How Surrealist Pantser A.S. King Revises Award-Winning Novels

“Revising is about making sure that you're saying what you want to say in the way you want to say it. . . . To me, revision is the sport. It's the impact. It's the reason we're writers.”

Have you ever read a book and thought, Holy cow, this is amazing. How did this author DO this?

Or, maybe you’ve read a book and thought, Wow, I wish I could write (or in my case, edit) a book like this, but this is incredible and it might be beyond me?

Well, that’s how I feel when I read an A.S. King novel.

She’s an impressively decorated author of novels for middle grade, teens, and adults. She’s the only author to win the Printz award for young adult literature twice—and that’s just two of many, many accolades.

She writes brilliant stories that are surrealist and puzzling and weird, and at the same time beautiful and heartfelt and honest and real.

And when I heard that she loves revision, I knew I had to bring her to Your Next Draft and ask her: how does she do it?

How does she manage to craft such intricately plotted, complex stories?

How does she innovate so much on a technical level, and keep me hooked on a brilliant story all the way through?

How does she turn her completely pantsed first drafts into award-winning novels—and then hit it out of the park again, and again, and again?

So I was thrilled when A.S. King agreed to join me on the podcast and spill all the details of her revision process.

In our conversation, she shares:

• Her five-draft revision process
• How she cuts 20% from her first draft (she uses the word “chainsaw” 😳)
• What it’s like to get feedback from her editor at her publishing house
• What she does with feedback she disagrees with
• The time when adding 14 sentences was the key that made a novel work
• The difference between taking your readers on a picnic and telling them a story
• And so much more

Plus, I’ve created a revision reading list to pair with this conversation so you can see A.S. King’s specific editorial choices at work in her novels.

A.S. King is an absolute gem of a human as well as a brilliant writer. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.

P.S. My very favorite part of our conversation begins at 1 hr 21 min. Here’s a sneak peek:

“In the end, it is all about your voice and your experiences and your feelings. That's it. It's all writing is.”

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Get your A.S. King Revision Reading List: alicesudlow.com/82
• Find Amy on her website, Instagram, and Bluesky
• Order signed copies of Pick the Lock and all her books from Aaron’s Books
• Check ou

Transcript

0:00

Have you ever read a book and thought, holy cow, this is amazing. How did this author do this? How did they manage to craft such an intricately plotted complex story? How did they come up with such inventive, unusual points of view and narrative devices and make them all work? How did they innovate so much on a technical level and keep me hooked on a brilliant story all the way through? Or maybe you've read a book and thought, wow, I wish I could write, or in my case, edit a book like this. This is incredible, and it might be beyond me. Well, that's how I feel when I read an as King novel. She is an impressively decorated author of novels for middle grades, teens, and adults. She writes these brilliant stories that are surrealist and puzzling and weird and at the same time, beautiful and heartfelt and honest and real. When I read her books, I see what I aspire to be able to help writers create. and when I heard her mention in an interview that she loves revision, I knew I had to bring her on to your next draft and ask her how does she do it? How does she take a draft of something like dig, which has nine points of view and a ghostly surrealism, and three generations of a family reckoning with race and a missing person's crime story and revise that layered complexity into a novel that wins the highest award in young adult literature. I was delighted when she agreed to join me on the podcast, and that's the conversation I'm going to share with you here. In it, you'll hear her complete revision process from first draft to final draft, the feedback she gets from her editor at her publishing house and what it really means to write and revise a story. I can't wait to share it with you. Welcome to your next draft. I am so excited for you to hear how as King revises brilliance novels. In order for you to get the most out of our conversation, there are a few things you need to know before I play the tape. first, her first name is Amy. In fact, she publishes her YA novels Under A.S. King and her middle grade novels under Amy Seig King. Second, I need you to know how awesome she is. Amy is one of ya fiction's most decorated authors. I could list out so many awards here, but I'll highlight just two of my favorites. She's the only author to win the American Library Association's Michael L. Prince Award twice. I typically describe the Prince Award to people as the highest award in young adult literature, but in this case, I can't really say that because She has also won the ALA's Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring her and her body of work for her significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. That's not just for two books, but for her lifetime achievement, which is arguably even higher. That is by no means all of her awards though. Scroll through her website and you'll find just an awe inspiring collection of awards, starred reviews, and critical acclaim. My point is this. Amy writes good books. Third, her latest novel is called Pick the Lock. She describes it in five words as confined feminist punks smash patriarchy. It's a novel about Jane, a teenage girl, though Amy wrote the book for both teens and adults. So don't think that Jane's age confines this story to the YA shelves. Jane's mother Mina is a punk superstar who tours the world releasing platinum albums and selling out concerts, And when she comes home to the Victorian mansion where Jane, her father and her younger brother live, MIMA, is confined to a system of pneumatic tubes that run throughout the house like a mouse and little plastic tunnels. And Jane would like her mother back. Fourth. Amy loves revision. One thing you'll hear us mention in our conversation is the table of contents that Amy creates to revise each of her novels. If you go to alice slo.com/ 82, you can see a photo of the table of contents for pick the lock. Fifth, and this is somewhat less exciting. We did have some technical difficulties when we were recording, and so you might hear some slight variance in audio quality. I did my best to clean it all up and I hope that the distortions are not distracting. We persevered though, and I think the conversation we had was more than worth it, and I believe that's everything you need to know. I won't keep you from the good stuff any longer. Without further ado, here's as king.

Amy: 5:30

I talk about revision with kids in schools from age, like when I say kids, I don't really mean all kids, but from like age, first grade, second grade, all the way to grad school. And when we talk about revision, the amount of people in like the grad school or undergrad specifically, or even upper high school that are just looking at you like, no, when I write it, it's done right. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, and I, I have to tell them like, I rewrite texts, I revise emails sometimes I really like I, and, and, and then I have to explain to them that the point, and I, I think this is always the, the sort of when we're first learning and when we're not writers, right? We start there. So when we're not writers and we're not planning on writing for the sake of being writers, most people are like, well, spell check is for editing. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's for misspelled words. And sometimes grammatical mistakes, but like, sometimes spell check's wrong about that too. Um, but also, you know, I said revising isn't, I always say that revising isn't about spelling or grammar. Revising is about making sure that you're saying what you wanna say yes in the way you wanna say it.

Alice (2): 6:32

Yes.

Amy: 6:32

And. And that usually, like again, teachers are always like, oh yeah, I'm so glad you're saying this. And the kids are like, whatever. And the students are just like, sure, I guess whatever. And of course now we have AI and now we have just so many things that can, that, that can act as magical helpers when an actual effect editors, I'm an editor as well. You know, people, people who can look at work and and see it as a whole,

Alice (2): 6:54

right?

Amy: 6:55

Yep. That's the other cool thing. You know, a sentence is a sentence, an essay, you know, a paragraph, a sentence. Those are small, but when you see it on a whole, that's always a cool, I mean, that's the skills that you have. It's the skills that I have, I guess as a writer, you know who revises and that it's my own books, but it's sort of, um, well, not edits, edits. Obviously I have fantastic editors, but you know, oh yeah. And I edit books too. So it's just nice to be able to have that big vision.

Alice: 7:17

And AI can't do the thinking for you. So much of the revision is the thinking. It's figuring out what you're actually trying to say.

Amy: 7:25

It's getting dumber too. Like, I don't know how much you use, um, speech to text or how much you use, like watching watch. I don't know how much you're watching Autocorrect not correct things. What autocorrect does now is it, it just replaces words that make no sense and it'll throw in words that make no sense. And, and like what, there was no, it was just, it's becoming random and it's almost like there's a glitch. There's a little bug in the system. But when it comes to humans, like we are, I don't wanna say we're not fallible, you know, we're not fallible like we are, but like we have a better grip on meaning.

Alice: 7:58

Yes. I would

Amy: 7:58

say that, that artificial anything would have, and the meaning is, is the whole point of writing, which is interesting.'cause when people go lazy or they, they go like, easy more, whatever that ease is of ai, they, they, they forget what I believe is the, is the most important part of writing, right? Yeah. Um, which is why, why did you write this? And I know this, like having dealt with, you know, students over the years and sort of saying, well, this is a really interesting story. And like, meaning, someone told me a story. Someone took me on a picnic. They took me out, put me, I put a blanket out, threw some cheese out. You can always get me with cheese and uh, always, you can always snag me with cheese. Uh, and, and we're sitting there and you told me a story. Why do I care? so why we tell stories? You know, it's nice to tell a story that's like completely not related to you, but when the story's a little bit related to you, but you don't put the bad stuff in there or the more complicated stuff in there. I'm not gonna say bad stuff'cause bad immediately goes black and white, but the complicated parts of us as humans, that's why we read books. We read books to be able to be seen and understood and to see and understand other people and, and to see that like, oh my gosh, that happens. Or Oh my god, you know, like all those things, right? And so I would often be like, hmm, you know, what, is this really what you wanted to do? Did you really just wanna write a story that was funny? Ha ha slapstick, slap the knee, and off we go. Or did you have. Something to say. And, and that is the thing. I think that when I, when I'm dealing with writers, um, and dealing with, um, even aspire, like, I think, I hate the word aspiring writers. Look, if you're writing, then you're writing, then you're a writer. That's it. I say this to third graders, I say it to 70 year olds. It doesn't matter if you're writing, then you're the exact same as me. I wrote a thousand and a bit today and I'll write another thousand later.'cause I'm gonna hit 50,000 words on this book today if it kills me. So it's like, you know, but if you're writing, you're a writer. But why, like, why are you writing? There's a reason that everybody writes a book. And if the reason is I wanna make a million dollars, that's weird, uh, to me, right? Yeah. Because I haven't, I've written like, you know, I've like actually written, you know, nearly 30 books I've published whatever, 15 or 16 books and, um, that has not happened to me yet. I have some very pretty awards. Um, that's really nice. I'm very, and I'm very honored by those awards. Um, but mostly it's a journey into yourself. That's, that's, that's the deepest and most twee thing. I may have ever said,

Alice: 10:25

I'm delighted you said it here, but I love it. I totally get it. I mean, I'm just thinking about if you want to write to make a million dollars, this feels like one of the slowest, hardest, least guaranteed days to make a million dollars out there.

