sucks and then You Die

Death was sitting on his chest, popping bubble-gum noisily and that was, quite frankly, rude. Great, he thought, even death blows. He blinked up at the girl crushing his lungs, seemingly oblivious to his plight as she fixed her hair in her scythe’s reflective blade.

“Hey, you’re awake! Finally, I thought you were gonna be snoozing forever.” She clambered off of him quickly, almost tripping on her over-sized jumper in her hurry. Her scythe clattered to the ground which she hastily snatched up; she had the good sense to look embarrassed.

He sat up slowly, his chest aching awfully as he went, he let out a grunt of pain.

“Oh, sorry about that, I really had to hack at you,”  she sounded amused rather than apologetic. “You OK?” She looked too cheerful for someone that had just used the word ‘hack’ in a sentence.

“I’m dead,” he mumbled, “I’m dead and you’re the Grim Reaper.”

“Yep,” she wasn’t paying him any attention and was instead rubbing a blemish off of the chine, “Well your Reaper anyway.”

He looked down at his hands in awe but they looked the same as they had in life right down to the chewed nails and IV scar. He’d seen enough TV to know that something wasn’t right here, wasn’t transparency and levitation part of the deal? Casper had given him false expectations of death apparently.

“This is really anti-climactic,” he blurted out without much thought.

Strong Points -
I love  the reaper! She's cute and she's not at all what's expected. She also completely sets the mood, and starts to raise questions about what other reapers might be like, because she's awkward and has moments of embarrassment and yet she hacks the MC from his body. She is without a doubt my most favorite part.

You've also included some very nice minor details in there, like the IV scar and the chewed nails, because those slip little questions into our brains, like why an IV? Is that how he died?


Some Tips -
Well, you put some nice cincher details in, as I mentioned, but what about where they are? He's on the ground, right? Is it cold and hard beneath his back? Is it soft and comfortable? I am literally picturing them in the middle of white space, because I haven't a single clue to go by.

Also, I say this a lot, but I must let you know this is a personal preference of mine. I don't like dialogue tags, such as 'blurted'. I would much rather you show us this instead of telling me what he did. Showing can reveal even more of those little details I liked so much, and can give us a better glimpse into our MC and his thoughts and the kind of person he is. Telling us through dialogue tags doesn't have the same power or impact that this would.

I do love the reaper so, and as I said, she is my favorite part because she is so not what is expected. But consider that her comedic relief may kill some of the tension. If that's okay with you, then it's perfectly okay with me.

One last tip, this one regarding your title. A clever twist on a cliche is always appreciated, but in the end, it's just that: a cliche. We've heard this saying a lot, and unfortunately it's so worn out that it just does not catch the eye. Having a working title that you don't intend on keeping is no problem at all. It's not a bad thing to use a placeholder and it's really good that you didn't just leave it blank. You may want to check out this post on titles if you're in need of help there.


Would I keep reading?
Unfortunately, not quite yet. It's just not there, but that's okay! I hope you revise and revise and send this back to me, because I freaking love that reaper! Hope to hear from you soon! <3 <3

First 250 Word Smash! #25

Super Awesome Author: Kaitlyn Noble
Sick and Stuffy Editor: Victoria
Working Title: The Underground Prince

One moment I am laughing with my father. The next thing I know, the castle I call home is a war zone.

Father tells me to go into my room and lock the door until he says it is safe. Right after he says that, he runs down the hall with my uncle towards the armory. Reluctantly, I obey my father’s orders and run towards my room. Knights and guards run past me towards the battle. Servants and other castle workers scatter in all directions. Some carry bed sheets or baskets of food, since they were trying to prepare supper before this happened. A few tell me to get to my quarters before I am killed, either by the enemy, or my father.

As I round a corner, I hear bits and pieces of news about the battle. “The Galbactians have attacked!” “They’ve come back with a vengeance this time ‘round!” “They’re gaining ground fast, they’ve already breeched the inner walls!” The one that gets me the most is, “We’re losing men faster than we can replenish them!” When I hear this, I stop running. I pause long enough to figure out what the most direct route to the armory is without being detected by my father. After a moment, I decide to take one of my many shortcuts. No one else knows about it but me, so I know I can get there undetected. I am only 13, but I am a good swordsman, and my father needs me.

