Blue Earth Lake

Blue Earth Lake is located in a provincial park in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. You climb high into the hills above the desert and find this gem of a lake and (almost) no people.

There is a story. The road gets much much, worse. Do not believe the maps of the area. If you keep going, soon there is no road, and nowhere to turn around. You will need to drive through creeks, bottom out in mud holes, and chop down trees that block the way. Eventually (if you make it through), you will find yourself on a ranch, with a heavy chain preventing the possibility of exiting to the road.

As going back the way you came is not an option, here is a hint. Combination = 4000.

Scary Literary Agents

I came across a link to Janet Reid's blog. She is a literary agent who publishes advice on her blog for writers who aspire to publish their work. The blog is fascinating in a chilling kind of way. And useful, and very funny. . . .

How Much Editing?

A member of my writing group is in the process of rewriting a draft of her novel. She recently wrote on her blog about the dilemma of editing. How much is enough? When do you stop? Of course, she wrote about this question in a way more eloquent manner than this. You can read her post here.

So here are some of my thought on editing:

I think it really depends. When I write a poem, I write in bursts. Words and images come, I set them down, then contemplate, and put down a few more words. It's word by word and line by line. I write slowly, but then when I have written the draft of the poem, it is close to being finished; I do very little editing.

When I write nonfiction, articles and chapters, I also write slowly, crafting each sentence as I go. Each time I sit down to write some more, I reread what I have already written, and edit it. So then by the time I have completed a draft, it needs little editing. Usually, I package it up and send it off quickly. Partly this is because I have *no time in my life* so I am forced to be efficient, and partly it is to prevent myself from adding any more to it (because, invariably, my editing takes the form of adding, and the manuscripts are always too long already). The reviewers always have suggestions for revisions, and by the time it comes back, I have some distance from my piece, and usually I make a number of editorial changes then. (Sometimes I even cut a bit!)

But for my (almost completed) novel, I am way less sure about how I will accomplish the editing. I have tried not to get stuck into editing mode while still getting the first draft down on the page. But, as with the other genres, I still have written very slowly, crafting as I go. (I thought I was finished some time ago except for a short transition between sections, but the transition keeps growing, chapter by chapter.) The challenge that I am finding is figuring out how to keep the coherence and flow consistent in such a long manuscript. I think my editing problems will be at that level more than at the word-by-word level.