Week 21: In the revision trenches

It’s week twenty-one of 2026. How’s the writing going these days? This is a long weekend in the US, and I’m doing a little work and a little play. I hope your weekend is delivering the mix that is exactly right for you.

The work I’m focused on is revising Novel Study Book 2, which now has an official title: Bestsellers: Excavating the Tools and Techniques of Successful Novels. I spent the week before last entirely focused on the book, doing a mix of revision work and project management work. I finally (finally!) cleared the last blue dot on my Novel Study wall, which marked the last new post to be written (on the structure of The Favorites, which I’ll share here with you in a few weeks).

As many of you know all too well, the revision stage of a big manuscript can be messy and frustrating. In the initial drafting stage, you do have to stare down the terror of the blank page, but once you are writing, the word count and pages steadily stack up. You can easily see and track your progress.

The revision stage constantly feels like two steps forward and one step back—or sometimes the reverse on a bad day. Yes, I now have a complete first draft, but I also have a project management page for the book that includes approximately 240 items (with 28 complete 😭). When I sit down to revise a chapter, sometimes what I think is going to be a light edit turns into a complete rewrite. Occasionally, I get mired in overthinking small decisions, like how to style initials: VE Schwab (my preference), V. E. Schwab (Chicago style), V.E. Schwab (my overthought compromise). Sometimes I have to confront my own weird writing quirks, such as my apparent obsession with the adjective “key.”

It helps me to keep glancing at the horizon, to that final finished book—and to remember that my previous book was also once a collection of messy words and incomplete to-do lists. Do you have any revision tips or tricks to share? Reply to this email and let me know and I can include a roundup in my next newsletter.

And if you’d like to actually climb into the revision trenches with me for a bit, I’m looking for a few beta readers who have time to deliver feedback on the draft by Monday, June 15. You’ll get my undying gratitude, plus a thanks in the acknowledgments as well as an ebook or paperback version of the finished book. If you are interested, please fill out this Google form. I’ll be sending out beta reader versions and instructions tomorrow (Monday) and on a rolling basis thereafter. I got tremendously helpful feedback from this community on my previous book, and I’m excited to give a few of you a sneak preview of book 2. (And to find out which terms besides “key” are my crutch words…)

If you are feeling a bit stuck or stale at the moment or you want to juice up your energy to get a lot accomplished this summer, you should get on the waitlist for Catherine LaSota’s new live online workshop Build Your Creative Containers. Catherine is a talented creativity coach with a knack for delivering thoughtful encouragement. I recently got to sit in on a cathartic Zoom journaling session she hosted that was themed around the ‘90s show My So-Called Life—I saw laughter, tears, and a lot of words hitting the page. Get on the waitlist here.

Speaking of tears and catharsis, I talk about both on author Annmarie Boyle’s new podcast I Used to Be Fun, which is all about recapturing joy, play, and creativity in midlife. We talk about everything from live music to camping to the simple pleasure of just lying on the floor (really! go try it right now!)

The pop-up Novel Study Book Club for Freida McFadden’s The Intruder is underway, with some fascinating discussions going on in our no-spoilers and all-the-spoilers posts. There’s still plenty of time for you to join—our live Zoom discussions are scheduled for Tuesday, June 9 and Saturday, June 13. Sign up for free and get access to all the posts here.

I also have a new Novel Study analysis for you on the opening of the novel. (No spoilers in this one if you want to avoid them!)

I love speaking to writers and editors—check out my Speaking page or reply to this email if you are interested in having me speak to your group.

Our Thing of Joy this week: A talented dad, Stephen Spencer, who turns his talented toddler’s stories into hilarious and catchy songs – like “Straffer the Boy Duck” (Instagram | Spotify | YouTube). The internet is not all bad!

Stay well, y’all, and keep fighting the good fights.

Kristen

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