Strong Points -
Wow, that first line plunges us right into the action! That's a great way to hook your reader, and it's a very effective way to keep them reading. The chaos of the castle gets my blood going, gets me asking questions that will definitely have me hanging. Within the first few paragraphs you've set up a really scary situation, and when the prince goes to help dad, man I'm freaking out. But I'm cheering him on, too. A prince should want to help, and since he does, I want him to help. That says a lot about his character, but a lot of good things!

Also, you've done good at clipping your writing down to a very quick pace. Your sentences are shorter, which packs a harder punch. That's good for this sort of scene, as long sentences will drag down your pace.


Some Tips -
I think you need to plump this up a little bit. you do have clipped sentences, but they are dry of a lot of sensory details, and almost sort of removed from our main character even though we're supposed to be in his head. I have little idea of what he's feeling, what he's seeing.

Is his heart pounding? Are his palms sweaty? Ears ringing? Or maybe he's eerily calm, and all of the commotion is muffled and distant? I don't know. He doesn't mention any of this, but these are things that I want to know, especially if I'm going to be in this boy's head for the entirety of a book. He needs more of a voice to flesh out what you have going.

Just as well, 'castle' is a vague term. I picture a medieval castle in all of it's stereotypical glory, but is that what it is? You have no details about the surroundings in here. Now, you can't dump a ton of them in. As mentioned, you need to keep everything quick-moving here, and unloading the castle onto your readers will slow everything down. But you can snip a few things in here and there, such as his feet scuffing the marble or what-have-you floors, or wine splattered on a tapestry, or the scent of fire and fluttering ashes wafting in through the windows. Give me something more than just 'castle'.

Also, beware of telling. Things such as 'I am a good swordsman', that sort of thing may just pack a better punch when you show them that this thirteen year-old boy has been trained with a sword. He'll hold it and know what the hilt feels like, the weight will be comfortable in his hand, and he's probably sank it into many targets and sliced through inanimate objects, but has he ever cut flesh with it?


Would I keep reading?
This is really hard. I'm so on the edge, nearly there. I can give you a soft yes by rounding up, but if you want a more solid answer I really, really hope you resubmit this to us. I would love to reread this once I have more of your MC's voice in there, and then I would be sold! Thanks so much for submitting, hope to hear from you soon. <3 <3 <3

First 250 Words Smash! #24

Most Wonderful Author: HRH Evvy || Farleythewolf @ Tumblr
Most Evil Critique Master: Sarah
Working Title: N/A

She nearly missed him.

Work had finished an hour before nightfall. The rain was filtering through Miko’s hair, and pooling in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos. She exhaled slowly, the weight of the mist and her weariness compressing her chest.

She glanced, out of habit, at the space between buildings— not really wide enough to be called an alley— that marked her as only a block away from home. Brownish brick walls, unmarked by doors or windows, extended back to the dead end.  On a sunny day, the light picked out the green leaves against red-tinted brick, the cement bluish, giving the spot an unkempt prettiness. Sluiced with rain, the colors muted to monochrome and make the whole place feel sketchier than it was already.

Obscured by overgrown blackberry canes as he was, she would have missed him, if not for his hair.

Startlingly white, it was rain-plastered against his face. She guessed him to be around her age, mid twenties or so. A ragged tee shirt and jeans, at least two sizes too big, were also saturated with rain and clinging so that Miko could see that he was skeleton with muscle and little else on top. He’d been sitting scrunched up in the space with his eyes shut, but at the scuff of her feet, he moved his head off the wall and hung it, looking up at her through his curtain of sopping hair.

His face bothered her, because she recognized him,   

Strong Points –
This is a really good intro. Structurally, with hints of character voice and an easy flow of varied sentences, I can see style developing and being explored, and that’s awesome. What I love most are the little artful details, the little nuances of description that might have seemed superfluous if not done well, specifically, “Pooling in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos.” This tiny detail gives a sense of setting, of time and place, right up front, and it also hints at the character.

I also love the detail of the overgrown blackberry canes and the contrast of the alley-non-alley in the light and in the rain. Everything is extremely visual, and being that I’m also a visual person, I love when visuals are done with the least amount of words possible, because I’m also hungry for fast pacing. I like the question posed at the very beginning, and I like the way details are unpacked.


