Guest Bloggers

Keep Calm, Carry On And Let the Magic Begin

Guest Blogger Karen Hart reveals secrets about how to Keep Calm, Carry On and Let the Magic Begin:  How To Breathe Life Into Your Work Through Revisions. During my thirties, I wrote my first novel, Butterflies in May. It tells the story of a 17-year-old high school senior, Ali Parker, who discovers she’s pregnant. I gave her characteristics, created a family, a best friend and boyfriend, and described where she lived. I effectively created a situation and characters, and the mechanics were in place. After nine months of work, I had a novel, but the story was flat. It was discouraging after all that effort, but in the words of Hemingway: “The first draft of anything is shit.” The goal in writing a novel (or any body of work) is to capture the magic, give it a heartbeat and touch your readers in a relevant way. Revising and editing are…