Amy: 10:39

Alice, I always say this is a weird thing to throw out there, but since we're talking I'll pick the lock a little bit or we mentioned it already. You know, I talk about what it was like getting out of, you know, a really long abusive situation and um, and I was, I was like, I was writing books. That's what I had and I was the only breadwinner. So I just had, I had to really work and work and work. So it was sort of like a really strange financial situation where all the pressure was put on me. So that, of course I couldn't get out because it was just, ugh, you know, it was just so difficult. And, and the confusion people, most people don't understand the confusion and the control and how that works, but I saw an interview with Cardi B and she was a stripper and that's how she got away from her abusive partner. And I was like, man, I should have, damn, I should have myself, I should have really started, I should have thought of stripping.'cause this was some long, long journey to finally be able to go by. You know, it took me 29 years. So it's like. Definitely should just pick stripping. Exactly. Stripping

Alice: 11:34

feels like it'll get you to a million dollars A lot faster. A lot

Amy: 11:37

faster. Yeah.

Alice: 11:38

And with a little bit less, or maybe a different journey into

Alice (3): 11:40

yourself. Like, but

Amy: 11:41

again, like, and that I don't think most, I don't, most of the writers I meet, right. Even if they have that idea, even if they're like, ah, you know, but I wanna be the next, you know, Harry Potter and they, and then they hand you a book that literally is just magic school. And you're like, do you, okay. Like, you know, you're trying to, to parse it, try and figure out what, what's the, the real reason because, um, there has to be a reason beyond making money. There has to be a reason beyond. This'll be cool. And not only that, if that's the only reason, how do you get to the end of a draft? I don't know. Those people must be different to me because if I didn't have a personal stake in a book, I wouldn't be able to get to the end. I'd be like, this is, and that's why I have a bunch of books in my attic. Like, I'm just like, nah, I don't care about this book. This was dumb. This was a, this was a nice story. I was gonna take you on a picnic. Because I felt that that was, that was what writing was.'cause I was confused. I, you know, I wrote, I wrote eight books before I, over 15 years before I was published. So I was getting five, you know, I got 500 rejection letters altogether. I saw a thing the other day, I think it was Kwame, talking about how this book got rejected 24 times. I'm like, 24, man. Like, It's interesting when you, when you received that many rejection letters, you'd think, and, and you've written that many books and the years have gone by. But the, in the end, the only reason to do this is'cause you need to say something.

Alice: 12:54

Yes. Yes. You know, I love that you say that about why those books are going to stay in your attic. you've had people ask you, like teenagers ask you, why don't you pull out those books and revise them? And you, that's the question in the back of my mind too. Like, they're there when they are the book you're working on, they feel like the book of your heart. Like they feel like the thing you must do. Why not go back to them? I am so fascinated by the fact that those ones don't feel like the book where you have something to say, they're a nice story, but they're not a thing where you have something to say. Mm-hmm.

Amy: 13:25

Yeah. Or, or they're like, they don't fit. You know, one of the things about like starting writing in an isolated space, um, and being like, again, you know, we have to go back to when it was, I wrote my first four novels on a typewriter. Right. So I am, I am of that age. Right. So it's sort of, first of all those that's hard to revise. I, I don't, I, I, when I look back at people who wrote and published before the days of copy and paste the simple things, um, I. I, I'm, my awe is giant. I can't even believe people did. You know, I often have to talk to, I talk, well when I talk to really young people who aren't writers, it's really easy to say. Like, I always ask in high schools and or younger, I'm like, Hey, raise your hand if you play a sport. Raise your hand if you play an instrument. I played both. And how long did it take you to put the ball in the hoop? How long did it take you to make a cello not sound terrible. And I mean, as a cellist, I can tell you're a former cellist. I certainly am not a cellist now. It was a long time. It was like over a year. Right? And so you have to practice. And I think that's the one thing, um, that agents I think will tell you as well is like the amount of people who are like, this is my first book and it is the best thing ever. And all this stuff. I'm so glad that my first book was like on 12 different types of paper.'cause I was so broke on a, on a, from a typewriter.'cause I couldn't ha I couldn't send it to anybody. Thank God. Um, you know, it was, it was what it was and it's okay. I had to learn how to be a writer. Even if you got an English degree, you have to learn how to be a writer. It's'cause you have to learn yourself. It's about yourself. Right? Same as being an artist, right. You can, if you want, you can put something on canvas with some paint, but eventually you gotta figure out what your paintings look like. Why are they different when you go to a museum, you're not just like, oh, these all look the same, uh, and then leave. They all look different. Um, and, and it's because artists found their own way to express what they wanted to say. Right. Um, and so that's why a lot of those books in the attic can't be, you know, can't be published now. And then there's the isolation, right? Which I just, I started with, but here I am back at the isolation lane. I was in a space where. I was reading adult books, I was reading, you know, like a salmon rushie I was reading, and just random stuff whether Margaret Atwood, you know, a lot of Virginia Wolf, um, a lot of poetry, um, a lot of old poetry, Rumi Coleman Banks, uh, translations of Rumi, um, that kind of stuff. And, um, I didn't really know what, what a sellable book a marketable book looked like. I know it sounds weird, but like, I came into and they ended, when I came in into publishing, it was in Ya. I had never read a ya book. I didn't, except for, you know, the one that actually inspired me to be a writer, which I'm holding up now, which is Confessions of a Teenage Baboon by Paul Zadel, which I stole. And this is the stolen version from my junior high school. Sold that in 1983. But, um, like, you know, I'd never read a YA book and so I was like, oh, what's this ya stuff? And I read one book that was Abso Alice. It was so terrible. And I threw it across the room. I was, and I cried. I was like, I can't believe I just spent 15 years working hard on this dream. And I landed in the same bin as that book. And I know it's terrible, but it's true. Like, you know, we've all read books that are just like, oh my gosh, how, how did anybody And what a cute, and it was a story. It definitely had no depth. It had no, it had nothing. It was just like a, it was, and it was, it had Irish stuff in it that was wrong. Oh. And I wanted to, I don't, don't get me started there. So, so I was like, all right. You know, and then I read Octavian, uh, the, the astonishing, uh, life of Octavian. Nothing talk

16:54

about night and day in terms of a book that you don't wanna be on the shelf with.

Amy: 16:59

And, you know, and Tobin is a friend now. So somebody, it's something like, oh, oh, thank God. Like, oh, like, oh, what a relief I can do. I can do comp complex and, and you know, sort of things in this space, which was great. And then, then and from there I took off, um, and was able to, because I was given permission, because I understood and I understood that the assignment was, this isn't for young adults, this is about young adults. And all I ever wanted to do since I read that Pulse and Dell book was help adults understand teenagers. So if I could write crossover books, which is what the New York Times called me in more than one review, which was just, I didn't even ask'em to. Um, but it was perfect. Now, the, the, the imperfect part of that is that adults will be like, I'm not reading that. And you're just like, oh, that's a shame. Right? And you know, I get a lot of, I can't read your books. And I'm like, Hmm, you clearly haven't read my books.'cause they're pretty. You, you might not get'em. Sorry. Like, but um, but anyway, yeah. So people forget as well that, you know, sometimes something's just not good enough. It happens to me all the time on Cam again, if we, if we look at canvases, do you think every canvas that an artist draws on or paints on is gonna be great and it's gonna be like, oh, this's going to the gallery? No, half the time we paint over'em and paint over'em and paint over'em. Like, until we find something that we like or we don't like, we just, like, now I use one of my, one of my old canvases for just like, testing colors on it. Maybe one day it'll be like, oh, this is a really cool canvas.'cause I've tested lots of colors on it, but I just, I just gave up on it. I was like, I'm just give up on this thing.

Alice: 18:26

We're not gonna try on this one anymore. We threw enough of our mental energy at this and you know, we're gonna make more progress if we set that one aside and start something fresh.

Amy: 18:33

Correct. And that really is a big, that's a big message to writers that I would have to give as a, as a, you know, as an advisor in MFA programs and just be like, listen, I know this is the book of your heart. I understand that. You need to put it aside. It's too in your heart. Also, oftentimes, once someone learns the, the, the art of revision, I have seen so many over revised books to the point where, and you'll get this'cause you're an editor, you ever get those books that are so revised and so tight and still don't make it, still don't work. Yep. I hate to hate to say it, but still don't work. But if you were to touch any part of it, the entire thing would shatter. Yep, yep, yep. Because it's been so worked on, whether it's workshopped, whether it's with other editors, you know, whatever it is, it's just been so workshopped that. It, it's been, it's like, it's the classic, you know, beating a dead horse. Like it's, it's time to either step away or start, like literally rewrite it from the beginning. I have a good friend and that's how, that's her revision process. She's, when she told me this, it was actually on a panel. I just, I just looked at her like, what? She's like, oh yeah, I just start completely over. I'm like, well, what do you do with the first draft? Well, I mean, I might use it for reference. What, what, but everybody has their own way and her books are beautiful. So it's like, you know,

Alice: 19:42

that's amazing. That's so courageous.

Amy: 19:44

I think about my Revision Pro.'cause my first draft process, I mean, this book, the one that I'm working on now would be a little different in that I've had it sort of plotted out on my wall over here for a while and, and sort of, I, and it's a, it's a middle grade book and it's a, it's a prequel, so it's connected to another book. So it has to have, it has to follow certain rules, but like, pick the lock or dig or any of those, you know, bigger, Semi surreal or, or, or whatever my style is. Um, uh, those are all written with the surrealist method. So when I use the surrealist method, I sit down at this desk and I have no idea what's gonna come outta me. I channel I just open my crown chakra and go, all right, I don't know who's telling me this story, but let's go. And I can tell from yesterday, you know, yesterday's writing, like, I'm like, okay, this is where we are. This is the scene. So that's, so I'm at least grounded in scenes and, and parts and things like that. But then random stuff happens, and it happens in this book too. I had to call a geologist friend of mine yesterday and be like, okay, how does this happen? Because this happened. Can we make, can, let's throw some stuff at the wall and figure out can this is, is this possible the best answer? Yes. So now I just have to figure out how to write it in. Right. But with those bigger books, like that is a real trick. And that's why I use the, those tables of contents that you mentioned in the, in your email to me to organize. Like at the moment I have the very, it's funny you've never seen when I don't think, and it's nation nascent space. You won't, like, this is like the first one for this book, right? Very simple.

Alice: 21:07

Very

Amy: 21:08

simple.

Alice: 21:08

Oh man. It's just one page.

