Sono fuori di testaaaaa … editing

To borrow from the (catchy) winning performance by the Italian (Roman, to be precise) band Måneskin at the 2021 Eurovision contest: Sono fuori di testaaa (I’m out of my mind). Mine, however, is not twenty-something existential angst about not being able to adequately express my individuality in a world that constantly pressures me to conform.…

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Do you ever need incentives to edit?

Your novel is all completed and now it’s just down to the easy peasy task of editing, right? Well, err, I doubt many would describe it that way. I find the initial writing to be the easier task, and the editing process to be much slower going. That’s why I like to look at photos…

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How to tighten your manuscript

This was very good timing. Literary agent Rachelle Gardner just ran an interesting post entitled ‘How to tighten your manuscript‘. I, um … blush, shuffle feet … always seem to be facing this dilemma. After pitching sessions with agents at the recent Matera Women’s Fiction festival, I need to start cutting word count for my…

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Start those revisions with Critique Circle

I’ve already written about my wonderful, face-to-face writing group that I have here in Rome. I look forward to those meetings every two weeks and enjoy the company of a talented group of American writers in Rome. But I tend to write a lot and need a way to keep myself on-track with revisions. As…

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