DON'T play nice

After a lot of thumping my head against the desk and moaning about writer's block, I've figured out why the revisions came to a crashing halt! I looked back over my editor's comments and something struck a chord. She said to go ahead and pile on more conflict -- let the kids really get into it at school! Don't hold back... But that's what I've been doing. I really LIKE my MC and I guess I didn't want anyone to pick on him! He's already got problems but she's right -- he's a tough kid, he can handle even more problems. As soon as I realized that, ideas started popping into my head. Sorry, kid, but you are in for a rough time in the next few chapters. It's easier to do this in a picture book because once you introduce the conflict, the MC starts working on resolving it -- and does fairly quickly. But in a longer book, the problems and conflicts keep piling up! Which is exactly what should happen -- it's that tension that keeps you reading. So, the gloves are coming off and I'm not stepping in to protect my kid anymore. He can do that on his own. Eventually.

I'm really hoping with this new insight that I can finish the revision and have it sent back to my editor by the middle of February. I took a break from it over the holidays to write 2 new picture book manuscripts. One, I'm happy with, the other is undergoing some major revising but I still like the overall story. Don't know what happened, I almost never write complete new drafts so close together! But I hope it keeps happening...