Amy: 21:09

Well, it's'cause it's only at this point 133. Right? And it's also, it's small and you know, I usually I space'em out. I'll show you the other one. But this is for this book. And the only right now, and the only thing I'm pointing out are the. Are the sort of chapters written from a different perspective we'll say. Right. So that's what I'm doing with that. Yeah. And then also it's helping me see just how often I need them. Like, I see this, this was me going, oops, we forgot to put one in here or in this area, right? Yep. Yep. So just note

Alice: 21:36

for the audio, I'm, I'm looking at this one page that has this list of, it looks like a table of contents. It's exactly like a table of contents. I'm gonna guess that there are probably like 30 or 40 entries on that list. And there are four that are highlighted in pink and they can, I can see they're like sections through the, the story and there's some margin notes in there. But it's very tight. It's very compact. Like it doesn't even take the full page.

Amy: 21:58

No. And that's only because it's an early one, but it's also,'cause it's a smaller book. And I didn't put the spacing. Now I did bring what I usually do with the table of content. So, okay, so there I am, I'm writing a book like, like pick the lock, right? And I'm, I'm like, oh wow, okay, now there's a rat. Okay, so there's a character that's a rat. I wonder, wow, okay. I wonder who that is. And so, I don't know. I don't know. And that's the best part of the way I, of how I write is that in a way a reader.'cause people are like, it's, it's funny. People are like, Hmm, you're a slow start, but you're worth it. And I'm like, okay, thanks. Weird. But like also I have to set the scene. The exposition is a very important part of setting a scene. And I appreciate that everybody thinks that action should come first, or this or that. It's amazing how many people think that you should be doing a thing the way that they think. And it's just so fun. And it's always, there's so many. Like they don't realize you're like the 12th person who said this to me and said something entirely different than the last 11. But anyway, um, so what I usually do, like when I have like with with pick the lock, the same thing that you just described, 133 pages into a book I would be already grappling with. Okay. I still dunno who this person is, right. And I don't know who it, but I'm still, but, but, but the, it still has something to say, this rat or this character or whatever. Um, and then I start to color code certain things, but I, I also have to work out dates and, and get a calendar and, and sort of print it all out. So it's just, I wish I have here, like I'm, again, this is set in 1980 and it's set in these two months, so I know I'm showing a calendar of some weird marks all over. Yeah. It's just a straight up calendar.

Alice: 23:28

All the days laid out. It's,

Amy: 23:29

yeah. Yeah. And you can do that on the internet. It'll give you a calendar for any year that you need. So if you're going in, in, back in history, that's cool. Um, sadly, it'll also give you the weather for back then. Don't look at that.'cause that'll really screw up everything you ever wanted to do in a book. Oh man. You don't have to be completely accurate unless you're writing nonfiction. But anyway, sometimes the neurodivergence in me goes, Hey, maybe you should, no, don't look at the weather. Just don't you need it to rain for two days straight.'cause the flood has to ha you know, the, the creek has to flood and blah, blah, blah. Just don't look at the weather'cause stop. But anyway, um, so like when I'm revising, you know, um, I don't even know what I was talking about just then. I have no idea. But when I'm revising, it's sort of. I ha it's a puzzle. And um, I think it was Jason Reynolds and I, when we were talking, um, when I really switched about like, we are both the puzzle makers and the puzzle solvers and we are, and, and so that's how I write. Um, and it's not that I'm wary of anybody who knows exactly what's gonna like happen in the book, but I also, for me, that bores me. I, I can't, I can't. I like a good surprise. Like I said, suddenly there's this thing in this story and I'm like, well, that's not on the wall. I've never taught about it and what's, what's gonna happen now? I'm like, mm mm Um, but a lot of, you know, and I also read a lot while I'm writing, so I've been reading about Love Canal'cause this whole book's about toxic waste and um. And that probably is the reason that this big sinkhole opened up. And I'm like, oh, great. Now we're gonna run another sinkhole. It's like, and I keep repeating themes, sinkhole and tunnels, and what, clearly, I live underground, so my dream, I,

Alice: 24:58

So I've got like, okay, I have so many directions that I wanna go here. Where does the editing process start for you? Like what, what is, is there a delineation between the writing process and the editing process? When are you revising? When are you no longer writing, you're revising?

Amy: 25:12

Uh, great question. Um, it used to be very, I don't wanna say separate, but it was, it was very separate, not just on typewriters, but on computers too. It used to be very push out that first draft and then, you know, revise like crazy. But over the years, it has really become revised. As I go, I stop and I have to fix things or I, I use the, the review pane on Word, and I, I use notes, all those. I, I put comments and they just wrecked it. Ugh. Microsoft, if I could only call you, um, they just wrecked it. But at the same time, it's still possible. But I leave myself notes, um, like, I still don't know this character's name. I'm calling him this for now. Find this, you know, or, Hey, I really like this notepad idea. I wrote this one yesterday. I really love this notepad. We're at page 200. Let's go. When we, when we do our quick revision, like, so I have, I'll do a quick one. Um, make sure this character has a notepad in his back pocket all the time. So I'll just add three or four mentions of this, you know, thing. Um, so I'm always revising, I'm always thinking about that final draft because like everybody else, I would really like to get it perfect on the first go, but nobody does. It'd be so nice.

Alice (3): 26:18

It'd be so nice.

Amy: 26:19

It'd be great. But, um, so it's kind of, it's kind of all the time. But then, but then I do have a very strict and a very, um, I have a very. Strict revision process, which is once I feel the book is done, I will then go through, um, usually two times now, used to be four and I used to, um, print it on different color paper. I used to go blue, green, yellow, pink, and then white was my final copy. I've cut out the blue and green. So in a way, I think that's what I'm doing While I'm writing now. And now I'll, I'll print on, um, yellow and then I'll print on pink and yellow is what I call Can I curse on this podcast? Oh

Alice: 26:55

yeah. I meant to tell you right up front. Feel free. Yes. Okay.

Amy: 26:57

So I call it the holy Shit Chainsaw revision and the holy shit chainsaw revision is I try and cut, um, 15 to 20% of the book. That's, I've tried and destroy it. I try and I see why you

Alice: 27:08

call it Holy shit.

Amy: 27:10

Right? And what, what I do, what I do is, um, I can go in and if you look at a page, usually has, um, double space. I can't remember what the number of lines it is, right? But I remember thinking, okay, if I can cut two sentences from every page, right, or three sentences from every page, well, of course there's some pages that you can't do that because it's, it's just, it's a tight scene and you've, you've already revised it. It's, it's looking great. But then you get to a whole paragraph, three pages later and you're like, I don't need this paragraph.'cause if you have the chainsaw lens on your eyes and you're there just to destroy, um, and not destroy so much, but. Really cut. Just trim. Just so trim. Like, do we need to explain One of the biggest mistakes I see in writers, including myself, all of us, every single writer does this right? Is we tend to add sentences to overexplain. We don't need to overexplain. One of the beautiful things about reading is that we connect to the dots in our heads while we read, right? So we tend to do that. So I'll cut out, I'll just cut. So the holy shit chain silver vision is a big deal because it'll take a book from, you know, 50,000 words to 40,000 words pretty quick. a hundred thousand to 80,000 pretty quick. Um,

Alice (3): 28:16

that's incredible.

Amy: 28:17

Which, which is what you want. You know, you wanna just go in there and just be and be terrible to yourself. And it's horrible because you think, oh God, I I really like that, you know, you, the whole darlings thing. That's great. Make a cut file. I have so many cut files every single book. It's just like, here's my file. I'm gonna just cut sentences, cut paragraphs, cut whole chapters, stick them in the cut file. If I need'em again, I can go get'em. No problem. Um, I've, I don't, I think one time I went into a cut file for one sentence'cause it was good. And I could, I remember the sentence so well, I could search it. So it was like, that's, you know, um, so that's how I do it. And then the pink draft, that's when I read a lot of poetry and I, or I read some of my favorite books, or I listened to some of my favorite books just to kind of get the rhythm. And I listen to a lot of hip hop or trip hop or, or even just something that just has a, has a very rhythmic kind of beat. And, um. Uh, I often have trance songs, which means I'll listen to the same song, oh, 200 times in a row and drive everybody crazy if I don't have earphones on. And, um, and then I'll revise that last draft, and then it's done. Then I send it to my editor and my agent at the same time, which is not what I would recommend writers to do. Uh, agents are not happy with that. I just am at that space, and that's just how I write.

Alice: 29:29

That's amazing that, okay, one of the things that I notice every time I read your books is that there's not a single wasted word. The writing is beautiful. The sentences, every single word is so sharp and intentional and purposeful. Honestly, I listen to tons of audiobooks. I can't really listen to your books on audiobook because I have to pay too close attention to them, the honing of language that you do in those revisions pays off because every single word matters. Um, and I just, I am so impressed by that because it's so hard to cut all those words. So, two things I'm noticing there. One. Because I just find it so astonishingly difficult to cut words myself. And I look at all of the writers that I work with, and I'm like, I understand why every word is on the page. I, I struggle to cut words. I tell my writers, I'm like, I, I can magically add an extra 10,000 words to, to anyone's novel. And so much of that on my end is connecting with the characters. Like I'm continually drawing writers down to connect more deeply with their characters. But I'm really curious to dig into like an even closer look at what you're cutting, when you're cutting in the holy shit. chainsaw, draft. And then the other piece is both of those pieces I notice are about the language and about honing the language to say exactly what you want to say. It sounds like the piece of figuring out what it is you're saying and how to structure the story and how to put the events together, those things are happening in the earlier two drafts, in the what, blue and green drafts that are now happening as you're writing, as you're going through the story. So could you talk about that, like how the story shape comes together?

