“Editing sucks,” I said everyday for the past three months.

I wrote “White Hell” for my graduate thesis. Unfortunately, my thesis adviser was not invested in my success, so I floundered with the final execution. In my final weeks, I got the opportunity to work with Diana Pharaoh Francis, which changed the direction of the novel in one conversation.

Discovering a story or developing a character aren’t a problem for me. My writing struggle is in the outline and editing. How do I ramp up the tension?

Using a tool like The Hero’s Journey or Save the Cat Writes a Novel has been incredibly useful. But I view it as an editing tool.

Save the Cat helps provide the framework around which I tell a story, like a the frame of house. I’ve started working on a new novel and struggled within the first 5k words. I turned to this book for some guidance on building my hero.

This $13 Kindle book has been worth more than most of my MFA classes.

#savethecat #writertool #writerlife #editingsucks #nanowrimofail #mfagrad

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools,” Douglas Adams, “Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy“

Yesterday I became the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. I turned 42. What better way to celebrate than to pick up some classic literature?

#42 #hgttg #dontpanic #rememberyourtowel