I love when Facebook friends post nuggets of wisdom – Kurt Vonnegut’s advice for short story writers came to me via FB this week, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyQ1wEBx1V0) and I thought I’d condense it for future reference.  It’s been amazingly helpful as I work my way through a revision:  In brief:

1) don’t waste a perfect stranger’s time;

2) give readers at least one character to root for;

3) your characters must want something;

4) every sentence must either advance the action or reveal character in some way;

5) start as close to the end as possible;

6) be sadistic – give your characters trouble so readers can see what they’re made of;

7) write to please one person;

8) give as much information as possible as soon as possible (in case a cockroach should eat the last few pages before your reader gets there:)

I’m feeling pretty good about my revision, and I’ve found myself  constantly referring back to this advice as I plug away at it. Of course, there are a million other things that he could have included, I suppose, but I like succinct, and this advice is that!

My whole family is home for the first time since Christmas, so I’m looking forward to having the kids’ energy in the house for a couple of months until they go back to school in September, although the house is still too quiet after the passing of our beagle buddy, Bailey a month ago, at the age of 15.

She lives on, of course, in our memories, and bits and pieces of her have already popped up, and will continue to appear, in my writing, as she was unforgettable in all sorts of ways! We’ll be scattering some of her ashes around her look-out perch at Horseshoe Lake sometime this summer so she can continue to keep an eye on the squirrels who think the cottage belongs to them during the winter…