Amy: 31:09

Yeah. Um, wow. Uh, let's see. Well. Again, I'm not the one to almost take, to take advice on this in a way, because I will, I, I literally wing it. I, I use Britton's and I didn't even know that I was using Britton's method, like surrealist method, but that is really how I write. So yeah, those first two drafts are, are there to figure stuff out. To give you an example, since you have Red Dig at about two years into Dig, right? The whole draft is done. The draft is done. Okay, it's finished, but there's questions that I've written, written in the columns and one of them said, who is this Freak girl? Anyway, and only several pages later it said, who's the fifth cousin? We never figured that out. And so I, I am that dumb about my own book while I'm writing it, which is great. Like, I kind of think that's cool.'cause again, that's kind of like, it mimics sort of how curious a, a reader's gonna be. But, um, well, okay, so what I'm looking for is, um, okay, here's a good one. Um, oftentimes when I'm writing dialogue, I'll say, um, let's see, uh, something important, blah, blah, blah. Um, Amy said, oh yeah, that's, that's really cool. Said Alice, or Alice replied or something. I rarely use anything but said, but that's just me. And then Amy says, what? And Alice says. Oh yeah, I think that's really cool. Nobody needs to have your hearing issues on the page. Right. And so, so things like that. And there's a lot of those, there's a lot of those, like little, little couplets. They're usually just in twos, right? So I can pull those outta dialogue, like, no problem. We could just leave silence there. We don't usually, they don't need any replacing at all. Like I said, the, at the end of paragraphs, um, and sometimes at the end of chapters, people will add a whole extra paragraph when actually if you leave it right here, it's almost like a punch in the face. And that's what you want. You don't wanna overexplain a punch in the face. You want that, you want the reader to feel that and go and get some ice, you know, which is the next chapter, and that's where the ice is. And so, you know, there's that. Um, other than that, you know, I just, I wanna make sure that every sentence actually takes us somewhere. Like that's why I'm like this part of a book. Like, I'm about 10,000 words from finishing this book. If all goes well, I'll have this book done by Tuesday and I really can't wait'cause I don't want it on my desk anymore. And I was like, I'm so positive about I'd like this book. This is a great book. I hate this book so much right now. I hate it. I just want it off my desk. It's in the way of the next thing I have to do, you know? Um, so, um, I think I just always just look for, for, I look at every sentence and I ask myself, and this is, it's, it's a vonne thing. Uh, you know, I gotta say, Vonne get, it's, you know, if a sentence, what does he say? every sentence must do one of two things, reveal character or advance the action, bam. That's it. And when I look at something, sometimes it's just frivolous. It's just there because I, half the time, the stuff I cut is the stuff that, it was me figuring out who the character was. It was me figuring out what the plot was. It was me figuring out what the heck was going on. Or it was me like, on a bad day writing when I shouldn't have been in the office. I can get the whole thing off. Like, I know there's gonna be chapters in this book that will be cut. I don't know which chapters they are yet, but when I get there, I'll be like, oh yeah, no, this is just, this is just a mushy middle moment, you know? And I could just pulled it out and, and it can be replaced with one sentence.

34:21

Yeah.

Amy: 34:22

That does the job.

Alice: 34:23

That makes so much sense. Okay. I love this. It's so challenging. I am, I'm so ready to go, like, wrap my head around this and encourage my writers to try it and be like, let's give it a shot together. It's gonna be scary. It's gonna be terrifying. I believe in us.

Amy: 34:38

I start at 10%, you can start at 10%. You can start at, I usually do 15 to 20, but that's just me. And I don't even overwrite that much now. So it is like a, I probably only cut 10% now, but again, it's because I'm revising while I'm writing.

Alice: 34:50

Yeah, yeah. And in terms of, okay, you've mentioned the surrealist writing method a couple of times, and I. I will admit, I'm not super, I'm not super studied in the surrealist space. I can read it to

Amy: 35:01

you. It's right here. Oh, please do. Yes. You ready? Okay. This is what he literally said, and this is in the manifesto from 1921. And this is, this also shows you that this is such a white dude. Right? Okay.'cause the first line is have writing materials brought once you are settled in a place as favorable as possible for focusing the mind on itself. So it's just like, aw, who's bringing your stuff, Andre? That's so nice. I, I, I don't have anyone to bring me those things, but all the same. It was the twenties anyway, but here's the, here's put yourself in the most passive or receptive state. You can forget about your genius, your talents, and those of others. Tell yourself repeatedly that literature is one of the saddest roads leading to everything. Write swiftly with no preconceived subject, swiftly enough that you cannot retain it and are not tempted to reread. Now,'cause I'm doing my dissertation on this at the moment, let me say that. If you follow that very strictly the way they did and use, you know, automatism in the way that they did, you're not gonna sell a book that has no beginning, no middle, no end, there's no revision. These guys were really experimenting for the first time. And isn't it great?'cause now we can have their, you know, their knowledge and their, and their practice. But, um, so we have to still, you know, we have to sell books. If you're gonna do this, you wanna sell books, you're gonna have to do a little bit of, you know, revising and, and really, but that's how I write my first drafts. So I, I can't put them down for the, for the, that. Like, that is how I write myself, my first drafts. I don't, I don't believe I'm a genius. I don't believe anyone else is a genius. I'm just gonna see what story comes in to my head, and then I just write what, what, whoever's talking to me, you know, I don't know. It sounds very weird. Like, I know I'm the one writing the story, but whatever comes to me, I follow it. I just follow it. Even if it's crazy. Even if, even if suddenly a sinkhole opens, and that's where the Easter egg is, even if suddenly, you know, there's a kid with a shovel or, you know, pick the lock, there's a rat, you know, and I'm like, what the heck is this? And it's this, it's a very, it sounds like it probably is the, the devil. It, it does sound like it's, you know, a very, very, um, a very diabolical rat. So then you just have to, then I'm like, I don't know what that is, but I'm gonna keep writing it. And at the end you're like, like, usually there's a moment where you're like, oh my God, you're like in the middle of target, or you're, or you're showering somewhere where you can't write anything down or scream and you're like, I figured it out. Oh my gosh, this is who the rat is. This is what the rat is doing. This is why the rat's in the story. And I live for those moments. But at the same time, at 20,000 words before the end of the book, I felt the same way about that book.'cause I feel about this book that's on my desk now. I can't wait to get rid of it. It's so weird. It's such a weird job. It is,

Alice: 37:40

it is. It is. I mean, you stick with this project for so long and you're like, well, how, how do I let go? But also, how do I possibly get to the end? Please,

37:49

please, God. Yes. Okay.

Alice: 37:50

So. I am really curious because, um, you're following what comes up, what your, what your, what your inspiration brings you, what your brain presents to you, what the characters present to you. You're just following it all the way as fast as you can. I'm really curious, at what point do you know, okay, first pick the lock. Specifically, at what point did you know that it was going to be confined feminist smashing patriarchy and not confined feminists being smashed by patriarchy?

Amy: 38:26

Oh, I knew that from the very beginning. Um, I drew, is it here? Oh God, it's, again, viewers can't see this or listeners can't see this, but you can see this. So I, I drew this picture of a hamster tube. It's like a little habit trail tube with two, um, 45 degree angles, right? And it, and then a chair, and it just said system. And I wrote that on the day that I realized, or I could, I kind of, I got a concept, a thought in my head, and the thought was, when you can't control your own narrative, meaning when you're in this case, in this case, for this picture and for the book, pick the lock. When your husband or your, your spouse is telling your children lies about you for a long period of time, you may as well be locked into a hamster tube that's human sized because. You have no control over the narrative. Those kids are believing a bunch of lies. It's not their fault. Um, and you have to escape that system. Um, and, and you can't because you're one who has the keys, and in fact, the person who does won't let you out. But the other people in the space, which are the kids, can at least say, Hey, you're in a system. And you're like, well, yeah, I know, but you know. And then, but I, when did I know that the system was going to be, without spoilers, bigger than just the house when it showed up, I was like, what? And that was actually in my sketchbook. I was sketching. I was like, oh, this is what the house looks like. This is what the garden looks like. Oh, look, they have a pool. Oh, great. Of course they do. I love swimming. So of course they have a pool, and this is where the, you know, orchards are, and what the heck is that? Oh, oh, there's something underground. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, there's this, there's Station six. What the heck is Station six? And to this day, I can't tell you what Station six is. I don't know. And in the end of the book, they're like, how, how far does this go? She's like, I don't know. I haven't followed it all the way. And, and that's kind of how it works, you know? And as a, as a representation of the patriarchy or the escape from it, that's also still true, you know? You know, it holds true to the actual, to the actual analogy as well.

Alice: 40:36

Yeah. I mean, as I was reading. Pick the lock and thinking about this idea of, of pantsing and not knowing where the story is going to go. I, as the reader walking into pick the lock thinking, I'm reading an as king novel. Like I know that this novel is going to look at some kind of, some kind of unjust structure, some kind of wonky thing in the world. Look at it clear-eyed and be like, how are we going to deal with this? And I, as a reader was assuming we're not going to end the book with Vernon wins, and everyone is sad. Like I'm thinking all the way through. How are we going to, in some way overcome Vernon over in some way, overcome this system in some way, break out of this? I don't know how it's going to happen, but I'm expecting that that's where this ending is going to go. At what point, and I had to imagine that you knew that too, that you weren't thinking, I bet Vernon wins at the end of this book when you first began it. No, I

Amy: 41:34

definitely knew he wasn't going to, I just didn't know how we were going to overcome it. Yeah, yeah.

Alice: 41:38

At what point did you figure out how we were going to overcome it? Was that in the writing process, in the revising process? When did that come through? Yeah, everything's,

Amy: 41:44

yeah, everything's in the writing process, um, before that first draft. So again, I'm making a lot of those. Um, and I have them here. I, I am making a lot of these, you know, um, tables of contents and I'm looking at sort of what's already down on the page and when you, when you, when you stop and. And really look at what you've already written.'cause you're stuck.'cause you're like, well, I don't know where to go from here. Like, what happens next? We have to have this destroyed. Um, I'll call my friends who are great at plotting. I'll, I'll talk about, like, I have a few, I usually have one friend on my bestie, David, who, um, I've actually wrote an incredible book called, um, the Sticky Note Plot. Um, it's out there. Um, I hate to just, I have to just say it though, because that's the reason I have sticky notes all over my office. Um, it really does help me plot out things, even if I'm not gonna follow the plot. Right. It helps me understand sort of where my brain is going as I'm writing and a little bit before. But anyway, um, yeah, there's a, there's a moment where I'm like, oh, okay. And of course. The, the one thing I get with Pic, the lock people are like, well, how come it wasn't like bigger? And why didn't they kill Vernon? And why didn't, I'm like, because this isn't a thriller. And you know, James Bond is nowhere to be seen. Friends. This is real life and this is the patriarchy. And it's a, it's a common quiet disassembly. And that's what it's going to be. And it's going to be personal. You have to have a common quiet disassembly of your own patriarchy. That's how it works. And then you can empower yourself and go out into the world and nobody's bullshit gets in your way. Um, and that's still not true. Bullshit gets in the way all the time. We'll talk about that in a little bit when it comes to publishing, because you can't control other people. You may work your ass off, you may work so hard, you barely give yourself time to shower. And I might be there in that space. Um, but if somebody else who controls, um, the marketing or the, you know, success of your book is not working that hard or doesn't give a crap about how you're working, you really can't do squad about it. This is why the most important thing is to have the best book out there that you want out there. If it sells two copies, who cares? If it's the book you wanted to write, that's what matters. That's it. And if it says what you wanted to say, that's what matters. But when it, that did not answer your question. Yeah. Um, basically, yeah. I just figure it out when I, I cry. I or I, or I or I get really angry or frustrated and I take walks and I'm like, what's gonna happen? Like. And then, then you're just like, oh, well let's write it and see what happens. A lot of times people will stall. I, I'm just like, no, you know what?'cause I want the thing off my desk so much.'cause I have like,'cause you know, I don't know if you guys, if everybody does this, I think I, I've talked to a lot of writers about this and most of us do, but, um, I have a pretty fast brain. And so, like, like I said, look, I'm in the middle of this book. This came up. Yeah. Except I've been, I've been cheating on my middle grade book that I've been writing during the day, writing a, an adult book that's actually sticky noted on the back of that whiteboard behind me. Um, and so I've been writing this adult book for ages. It's not this one, this is another one. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, get this book off so I can finish this book so that I can start. And it's just constant, you know? So, um, so I just wanna get to the end of the book and then I'll fix it. And that's really what that first revision that has no color. Like it's not a pink or a yellow draft. I go through there before I ever will print it on yellow.'cause yellow's sort of like, this is something I'm willing to show to my editor.

