“Revision is not punishment for a bad first draft. It’s the REWARD for having the courage to write one. Now you get to make it...
“Killing your darlings doesn’t require a weapon. It requires a question: ‘Does this serve the STORY or does this serve my EGO?’ The answer is...
“In poetry, every word is load-bearing. Remove one and the whole structure shifts. That’s why revising a poem is less like editing and more like...
“A good beta reader tells you the truth with kindness. A bad beta reader tells you everything is perfect because they don’t want to hurt...
“Your first draft is not a reflection of your talent. It’s a reflection of your COURAGE. The talent shows up in revision. The courage shows...
“A short story is a drive-by of emotion: get in, make the reader feel something profound, and get out before they know what hit them.”...
“A poem isn’t a greeting card with line breaks. It’s a concentrated dose of human experience distilled into the fewest possible words that create the...