Practice Time At The Page Working on Xero Treu

Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio write in the opening pages of their wonderful book, The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, that 90% of what we do as writers is “practice.”

Rather than contradict myself and spend several hours on a new blog post this week, I’m going to dedicate the next few days to practice. After all, I’m attending an important conference next weekend (Rutgers Council on Children’s Literature One-on-One Plus Conference) and my goal is to have my revision of Xero completed by then so I can share it with the editors and agents I meet.

Of course, that means I need to spend all my free time right now reworking the manuscript.

I need to practice!

Check out the videos that appear below. They’re pretty impressive.

It’s difficult to watch them and not appreciate just how much practice it takes to create something magical. And my intention, after all, is to write a novel that touches people’s lives in a positive way.

In order to do that, I’ll need to find all the magic I can.

Next week’s post will be a special one about the challenges of being misunderstood. It will also be a special thank you of sorts which I hope you’ll enjoy.

Until then, though, I’m going to be at the page, practicing. Trying to develop my technique, to capture the right voice, introduce those moments that get beneath a reader’s flesh and change them in some way.

Keep after it, y’all. See you soon.