Alice (2): 44:55

Hmm.

Amy: 44:56

That's a big deal. Right. So I have to perfect it pretty a lot before I would ever do that. Um, so I kind of, yeah, I guess I figured out on the way and, and I'll write it even if it's wrong and then I'll fix it later. Yeah. That's the one cool thing about revision. You know, look, right now I'm writing all the wrong names in this book I'm writing and eventually I'll come up. I have, I'm using the real names of the people in real life that did some of the things, you know, like, um, you know, the toxic waste stuff. Um, I have to change that. I have to come up with a handy name, but

Alice: 45:26

yeah. Yeah, that makes so much sense.

45:31

I am cutting in for just a moment to let you know that if you're enjoying this conversation and feeling inspired, I have a bonus reading list for you. I've gathered all the books that Amy mentions here and The insights that she shared about how she revised them, and I've compiled them into a reading list. It's ordered by publishing dates, so you can see how her novels have evolved over time, and it includes links to order each book from Erin's books, Amy's local bookstore, where you can get your book signed and personalized by Amy herself. You can grab that reading list by going to alice sudler.com/ 82 and entering your email in the form there, Because the best way to see Amy's editorial choices in action is to read the books that she wrote and revised. Alright, back to Amy.

Alice: 46:17

I'm curious about at what point do you bring other people into this process? You mentioned you've got a few people you mentioned you've got your people who are really good at plotting and you just like bounce ideas with them, but they don't read the draft. And then you have your editor and your agent and you're sending them the manuscript and you have a certain point when you are willing to share, or you've got the manuscript to a point where you're like, that's shareable, but you don't share it at that point. Like, what is this process of bringing other people into your revision process?

Amy: 46:46

This is easy. And I'm weird. I don't recommend this for anybody because every agent is different and every editor is different. Right. And every publishing house is different. But for me, I don't bring anybody in. I don't have beta readers, I don't have anybody. Um, and, and somebody like, like David Gill, who, like I said, um, he's really great applauding. He teaches that very well. He's a great writer. Um, but he's just, just'cause he is my bestie. He's like, you know, I'll be like, oh yeah, yeah. Like right now he knows way too much about toxic waste because I'll go off on it, but I also know what he's obsessed with.'cause we talk to each other that way. But, um, at what point, look man, I'm. To me, it has to be perfect. It has to be so close to being ready to publish in my mind. And that's what a good editor, this is why I love my editor. I'll be like, all right, here you go. Here's a perfect, beautiful thing. It's finished. Now. I never think that that's really true. Like I used to say to my old editor at, well, not my old, my former editor at, at Little Brown, she's a genius. Uh, Andrea Spooner used to be like, she'd said, she's like, okay, well, I'll send you a letter in a few weeks. And I'd be like, oh, you mean it's not perfect? And she'd be like, no, no, it's, I'm like, oh, no, no, don't, don't do that. I'm kidding. There's this humor in this. But, um, but at what point, like once I, once, I'm pretty much, I feel like it's in the right space. I've, I've done my final, you know, table of contents. It's all color coded, all the dates are right, everything's tight. Um, I've looked at everything from the spacing of where the title is on the page. It's four Spaces Down. I mean, so I, I look at design. I went to art school, so my brain, my brain is very design oriented too. So I have that. I make sure just everything's perfect, and then I send it to my agent and editor at the same time. I'll be honest, I don't even know when my agent reads the book work. He's a great agent. Like, and he, he will, he'll talk about the book, like he's read it. So I know that he has, but it's not like he says me a thing that says, this is genius. He doesn't, I don't need that. I don't, I wouldn't believe it anyway. Like it's sort of, you know, but then my editor reads it and then he gets me a letter and, and, and we go from there. First we have a conversation. And I, and I usually, when I, when I, when I send a book, I will send a book with the things, I think, with the little letter that says, these are the things need help. These things need help. Something's up with this, this doesn't quite fit. I'm concerned about this character being flat or whatever. Right. And so I'll send that list. It's like a grocery list.

Alice: 49:01

Yeah. And what kind of feedback does your editor give you in that process? I think that a lot of my listeners want to be traditionally published and have not yet been traditionally published. And you know, when we have a thing that we hear about, we have our ideas of what that looks like, that may or may that have some basis in reality, but they're not actually based in reality. So what does the feedback look like when you get it from your editor?

Amy: 49:27

Well, that all depends on the editor and it depends on the book and the, and the writer. And I think it all, it really is very different, right. But for me, um, I, having worked with a few editors over the years, and again, at different stages in my career, right? So now. It's more like a very intense line edit. It's not as much of a, Hey, I'm not even gonna line edit this until you fix these five things. You know? So letters can be like, okay, this isn't working. You know, this character isn't working for me. This doesn't make sense that she is this weak in this space, in this strong, in this space. But then a good, in my mind, a good editor isn't gonna tell you how to do that. They're gonna tell you what the problem is, and your brain's gonna come up with, oh, well, she's weak in that area because she doesn't feel she can speak up. Oh, shoot, I need to polish up why? Right? I need to figure, I need to make that space more confining so that we can explain, you know, the answer to this. So basically a good editor to me asks good questions. Um, so, and absolutely gives suggestions and, and all of those things you can, you can say no to. I don't, I don't recommend saying no to it. I recommend, I recommend listening to your editor, um, because an editors, and, and if you don't know why, you know they're saying. And don't worry, like everybody, like when I get editor's letters, I, I haven't met an author yet who doesn't have to like, take a really fast walk around the block, um, maybe every day for a week to sort of filter through what this editor has said, because you wanted to get the book off your desk and now this person wants it back on your desk. It's just so annoying and you wanna go write this other book, you know, but at the same time, you know, this is the process, right? But, um, some of the things they say are, you know, um. I mean everything from, are you sure you wanna go this far? To, um, you know, this isn't quite connecting yet. This isn't connecting for me here. I wanna make sure that this is connecting. Um, that kind of stuff. I mean, with pick the lock, it was sort of an interesting editorial process where my editor was very hands off. He'd never been, and I mean, it's, part of it was'cause I had worked it to, not to death, but I'd worked it really, really a, a long, for a long time. Also, it was the first time I ever sent a book that had placeholders and wasn't finished because he needed to see a draft because there was an in-house launch. He needed to read it, know where it was. It wasn't'cause he didn't trust me. He needs to be able to talk it up. And he also wants an idea of what's, you know, what it's, what it turned out like. He knew what the idea was and we talked about it. He bought it, you know, we did all this. But, but, um, so I sent him an unfinished book. First time ever was picked the lock I, and I was like, this is so uncomfortable. I can't even believe this. You're making me do this, but here, here it is, take it. And then, but then I worked, it also gave me a like, I guess a stronger push to, to read it or to work on it and finish it so that I could get him a final draft, ASAP. Um, and then he really was pretty hands off with that book, mostly because he knew that it was so personal and it was, it was experience that he hadn't been through, but I had lived through. So it's sort of, I mean obviously not exactly it's the giant surrealist metaphor, but you know what I mean. And so, um, but also I think because. It worked. I mean, we also are in the mid midst. See, he and an editor like that in a publishing house also has the vision of where the genre or the, or, so if you're writing Myster Mystery, so genre that way where the, where the classification is going. So now where ya now in this, in this timeline right here in 2025, most of the work I've published is, YA would've been published as adult, especially with the crackdown of these people who don't think children should read books about real things, um, because it makes adults uncomfortable. So you have this space where, you know, this editor has not just your words, your commas, you know, this isn't about spelling and grammar. This is about your characters, your plot. And then more importantly, it's like, where is it gonna fit in? Where does this fit? What are the comps? How can I, is this, is this the Hunger Games meets? I don't know mean girls, is it actually, that's kind of redundant. But anyway, like is, you know, but whatever. Um, so that's, you know, that's the vision. Um, but um, what kind of things did they say? I mean, I've had. 11 page letters that say, you know, I don't like the way that, or I, I don't believe the way that Gloria's interacting with her father. Why is she interacting that way? I mean, I don't think that's actually what was said, but something like that. So, meaning something's unbelievable, something's hard to grasp, something isn't gonna work for a reader. And then I have had people try and, you know, kind of police me and I, I'm not policed very easily. I, I will find another way. In fact, if you've read as the Passengers, the reason that Astrid Jones flips her shit at the end of that book and starts walking down the hallway screaming, fine, I'm gay, is that what you want? Is because that entire book, including in the actual, like, that was the first book I ever sold on spec. And in that book it was called Quest. It was all about questioning. And the whole idea is that I was gonna keep that character as someone who didn't have to be boxed or defined or labeled. All the way through the book. That was very clear. And for some reason my editor either didn't know that or didn't care and knew that she could CI don't know. Again, she's a brilliant woman and I absolutely adore her. So she wasn't trying to hurt me. She was probably trying to do good things for the book. It's not about the author for them, it's about the book. And I think that's why you have to listen to him. Um, and she's like, no, she needs to come out. And I'm like, no, she doesn't. That's the whole point. She doesn't have to come out. And she's like, no, she does. So that's why I had Ashley be like, fingers up, fine. Screw you. I'm gay. Right, fine. Whatever. And whether that was true or not, and she even said, I don't even know if it's true, but I'll say it for your sake. And I was like, yeah, that was me basically saying that to my editor. Absolutely. There's a bunch of things in my books like that, and it's really fun, you know? Um, and it's not because I'm mad at my editor, it's because I'm mad at the book. I'm like, ah, this doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but this seems to be what they need, so I'll, I'll do it. You know? That's

