Ploughshares Literary Journal recently sent out a blog roundup to their members mailing list with links to three great blog articles on various aspects of the writing process. Each is worth a read:
- Writers With Responsibilities: Patience Is a Way of Life. An article about being patient when it feels like your book is just taking too long.
- The Black Hole of Revision. How to know when it’s time to stop tinkering with a story and call it finished.
- Revising With Sherlock. Tips on revising a manuscript courtesy of the BBC TV show Sherlock.
My favorite quote was this one, from “The Black Hole of Revision,” which sums up my own experience with writing short fiction:
Time is precious. For me, it’s time to stop if I believe I am better off working on a different story, or starting anew. I usually have more than one story that I could be working on. Various pieces are in different stages of development, from being an idea in my head, to being in near-final form. If I have a burning desire to finish one story, then I put all of the others on the back burner until I’m done. If I feel that a story I’m working on is stalled, I set it aside for a while, thinking I’m better off looking at it with fresh eyes after a few weeks, if not months.
