Brevity’s Blog, “Worth the Climb: Self-Editing Secrets That Actually Work” by Allison K. Williams reveals creative ideas for revision as well as first draft ideas. I particularly like Allison’s suggestion about “converting similes to metaphors when possible—saying something is something else is more powerful than saying it’s like something else.” Complementing Allison’s recommendations is advice given to Anita Gail Jones, author of The Peach Seed about her use of “the.” Anita found where she overused “the,” there were other problems. Her evaluation of “the” led to stronger writing and improved her story telling. This advice reinforces Allison’s concept of focusing on one thing at a time when revising. Another gem from Anita, “Beats: A unit of emotional measurement between people.” Harder to find than the single word “the,” but so important in creating a compelling narrative. Thank you to Susan and Patricia for helping me to remember what Anita said at her keynote address at Sebastopol’s Lit Crawl, May 2025.