Alice: 55:06

amazing. That's so cool. I love that story behind the story, and I have not read that book yet, but you can bet that is the next I'm about to go pick up and I'm so excited for

Amy: 55:15

and it could even just be like, one of the, one of my favorite suggestions in recent years,'cause I really can't remember the older stuff, you know, was David Leviathan, who is my editor, um, over at Scholastic, um, was my friend for years. And then we ended up, I got orphaned as an, as a writer. And this will happen to you writers. It's, it's okay. It's okay. But like, my editors kept leaving and I loved all those editors. Um, and then I was like, David, is this really gonna happen? Like, we're friends. This is weird. And then it worked out great. He's a great editor. Um, but he was like, I kept hinting to the fact that Dennis, this one character was basically Ace. Um, and he's like, why don't you just say he's Ace? And I was like, oh, okay. And I did, and you know what? The amount of reader letters I get about that, that are so beautiful and just so whether they're older and they read middle grade and they're like, oh my gosh, if I would've read this when I was a kid, I would've understood myself so much better to young people writing to me going, I'm so glad you know, you, you, you support my community. That's, I just like, wow, that's amazing. One little thing. One, and, and like I said, I was showing it, not telling it, but it was like, yeah, I'm showing it, but then put a label on it because actually, you know, 10 and 12 year olds really need to hear, have, understand that label. Right. Which is, yeah, funny because we just talked about labels before, but anyway. Yeah.

Alice: 56:36

But this is why stories are complex and interesting, is because sometimes you need something and sometimes you need the opposite thing. And both of those realities are true. And that's why there's not a simple choice forward for characters. That's why stories like the complexities of humanity are what come out on the page. And so in this case, the label is the thing the reader needs. And in this other case, the label is the, the thing that the character needs to bust out of. Like, yes, that's, I love it.

Amy: 57:02

it depends. It depends. And every single, you know yourself, like I, I feel this, and I know there's a, there's a movie about it. I've never watched it, but someone told me to a long time ago. But one of the things about being a writer is the, the sheer power. You write a sentence like, um, you know, Alice closed the door and started to cry on her bed, and you're like, delete. Alice locked her door, went straight to her window. Repelled down the side of the house and, and walked to her best friend's house. Two very different things, right? You can, and you can just keep writing this, you can just delete that one and decide that she, A million things can happen once Alice closes the door. Like, and that's the coolest part about writing. And I think, I think oftentimes we get a little too precious with our own work. We get a little bit too, um, attached to the idea that we only thought Alice could do one thing, and this also might come with, it comes with practice, it comes with years of experience, but it also comes with age, which is, I look, man, I'm gonna say this out loud. There was this person that lived with me in Ireland that lived with me, lived around me, and was in the kind of the friend group in Ireland when I first started writing books. And I was like on my second or third novel at this point. They were, again, they were terrible, but that's okay. I was learning. And she said to me, Ugh, I don't even know why you're writing novels. No one should start. And she was my age too. She's like 23, 24. Um, and everyone knows you shouldn't start trying to write novels till you're 40. And the funny part is, I got published when I was 40. So if I wouldn't have started at 24, maybe I wouldn't have gotten published at 40. Right? But age does, you know, it does change your, it changes your worldview. Um, I. In, in a really cool way, especially to yourself and especially as an artist, like, and, and you just realize there's just so many, there's so many roads you can take with every sentence. Alice, once we close the door, can do anything she wants and we can change that in a book anytime. We can actually just cut the whole last third of the book and change the whole last third of the book if we need to. And that's, that's where that chainsaw has helped me a lot.

Alice: 58:56

Yes. I think that one thing I see with writers is that once it's on the page, in the first version, it's easy to get attached to it. Like once the words are are written, it feels like that's the thing. And it's so hard to let that go. But the possibilities are endless when you use that sentence as the tool to get you to what you mean in the story. And then from there you extrapolate out to what the actual sentence can be.

Amy: 59:20

I, I always say revision is the sport. You know, Andrea wrote me that when she said, I think I said to her or something about, oh, you mean it's not perfect? This might have been in that exchange. And she said, oh, I'm really sorry, you know, but, but, and I was like, no, no, no, no. And when I think maybe it was when she wrote me a letter, she's like, I'm sorry, this was like 11 pages long. And I was like, Andre, it's longer than that. I saw that you reduced the font. You reduced the font to Ted. Right? So I don't care. It's fine. Listen to me, revision is the sport. I'm a jock. I'm an old jock. I love basketball. I loved playing competitive sports, wasn't it?'cause I was, it was a mix of teams. The teamwork and the actual. Doing the work, working hard, practicing, sweating. I love it. Um, and I like it a lot more in my brain now versus actually being, I can't really do that anymore, um, physically, but, um, intellectually I love it. And to me, revision is the sport. It's the impact. It's the, it's the reason. It's the reason we're writers. We're not, we're not, I mean, the first draft is great. You can't revise anything without it. Right. But the revision is the sport for me.

Alice: 1:00:18

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I love that. I love that perspective. That's what I'm trying to encourage all of my writers to, to hear is that there's so much joy here, and this is where the true, the true storytelling happens. The first is just like getting a story to work with. Now we're actually telling the story. So once you get the letter, once you get that initial feedback from your editor, how many more drafts do you tend to go through after that letter?

Amy: 1:00:45

Um, you know, again, because we can revise on the page, you know what I mean? The constantly and when it comes to. You know, computers and, and word processing systems. Um, I can't really count them, but like, usually it's one big mess of me trying to fix all the things. Um, yeah, in it, again, every book is different, so a lot of notes on the side. Um, I'll go in and I'll tag like, oh, this is a way that I can make that thing she said on page two work, oh, I can do this for the thing that she said on page, you know, so I'll go through it and I'll, I'll have her letter in front of me and what I usually would do is print the letter out, mark the whole thing up. I also have a notes file. I didn't even talk to you about this, but I have a notes file for all my novels. So all my novels have a journal basically, and sometimes they're longer than the book, um, which is frightening. Um, but sometimes they're also complete bullshit. Like half of them, I, when I, I'll go through now and edit out things, I click How, why doesn't Alice buy a giraffe? I'm like, that's dumb. And I just delete that. You know, I don't, there's no need to leave it there and waste paper. So I try and get all the, this, the ideas that I originally had, even from the very beginning, like the very first thing I wrote about this book is important because that's, that's the origin. And so I'll have that. Keep that in mind, make sure that matches. Then I have my editor's letter out as well, and I'll have like, I'll, I will cross out whole things and be like, Nope, I will not be doing that. That is a, that is not something I will do, but I will answer the question this other way. Um, and so I can do that when I'm, when I'm going through. So I, I'll, I'll do that. I'll basically go and, and tag up a right, you know, scribble all over my own manuscript, we'll say, but in, in, in the word processing software. And then, um, and then I just go through and try and make it right. And I, I'd say that probably takes a good few passes. Um, and especially in the old days, like, you know, in, in my first 10 books, there were a good few passes to do that. Um, and you know, I wanna tell a quick story if that's okay. Yes, please. There's a little revision. This is actually my first published book, um, which was my sixth or seventh novel that I wrote. Um, but not the one I got my, my agent on. So remember those other books like this, I always say this to writers, just keep writing. Why, why are you, why are you trying to work on marketing? That's not your job. Write the next book because you're gonna need the next book. You're an author, that's what you do, right? But, um, I published the dust of 100 dogs, but when I first got an agent, and it wasn't my agent, now it was my first agent, um, he said, I refuse to sell this right there. That's a problematic thing, but we're not gonna get into that today. Um, but he's like, I can't, I can't pitch this unless you make the villain die at the end, right? And I was like, whoa. I. Who's, how's he gonna die? Well, she's gonna kill him. I'm like, she's a 16-year-old girl, like, or a 17-year-old girl. Like she doesn't really have the, a lot of stuff. She doesn't have a lot. She doesn't have that in her to kill him. And so I still had to do it though,'cause I wanted him to shop the book. So I went in and I inserted what, she's a pirate. She's a 17. She's a eight. What is she? 17. Oh man, I can't remember. Hold on. It was Cromwell was, she's a cromwellian orphan. So it starts in Ireland and it was 16th, fifties. So it was 17th century. Yeah, it was late 16th, hundreds. She's a 17th century Caribbean pirate. It's a long story. She gets from Ireland to France and then goes, doesn't matter. It's all historically accurate, which is how I am, except for the weather. Um, except for the weather. Nailed it. And so, um, I was like, oh, well she has her pirate memories, right? That's the whole point. That is the one book I can actually still pitch, which is that it's about, it's about emer, Morrisey or Uhoh. No, I said I could pitch it and now I don't know if I can, but basically this, this, this pirate, right? This woman is a pirate. She's notorious pirate. She gets cursed before she's killed and she's cursed that lived the lifetimes of 100 dogs before. She's reborn as a human again. And when she is, she's born in, um. In Pennsylvania, and, and she, um, has all of her pirate. She knows where the booty is. Basically all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica. And that's the, that was the tagline. And so I decided I would have to give her pirate feelings. I slow, I, and I called it pfs pirate feelings. And I, I just, I just decided to stick in all these rage filled and it worked.'cause she's a teenage girl and a place where her parents are treating her like a girl and her brother, like he has to do other stuff and just, it's just, it's rage and it so it fit. So she had these pirate feelings, like she's just always taking people's eyeballs out and squeezing them, but it's just in her head, you know? And squeezing them like a lime into their mouth, like gross stuff like this. But that's, that piracy, you know, violence. And she had these thoughts and that allowed her to kill the villain at the end. The best part about it is that when the book sold, my editors like she can't kill the villain in the end. I'm like, oh god. I know. But the pirate feelings stayed because they made the book better. And so every revision is worth it. Every revision. That story is everything to me because it's real. Those pirate feel that book would be shit without those pirate feelings. And I probably added 14 sentences. That's it. And the book would be entirely different and it wouldn't nearly read as well without those pirate of feelings.