Some Tips –
There are only a few things I can suggest. One, there are a couple times where the passive voice weakens the sentence. As an example, here’s a passive sentence:

“The rain was filtering through Miko’s hair, and pooling in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos.”

Same sentence, active:

“The rain filtered through Miko’s hair and pooled in the little trench in the lid of her empty thermos.”

My last suggestion is, I think, a combination of two things. The description is good, but I was occasionally confused, felt like there were pieces missing in the setting, something that I wasn’t getting. My understanding was that the alley-non-alley she looked in was a dead end, and I didn’t understand why there were leaves because I hadn’t been shown there were trees or plants yet. The second part of my occasional confusion was I think because of vague descriptors and subjects.

“Startlingly white, it was rain-plastered against his face”, as an example. Especially since this sentence begins a new paragraph, the subject “it” is muddled. It’s always good to lean toward the specific over the vague, the concrete over the ambiguous. Combine sentences and ideas if needed.

Another line I was confused with was “He’d been sitting scrunched up in the space”, because I didn’t know what “the space” entailed. Don’t hesitate to root the reader, to ground them in things that are easy to see versus concepts. Concepts are misleading. Victoria does this sometimes too, when she describes something along the lines of, “His hand hung there.” What is “there”? Where is it? What does it mean? “There” is an empty word, like an invisible place marker, it doesn’t carry its weight. Neither does “the space”.


Would I Keep Reading?
Yeppppp. I’m intrigued by this guy, even by just the shape of his body. I love, love, love visual writing with good pacing, and I would definitely keep reading to see if the pacing keeps up with what I like.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

First 250 Word Smash! #23

Very Talented Author: Mik Tisdale
Horrible and Grouchy Editor: Victoria
Working Title: Galactic Flight: Trials of Thema

Disrespect permeated the corridors, swirling in eddies around each of his officers as they met his gaze. His rank and his five platinum medals dangled obnoxiously, even to him, on the front of his white, silver, and blue Legion jacket. By merits alone he should have earned their trust, but his crew’s faux recognition that he was their Commodore made him wonder what else he had to do to earn not only his crew’s faith in him but the galaxy’s as well.

“Sir,” one of the engineering commanders stopped him as he headed to the aviation bay, “it’s going to be a few more hours before we have the engines repaired,” the commander avoided eye contact, “are you sure we’re safe here? In the middle of Brotherhood space?”

“Questioning me already?” Nye’s voice projected.

“N-no sir.”

“The Brotherhood signed a pact, commander. During Recuperation no enemy ships are to be attacked on either side.”

“Yessir.” The commander nodded.

“Alright if you finally understand why we’re floating about in enemy territory, not being attacked, why the dzif did you feel the need to ask a stupid question?”

“Dzif sir?” The commander genuinely looked puzzled.

Nye felt his shoulders slump and his disgruntled sigh followed a quick rolling of his eyes. Staring at the commander for a moment made him want to write a dictionary for Theman phrases. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel like the idiot making situations so awkward.

“Carry on, commander,” he said as he walked around the confused commander,

Strong Points -
This is a really strong start! I have a great idea instantly of who my MC is, and where we are and what the immediate conflict is, which is so freaking awesome. There's a lot of questions that have arisen, but they're the sort of questions that will make me keep reading, because I want to know. Why doesn't his crew respect him? Is it in his head? Is he from Thema? Does that mean he has a strange accent that they don't? You've set up a very intriguing situation here, and not only do a have a secret weakness for Sci Fi, but I very much enjoy the MC you've put us in.

That aside, you also provide some very interesting glimpses at the scenery, little descriptors here and there. I love the way he sees the disrespect as it coils around them all and the way it manifests in his vision, and how even he doesn't like the badges when he sees them. Those tidbits say a lot about Nye and what kind of guy he is.


Some Tips -
I say this a lot, and every time I make sure to include that it is merely my humble preference, as there are many differing opinions. However, I think it would really strengthen your narrative to take out some of the dialogue tags. One of the tags is that his commander stops him, but that becomes a little confusing, because it's almost like having action for the dialogue tag.

