Stephen King Month

I've read Stephen King's book On Writing so many times I can almost recite from it. It'll be easy to sum up what I intend to do for Stephen King Month, in revision mode. (By the way, read On Writing. I don't know if it will improve your work, but I promise you'll enjoy yourself if you write fiction. Or read fiction. Or read nonfiction.)

1. Read through the manuscript as fast as possible making notes in the margins--mostly corrections of spelling, grammar, and things that don't work, like events that could not possibly happen now that my protagonist is female and a twin instead of an only child. Fix grammar and spelling and crappy sentences. Try to delete every single adverb. Have a go at some adjectives, too; why not? Ideally, I'll do this in just one or two sittings. When will I find these large chunks of time to go through the manuscript? Hunh. I'll get back to you on that one. (Probably one day--let's call it tomorrow--during my son's naptime and then a few hours after he goes to bed.)

2. Type up corrections and send off the manuscript to the people I choose for feedback.

3. Evaluate suggestions from those people and make any changes I want to make at this point. Think about theme and whether or not I can add in some meaningful frills or purposeful twists. Examine previous sentence and scoff, disdaining to even fix it.

4. Go through one more time and catch those remaining errors--I hope all of them.

5. Whew. It might be August at this point.