Alice: 1:06:01

That's amazing. I love that so much. I. I love so many things about that. One of them is, I love that the pirate feelings are this, this like magical element of her being a reincarnated pirate, like, right? And yet it works because she's a teenage girl with anger. And so you've got this magical thing that is allowing you to tell us a truth. And I love that.

Amy: 1:06:25

The best part about that, Alice, is that until I just told you that story, and I've told that story many times, I didn't realize how well the pirate feelings fit with a teenage girl in that household. So until I said at this time, that was a, that was a new way for me to say it. But the bottom line, you know, the real thing to learn from that is that, look, maybe your editor's wrong, do it anyway. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Because then, then the next revision you'll be like, oh, we can actually pull back on that. And I've had editors do that to me. I'm like, okay, you want this? Here's this. And they're like, we need to pull back on that a bit. And I was like, what the heck? How can you change your mind? But the book always improves. It's, it's

Alice: 1:06:56

just how it is. And your subconscious is aligning it with the true story all the way through. Because whether you could articulate that the pirate feelings matched the teenage girl when you wrote it, or now like all the way through, your subconscious was still telling the same story and you matched all of the things up because they worked Even then. I love that so much. Wild, right? That's so, that's so cool. I love it. I just, I love revision, revision.

Amy: 1:07:19

Revision is the best. I know, me too. I'm a nerd for it. We could sit here all day and I would seriously truly, I actually like this would be the longest podcast in history.

Alice: 1:07:24

So I know you teach in an MFA program. What do you tell your students about revision?

Amy: 1:07:30

Um, I don't teach there anymore, but I'm about to teach again soon. I can't tell you where because it's a secret. Um, but what do I tell'em about revision? I hand them this one page document, which is actually me cheating. It's Kurt Vogts rules for writing. Um, there are eight rules. Um, and then his essay, how to Write was Style. So it truly is a one pager. Um. And when it comes to revision, I, I, you know, I do give'em the chainsaw thing. Um, but mostly that's, you know, because of working with students in the MFA program, usually it's, it's line edits and then, you know, and, and an editorial letter every single month. And it's a, a short form of the long form of what we just discussed, right. So, like, instead of having an entire novel and go poof, you know, and then having an editor send you this giant letter or these, you know, giant manuscript with lots of line edits on it, we get to do it 50 pages at a time. Um, which I think is actually quite gentle and, and sweet. Um, but it's also fun because, you know, that's when the writer, you know,'cause most honestly, this, I may call it the surrealist method and say all this stuff, but a lot of writers are panthers. Mm-hmm. So they might get a hundred pages in and go, wait a second, I don't want this character to do this anymore. And I'm like, excellent. And we can go back. You can, they don't have to be a fast food, you know, um, drive through person. They can be a, a pizza delivery person or they can, uh, work in their dad's garage. Like, we can do anything we want. Like, so honestly, it just is, for me, when it comes to revision, a lot of it is, is I think the biggest work we do when we're working with MFA students usually is, is getting'em to throw things away. Is the cutting and is is the giving them like, look, I, I just, the reassurance, you know, of like, listen, I promise you I am not trying to wreck your book. And if we do, my apologies, but I always used to say, this is why I have Spock behind me and there's Spock everywhere in my office because my students give me little sp and I say, look, I'm a cuddly Vulcan. This is what I mean. I'm blunt. I'm blunt because I'm gonna tell you what's wrong with your book. I'm also gonna tell you what's right with your book. You know, I'm gonna say, oh my gosh, this character like shines, you know, this is amazing. Um, but I will say, how can we make her, you know, a little more, you know, give her more agency or, you know, whatever. Right? Um, so it's more questions than anything, which I think is actually the, the what's missing in most conversations these days in the world. Um, questions versus knowing so much. But, um, yeah, I, I think when I work with students, the biggest thing that, the biggest thing that we have to conquer is, is letting go of the, the darlings. Whether on a large scale, like this whole book is my darling to, to look. This idea is my darling. Okay, cool. How are we gonna make it work? Because it's not right. And having to say, listen, it's not, this isn't working right now, but it has potential. These are the five things. Like, same with me talking a geologist yesterday. How is this gonna work? You know, how I, we don't have bogs in Pennsylvania. How can I make a bog? Um, and so, you know, you know that that's really what it is. It's just sort of, mm. It's, it's like a, a bartering of sorts really, because, and I, I have found, you know, obviously some students haven't taken my, my, you know, um, my advice and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, I didn't take all my editor's advice either, and I always will say, look, this could be me being crazy, but what do you think about this? And I love to, one of my favorite tricks of editors, and I, I don't even know if they know that this is a trick, or maybe this is just how they operate, but like, when you're like, they're like, mm, I don't like the title of this book. And I'm like, oh, really? Okay, well, so give us some more ideas. I'm terrible at that. First of all, I'm already onto the next book. I've been cheating on this book with, with another book for ye like a year. And I have two more in my head. I don't want to talk about the title of this book. It's, it's done for me. So then they'll, they'll be like, okay, well here's, here's my ideas. And they'll send me a list of literally the worst titles you have ever seen for a book. They're the worst titles. And I'm like, oh God. And so you have to do better than that. And then you send'em, well, how about these four? Like, whatever. And it was so funny, like when we finally worked, and this is with Andrew, this is with my, my present editor who I adore, um, with Dig. Dig was on the first list and it was called a Brilliant, um, a bunch of different things. And it was like, no, that's not, you know, we need a title and then this list. And I was like, no, these are terrible titles. And, and then I had to go back to like, what about Dig? And he was like, why don't we add a period to it? It is an imperative. And I was like, you're so brainy. I What a great match. You what a great match. You know. So

Alice: 1:12:02

I love that. That's hilarious. I'm just imagining you sending in a title, them being like, this title doesn't work. It's not good. And then them being like, what if we lower the bar? What if we go downhill from that? What if we make it

Alice (3): 1:12:12

worse?

Amy: 1:12:13

It's one of the best things to do. And I do it with my students all the time, kind of accidentally, because I have to get through their packet.'cause I have to get to the next packet so I can finish all their packets so I can get back to the book so I can get it off my desk so I can work on the other book. Right? So I'm like, Hey, this is a really terrible idea, but come up with a better one, blah. And then I just keep going. But I, I throw them terrible ideas, not on purpose, you know? I'm like, that's what I'm saying. I don't know if my editors, I think my editors are probably in the same place. They're probably editing 12 books, right? And they're like, I don't know what your title should be. Dumb ass. Here's a stupid list. I don't know. But like, it works. They're not

Alice: 1:12:43

trying to send you deliberately bad ideas.

Alice (3): 1:12:46

You just look at them and you're like, man, we're going downhill from here. I gotta bring this back around. Or this is gonna go out in a way I do not want.

Amy: 1:12:53

That's it. You know, it's, it's like, it's that, it's that psychological kind of, um, it's uh, what do you call that? It's like a reverse psychology.

Alice: 1:13:02

Yes, yes. It works either way. Yeah.

Amy: 1:13:04

So, so basically working with students is, uh, you know, Andrea Spooner, I have to give her credit for, and all my editors, really, every editor I've ever worked with, um, they all taught me how to really do that and really give good feedback and give feedback in a great way. And I hope, um, and, you know, um, look for those elements. I really, I. I don't, I don't think I could ever teach anyone how to do it. It's just sort of, it's the same way as I look at my own work, though. I care about other people's work to say this, it's your baby. I'm gonna work on your baby with you. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be blunt about you. Your baby needs a bath. Like, you know what I mean? Like this, this child needs some washing, or you know, this child needs a haircut or whatever. Like, um, and, but you can decide what, you know, whether you wanna give them a mullet or bangs or whatever, you know?

Alice: 1:13:51

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Amy: 1:13:52

It's your choice.

Alice: 1:13:53

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Um, while we're talking about students and in particular now going even younger to teens and young people, um, on the one hand you've got highly insightful person who lived next door to you one time and told you no one writes books before 40. So thanks for that stunning wisdom. Um, but there's something real about what you gain in your writing as you age. But on the flip side, you love speaking to teens, and I know that there are some listeners to this podcast who are teens. So what would you say to our teen listeners who are working on their novels of their own and about the revision process or writing in general?

