In fall of 2024, I attended a session at a writer's conference that changed my life as a writer. It was called "The Year of 100 Rejections," and in it the author, a prolific romance writer, said that she made it her goal to get 100 rejections in a year. She said that inevitably her writing would get accepted somewhere, and that it was almost counter-intuitively annoying because it meant she had to work harder to reach the 100 rejections. She shared a bingo card with squares l

Originally published in the Central Colorado Writers Monthly Edition You’ve done it. Through many long hours and concentrated effort, you’ve written an entire novel. After you celebrate that accomplishment, you realize this is only the beginning. Now comes Draft Two, but where to start?   The first revision of your novel needs to address the big-picture issues, what editors call “developmental” issues. These are the elements of your story that make it whole. For example, a de