Anybody like book review blogs? Well, today’s your lucky day! Several of the reviewers I most admire from GoodReads have joined forces in two new group blogs, and I’d like to encourage you to check them out.
The Readventurer blog was originally a solo effort by Flannery, but she has recently been joined by Tatiana and Catie. These are three of the best-read, most judicious reviewers of my acquaintance, and I think this blog is really going to be something special with that many excellent brains behind it.
In the other corner, we’ve got the new, improved Cuddlebuggery Book Blog, where Kat and Stephanie have joined forces to fight evil and bring back the awesome. I anticipate a lively, irreverent take on YA literature over here. I know I’ll be checking both blogs often to see what’s new and happening.
On a slightly different subject: my author friend Elizabeth May just wrote an informative post on self-editing. If any of you are going through that process now (or will be in the near future, or might be in the distant maybe), it looks like she’s broken it down into helpful stages.
What I find interesting (‘cuz I’m weird like this) is where she says she used to hate the editing part of writing. My friend Phoebe North has expressed a similar distaste, and although both of them say that was in the past (which I don’t doubt), it does make me wonder: do writers tend to prefer either composing or revising? I suppose it makes sense that one would come more naturally than the other. I’ll tell you, though, I’m a reviser. I am so close to finishing the first draft of the sequel, and I can’t wait because it means I get to go back and make everything RIGHT.
(And no, I can’t just write it right the first time. I don’t really know why that is, although it might be fun to dig into sometime.)
How about you, if you write: would you rather have the endless open page ahead of you to fill, or are you more interested in the myriad obsessive minutiae of revision?
Rachel Hartman 
much much MUCH prefer the tweakage stage. Although THISSSUCKSSOMUCH hangs out there, too.
See, I feel like revision is the act of actively punching THISSUCKSSOMUCH in the head. 🙂
Thanks Rachel! That’s so kind of you to mention us.
As for writing – I like both. The first time I write something is when it feels the most intense – everything is the most painful, the funniest, the most meaningful it will ever be for me. Then I go back days later and see all the flaws. Not as fun. But then I get to move words around and pick and choose the best ones and stitch everything together. It’s much more analytical; not as emotional. I enjoy it in a different way.
Hey, y’all are well worth mentioning!
And I wish I felt it the most intensely on first writing. For me, the first writing is a lot like, uh, punching myself in the stomach until I throw up. (Which is intense, I guess, just not in a remotely fun way)
Also: NICE METAPHOR, RACH. I gots a way with words.
Also, that’s two replies in a row where I talk about punching things. I’m a pugilist more than a writer, perhaps.
Thanks for the linkage, Rachel!
For me, composing was immense excitement that came with the process of writing. Getting all the words to paper, the characters out of my head, the scenes down. The words didn’t have to be lovely because I was writing, and that’s all that mattered. It was a very in the moment kind of thing. I think it’s the same for a lot of other composers.
Once I finished and was expected to revise, reality set in. I had to confront blocks of awful text instead of a serene blank page. It was quite hard for me to read my own work. Sometimes it still is.
But I very much consider myself a reviser now. I like seeing the manuscript evolve. I like comparing drafts. I like writing it better. I’m not sure I’ll ever be overly pleased with my own writing, but I definitely think discontentment forces me to improve.
Thank you for the promo, Rachel:)
I am not a writer, but as far as penning book reviews, for me, writing the first draft is torture. I just try to get through it ASAP and get to the delicious revising.
Thank for linking us!
If I were writing a book, I think I’d be a reviser too. I can’t tell you how many time I edit all my loonnnng reviews. Lol. I feel like after I’ve written it, then I have something it actually work with to become a coherent review. 🙂