My current WIP is too long and wordy so I need to focus on chopping back - but how do you do that when you thought you had something relatively good in the first place?

After my first editing run with Teresa I managed to slash the first 28k words down to 14k, so have been applying those principles to the rest of the WIP.

When approaching new chapter:

1. READ first. No editing. Get an idea of what information is being presented

2. DELETION: is the...

So 12 years ago I had a draft novel at 700k words...

I've spent the past few years labouring with - not simply trying to chop it down to size, but also apply basic writing principles so it such as ... oh, POV use.

After a few years work I finally got it down to an overall word count of 250k.

I sent the first few chapters to Teresa Edgerton for editing purposes, to see how I was doing.

There were some experimental things I'd tried and wasn't sure...

I've long had reasonably developed back story ideas for my characters, but for some time now I've been considering the possibility of perhaps writing them up as short stories.

I've been thinking more and more about this after editing and Eastercon because:

1. Writing back stories for my characters as short stories will help me define key events in their lives clearly

2. By writing these down as stories in themselves, this will help fight against my natural...

In real life, I'm fun and friendly and love socialising. I can walk into strange social situations, meet complete strangers, get an idea of when I'm not wanted and when an ear is more welcome than a mouth.

Online, I am cold, emotionless, and the bitter cynical part of me finds expression all too easily. Normally, I am happy to demonstrate I have an opinion about things I do not have any real grounding in.

I suspect the difference is partly the lack of direct engagement...

Well, I've now reached another big scene I need to work on - Teresa's highlighted enough problems with it that I'll need to rewrite it, which is a headache if the previous scenes are anything to go by.

However, I've learned now that the way to do this is to shattered the scene, take all the bits I need, and try and rewrite them together.

Any pieces I like but have to leave out I can reuse elsewhere in the book or sequels. Or just bin if not salvageable. Usually they get...