maureneh

I am a writer; what this really means is that I spend very little time writing. Most of my time is spent rewriting, or revising. Most writers, in fact, will admit to more time revising than writing. Some of us tend to enjoy the revision process more than others do. When it comes to fiction, I happen to dislike theh first draft stage. Getting those initial words on paper (or, more acurately, screen), feels like torture at times. Playing with those words, on the other hand, is fun. I like rearranging them, adding to them, changing them, and so forth. Nonfiction is another story. I enjoy the drafting process much more than the revision process; in part, I’m sure, because I’m not the most organized person, and much of my revision involves searching through piles of research.

No matter what type of writing you do, however, revision is part of the process—or it should be, anyway. It’s the stage that allows you to take your writing to the next level and help it be “all that it can be.” Very few (but exceptionally talented) writers are able to skimp on the revision stage. The rest of us have to work at it.

I recently had the pleasure of attending Darcy Pattison’s well-known novel revision workshop. It was help as part of a three-part novel-writing retreat series hosted by Nancy Sharp Wagner. The first of the three workshops focused on the drafting and outlining stage, led by author Elaine Marie Alphin. We then went our separate ways for a few months and worked on writing a novel manuscript. Darcy Pattison’s workshop followed, where we took a close look at our manuscripts and how to revise them. You can learn more about Darcy Pattison here. (I'll be busy revising!)