Amy: 1:14:32

I love teen novelists there. Like I, teenagers are the smartest people on the planet. And I say that to them and they think maybe I'm pandering and I am so not. I have to deal with adults every day. I love teenagers because they still have a huge connection to their emotions and the truth of their lives and their emotions. And sometimes, actually, I don't even, I'm not even sure, like I, again, I'm doing this dissertation at the moment and like the amount of research I'm reading about Gen Z specifically, and actually some millennials as well who have the, the, the, the people in America who have had to, um, hiding closets from, um, potential intruders. Okay. So we're gonna, we're gonna look at that trauma and we're gonna talk about how no one talks about it. And then we're gonna talk about the fact that if a teen brings up that trauma, then some adult's gonna be like, well, you know, it's for, I don't care what they say after that. It doesn't even matter. Just shut up a kid's telling you they're traumatized. Be quiet. Right? And now we can use that thing that, that's more universal. Literally every kid does it. And you're gonna have a lot of kids to learn. I'm not traumatized by that. Yeah, sure. You're not. You know what? I've got numbers prove you wrong. Um, so, you know, and that's just how it goes. There's actual research on you, um, and that's out there and it's real. Um, but I think teenagers are really, really close to, not because they're emotional. Um, I don't believe that at all. I believe that they're very insightful and very smart, and they, they haven't censored themselves. Yet as much as we learned to do, and they haven't done the dreaded, the dreaded work, which was always misinterpreted and misspoken, or maybe it wasn't, maybe it was entirely intentional, but they haven't done the dreaded work of growing up yet. Whatever growing up is growing up is bullshit. Absolute bullshit. The first thing that they tell you to do is leave your child self behind and leave your teen self behind. Oh my God, teenagers are so embarrassing. No, actually they're not. Teenagers are 11 to 19 years old. That's a pretty goddamn important part of your life. If you leave that behind, you've left your whole self behind because that's where you learned all your shit. And if you decide to leave that behind, you're gonna, you're, you're literally going to be someone else. You're gonna be a fake, you're gonna be a phony. And you know what? That's gonna screw up your life. He's gonna screw up your life. You're gonna hit the trauma around 45. Divorce is probably inevitable. Um, and you know what I mean? Like, things are gonna fall to pieces instead of you going, oh, I gotta pivot now.'cause that's what life's about. Pivoting, pivot, pivot, pivot. That's what it's really all about. And that's what growing up really is. It just means, oh, I'm 20 now, shit, I gotta pay rent. Which right now, I don't even know how anybody does that. Um, but you know, like, now it's time to do this. I gotta figure this out. And, and you go from there. But teen writers, man, please tell your stories. That's, that's, that's all I have to say. Tell the stories. They're worth it. It's worth it. And you know what? And remember how hard it was to play the trumpet. Remember how hard it was to learn how to, whatever it is you do, play hockey. Um, and just. Trust yourself. And it's not, it may not be your first book. It usually isn't. I have to say that most books that get published traditionally are not your first books. Um, but it's worth going to practice and sweating and doing those wind sprints and learning how to dribble and, you know, all those different things. Um, and, and learning your scales. You know, my daughter was a, a jazz saxophonist and I remember when she'd be like, oh God, these scales. And then one day she knew her scales so well, her improv just kicked in and she could improv any song if she knew what key it was in. She was, she could do it. And I remember looking at her like, you were nine years old. The hell you do that. Like, but it's because this scales, right? So you gotta practice and it's, it sucks, but it's, it's part of it. And here's the deal. If you wanna be a writer, you gotta do it. And yeah, those days like I'm having now, like, oh, I can't wait to get this book off my desk. Yeah, I've been writing for 30 years. I'm still gonna feel like that. But lemme tell you, like the first 40 pages, I loved this book and I still love this book. And I can't wait till this book is polished up and beautiful and I don't ever have to work on it again. But what words do I have for Just go do it. Do it, do it, do it. Don't, don't stop. And don't, don't worry about what people are gonna say. Don't hold back on the truth. Just tell the truth, man. That's it for every writer, honestly. But teenagers I just think are just closer to it and um, and I think that they're the most. Censored group of people because we have to tell, because they're trying, constantly trying to tell you the truth about how they feel, what's going on in the world. Like what they, what they feel, because they're, they're learning the world too. Like they have opinions and now they have, you know, they have social media like we do too. And people are always like, oh, kids are always on their phone. I'm afraid it's adults. I don't know if you've been to a restaurant lately, but it's adults that are on their phones, first of all, second of sort teens, but that's not the point. Um, you know, but like, they know more than we ever knew that we, you know, I, I, I was a big world news watcher, but like, I don't know. I just think that their opinions are fantastic and I think that their stories are worth it. And I think that if you're telling stories, if you're using creative expression when you're young, you got a superpower. You got a superpower for the rest of your life. If you are creatively expressing, I don't care if it's in a journal and you become an accountant, it doesn't matter. That journal is gonna make you a different person, that people who don't, from people who don't write down their truth somewhere.

Alice: 1:19:23

Yeah. Oh man, I love it. Like, just snaps to all of that. It's just, that's so good. what do you love about revision?

Amy: 1:19:35

Oh, the possibility Revision is all about possibility. I mean, being able to look at. Um, it's the way a hairdresser must look at hair, right? I remember the, I a good hairdresser, right? I remember going to Michael, my hairdresser the first time and he pulled my hair out. He did all the, oh God, your hair's so gorgeous. And I'm looking at him, I'm like, what are you even talking about? He gave me the most bodacious, epic layers that I have ever seen in my hair. And I'm like, this man knows what he is doing. And I was like, look, make it look like I have a jawline. Please. Can I have a chin back? Like I am in my, you know, like early fifties. Can we, can we? And he's like, yes. Um, and so the possibilities, when I look at a manuscript, I know how many possibilities are in there and, and whether it's someone else's or mine, but especially mine, I think when it comes to Rev, you get to cut those layers. You know what the bonus of writing is? That it's not like hair. Um, if you screw up, you can hit the go back button. Um, you can go retrieve the stuff that you cut, you know, from your cut file and you don't have to wait for your hair to grow back. You can do it pretty instantly. But yeah, the possibilities are just endless.

Alice: 1:20:46

I love that so much. I love asking this question because the answer is always different, is there anything in particular that you would like this audience of fiction writers who are revising their novels to excellence, figuring out their way through that revision process? Is there anything in particular you'd like them to know about you?

Amy: 1:21:10

Yeah, um, maybe like them. I've known since I was a very young child that my feelings mattered and that what my experience was mattered. I take the time when I go to auditoriums full of teenagers. Um, I make sure that in that time I tell them three things, which is that your feelings matter, your experience matters and your voice matters. And one of the most interesting things is that I very rarely talk to adults, but they don't know that they're adult adults don't know that adults dunno that their feelings matter and they don't know that their experiences matter and they don't know that their voice matters. Um, and so I guess I want all writers to hear that. I want them to understand that remember that little kid and that if they're listening to me say this right now, then they do. They do remember that little kid and they remember that kid that was upset. Everyone blew him off. That's who you're writing for. You're writing for that person. Even if you're writing adult thrillers, that's who you're writing for. I think it's really important to know that, that when you're sitting there, it really just isn't just like about telling stories and making money and making, and, you know, putting pages inside of covers. It's about, I know telling your story through the lens of all these characters that come out of you and, and that every single one of'em is important. Your experiences that you're holding back. Oh, I couldn't write about that because people would know. Actually, no, you'd be surprised at how many people don't have any idea. Um, once you put another character in another lens and, and you weird it up that you know that it has anything to do with you. Um, and you'll be surprised at how many people will read your books and say, oh, I didn't know that you once had a red car. You're like, what are you talking about? It's a fiction, it's a novel. Oh, I didn't realize that you really liked, you know, spaghetti. What are you talking about? This is a character in a book. You know, so it's gonna be, it's always an interesting thing, but in the end, like it is all about your voice and your experiences and your feelings. That's it. It's all writing is.

1:23:18

Beautiful. Right? There wasn't much more I could say after that. So that's where Amy and I ended our conversation about revision. We kept talking for another hour. Her latest novel picked the lock was released last fall, and she has a wild story about the challenges that she experienced during that launch. I'll share that conversation in the next guest episode of the podcast but for now. I wanna give you space to digest what she just said. That writing is about your voice, your experiences, and your feelings, and that those all matter. And I wanna share some of the things that I'm taking away from Amy's revision process. Here's what stuck out to me First, there's the how, the literal steps that she follows. To revise her manuscripts. I'll walk you through that process again. Amy knows the general point of the story from the beginning, and she discovers the specifics of the ending through writing the first draft. She uses the surrealist writing method. Which sounded to me like perhaps the purest form of Pantsing, but when she gets stuck, she calls her plotter friend David Gill, creator of the sticky note plot method to help her untangle plot problems. I did look up his website and you can find it in the show notes. At this point in her career, Amy does revise as she writes, and so by the time she finishes that first draft, the story has largely taken shape when that draft is complete, She does her holy shit chainsaw revision. Where she ruthlessly cuts 10 to 20% of the word count largely by removing redundancies. Then she reads a lot of poetry and listens to a lot of music while she's working through the next draft, which is all about refining the language. After that, she's ready to send it to her editor and to her agent at the same time. When she sends it to her editor, she includes a list of all the things that she already knows. Need help. the feedback her editor gives her at this point in her career tends to be more of a heavy line edit rather than significant structural changes. Her editor also brings a lot of market awareness, taking into account where the book will sit on bookstore shelves. She does not always agree with her editor's feedback. In fact, she's had many instances where she vehemently disagreed With an editor or agent, but she found ways to apply the feedback anyway, and those revisions have always made the book better. One thing I did notice about how Amy describes her process is that so much of how she shapes her stories is intuitive. There are some parts she struggled to describe. Some parts she doesn't recommend to other writers and some parts she can't really teach, and that's why this is not an entirely solo process. When she needs plot support, she calls in her plotting friend, and when she's taken the manuscript as far as she can, she brings in her editor. Intuition can take you a long, long way, and where you get stuck, that's where you can get help. So that's the how. How Amy revises her manuscripts. Even more than that, I love her perspective on revision. In fact, I'm just gonna let her share my favorite quotes. Again,

Amy: 1:26:36

Revising is about making sure that you're saying what you wanna say yes in the way you wanna say it. there's so many roads you can take with every sentence. Alice, once we close the door, can do anything she wants and we can change that in a book anytime. We can actually just cut the whole last third of the book and change the whole last third of the book if we need to. to me, revision is the sport. It's the impact. It's the, it's the reason. It's the reason we're writers. every revision is worth it.

1:27:02

I can't say it any better than that. if you loved this conversation, I have good news. There's a lot more where this came from. Like I said, I'll be sharing what Amy has to say about her publishing experience on the podcast soon. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out Amy's books. Read the dust of a hundred Dogs And watch for the 14 sentences about pirate feelings that made the entire book work. Read, ask the passengers and see how Amy shaped the ending and made Astrid Jones come out in a way that fulfilled her editor's recommendations while retaining the heart of the book. Read Attack of the Black Rectangles and watch for how Amy showed and told her characters asexual identity in ways that were so profoundly meaningful to her readers that she's received heartfelt fan mail, thanking her for the representation. Read, dig and discover all the disparate, seemingly random ideas that Amy Subconscious supplied to her during her surrealist writing sessions. A kid with a shovel, a freak, a mysterious fifth cousin, and how she shaped all the ideas that she pe into a Prince Award winning novel. Read, pick the lock and see how Amy followed the point she knew she was making. That her confined feminist punks would smash patriarchy, not get smashed by it, and wrote her way to the end to discover how they do it in ways that surprised even her. And if you figure out what Station six is or how far it all goes, do let us know. You can order these books and all EM'S books from her local bookstore, Erin's books Amy will even sign and personalize the books that you order from Erin's books. Just make sure you fill out the form to indicate you'd like them. Signed. The link to Erin's books is in the show notes. And don't forget, you can download this entire reading list to see what to watch for in each book and what Amy said about each one's revision process. Go to alice sulo.com/ 82 to grab that, and of course that link is in the show notes as well. You can find Amy online@asking.com. She's also on Instagram and Blue Sky. and I'll let Amy have the final word.

Amy: 1:29:18

it is all about your voice and your experiences and your feelings. That's it. It's all writing is.