But I really think it would strengthen you to take out how Nye's voice projects and to instead describe how that sounds. Does it echo down the hallway? Does his commander grimace? You could unload 'projected' for some of the same sneaks of description that I loved before. As such, I'd love it if you could spare a few words for the surroundings, because while I have the technical name of the hallway, and I know we're heading toward Aviation, I don't know what kind of hallway it is. Am I picturing the darker, more industrial look of Serenity? Or the nice, clean lines and colors of the Enterprise? Personally, I went with the Enterprise, but I don't know.


Would I keep reading?
Yes! I actually kinda like Nye, and you've set up such a scary situation here that I really want to know how they get out of it! But, if ever you want, don't hesitate to ask questions or resubmit! Thanks so much! <3 <3 <3

The Revising Process

So, I've begun the arduous task of revising book two. It's already been more of a trial than revising book one. It's a fat manuscript at about 130,000 words, which is about 20k more than the first book, maybe 10-15k more than the third. I was so determined to beat the "second book syndrome" that I finished the last word, looked at the word count, and went, "Oops."

Of course, more words =/= a better book, it's just that book two has a lot of feelings.

Anyway, a lot of what I've done so far is clip unnecessary words and phrases, and also passages between characters that don't carry their weight (as in further plot or character development). Often, that means striking out some of my favorite lines. Waaah. It's so hard.

But I've also added a whole new scene after Victoria and I workshopped a couple of characters and discovered new things about their pasts. This really changed their dynamic, and while I'm adding clincher details to other characters, I ended up adding another (albeit small) chapter altogether. I reeeally don't want to push the word count (130k is about the size of "The City of Bones") since it makes the paperback more expensive, but necessary scenes are necessary.

The strangest thing about it is that, after I finish revising a chapter, I'm already looking forward to going back and editing it again, mainly because I don't feel confident about what I've left behind, like I can still make it better.

Well, I guess it's not so strange.

It sort of happens with every revision I do, but this has been the hardest book so far to revise. I spent eight straight hours revising yesterday, and on top of the previous couple of days I spent revising, I'm only on chapter nine. Ugh. Though, chapter nine is a reeeeally good chapter, I won't lie.

A thing that helps though is that I've endured the revising process many, many times, and the practice helps me identify problems better and how to fix them. It's also helped to develop my writing. Revising teaches writers what's working and what's not working, which is why it's so important to take it seriously.

It's also important to treat writing and revising as two separate things, even if they're tied together. It's like work versus school -- one puts the words down, the other teaches what the words do. It's best not to do your schoolwork at work, but sometimes, you just gotta, and that's okay too. Just make sure that the schoolwork doesn't interfere with productivity.

Book two is now 31 chapters, and, with the addition of a new chapter, that technically puts me on 10. That means I'm a third of the way through. Not bad in three days, I guess. But if I have to have another six days of eight hours, I may, well, cry.

Here are my tips on how to get into revising:

1. Take care of primary needs. This means I’ve eaten, because food in my belly keeps my energy up and focused, and whenever my thinking power starts to wane, I know I need to eat again and I do so as soon as I can. Anything else I might need (such as tissues or snacks) I make sure is within arm’s reach of me.
2. Take care of ritual needs. For me, this means I go through my dashboard first, make my tea, detox for a bit, do some blog work and cross a few to-do’s off my list, perhaps go for a walk, and then begin rereading where I last left off. A set pattern that I follow makes it easier for me to get into working mode.
3. Listen to a few songs that pump me up. Upbeat songs get my creative powers focused, but the key is that I can’t be scrolling Tumblr or reading something else simultaneously. I have to listen to a few songs, let myself think only about my story, and become fully immersed and invested. This helps create a driving need to work on it.
4. Revise in solitude. When I write, I write to music. When I revise, it’s more like library time. I need to be able to hear my story without the music, to see it clearly and without any influence that music gives. If I don’t have absolute quiet, I keep my headphones on to block out noise. If my street’s particularly noisy, I have rain, or white noise to block out distracting noise.
5. Seven minutes of uninterrupted focus. The first few minutes are agonizing, torturous, and I writhe and resist and only by the sheer force of will am I able to press on. But after those first few minutes, I completely switch on and go with great speed.

Revising can be fun, but it's work. If you start to burn yourself out, take a break. I prefer to do all my revising at once so that the whole book is still clear in my brain, which means I can edit something in chapter 10 and go back into chapter three to fix something tied to it. But, if I feel I'm losing too many sanity points, I'll take a day to unwind. The work will still be there when I come back.