I got a couple of submissions out this week--a picture book manuscript and a short story. Now I'm trying to revise one other picture book and a YA novel, and neither one is going as smoothly as I'd wish! It's so hard to know how to change a story to make it better, especially when it's not a matter of just polishing or tightening the words, but really requies a plot makeover. In both cases I have some idea what's wrong and what kinds of things to work on, but can't figure out the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of how to work on those things. Any little change starts a chain reaction that affects the rest of the book, so I'm trying to think everything through thoroughly first, and that's easier said than done!
Meanwhile, I've also been trying to do some reading, especially with the library's summer reading club still in full swing. I read Gail Giles' Dead Girls Don't Write Letters a couple of days ago, and today I checked out Linda Sue Park's When My Name Was Keoko and Stephanie S. Tolan's Surviving the Applewhites, as well as James McBride's memoir The Color of Water. I read fast, usually a book in a day, but how I'm going to read all these while also writing a couple of books and watching 2 small and very active children all day, I'm not quite sure!
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