Myra and I long ago realized our agent, Holly Root, had a secret weapon in her rather impressive arsenal: the Revision Duck Mafia. A visit from the RDM goes something like this:
1. First, a missive arrives in your inbox, cleverly disguised as a letter from Agent Holly, bearing the news that, while most of your book was The Awesome, the following fifteen things were verging on The Suckage and must be changed.
2. Second, you take a few days to absorb the news, examine the Suckage parts, and hope you weren't misreading the Awesome bits because if you were, you might as well just give in to your secret longing to go out in a blaze of Cheese Puffs and vodka.
3. Third, you begin revising. Sort of. You revise the easy parts. The ones that you looked at in your initial read-through of the RDM's letter and thought "Hello, genius, how did you miss that?"
4. Fourth, you sort of let the difficult parts simmer. This is the point where Holly's RDM begins flexing its muscle. The RDM frowns on procrastination. They treat waffling with the same vengeful response they give to idiot humans who dare approach their flock without the requisite offering of bread crumbs or a first born male.
5. Fifth, the RDM pays you a little visit. You're sitting at your computer, minding your own business, sort of not revising, when out of nowhere, you feel watched. You look up, and there's a duck. No, really. A duck. Eyeing you with tiny little orbs chock full of hate. It's the RDM's warning shot across the bow. You only get one.
6. Sixth, you revise. In earnest. Because you fear the fuzzy. You really, really do.
Think I made this up? Last time Myra had a revision letter, she was writing on a front porch, wallowing in indecisiveness or angst or procrastination or something the RDM found offensive. She looked up at one point and found herself surrounded by ducks. Hateful, beady-eyed little feathered Revision Duck Mafia members. And she knew. Revise or face the RDM's wrath.
She revised.
Because a wise writer fears the fuzzy.
I've got a revision letter for CASTING STONES. I have no time to dive into it until Friday. You hear that RDM? Friday. I promise. Because I, too, fear the fuzzy.
