33. Interview with Monica Cox: Revision and Mindset

In this episode, Suzy interviews fellow book coach, Monica Cox about the revision process. They dive deep and explore ideas about how to get yourself in the proper 'reader mindset' and share practical tips for tackling, arguably the most difficult part of the process of writing a book. 

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Welcome to Show Don't Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction, nonfiction, that are going to wow your readers broken down step by step. We're going to explore writing techniques. I'm going to show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers careers that you wouldn't have access to otherwise, and I'm also going to coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you're just starting out, you're drafting your first book, you're editing, or you're currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your tenth book, this show's gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn't even know you needed, but you definitely do. I am so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams and you're gonna also have some fun doing it. Let's dive in. I am Thrilled to have Monica Cox on the podcast today. She is a fellow certified book coach who was a public relations professional before becoming a women's fiction writer. Now, she specializes in working with communications professionals and others to write and revise their dream novels. How cool is that? Monica absolutely lit up the room that we recorded this interview in, and we had a blast talking about her specialty, which is managing revisions on a manuscript, which is. Really a fancy word for big picture editing on your book. Buckle up, because you're about to learn a ton. Prepare to be inspired. Welcome to the podcast today, Monica Cox. So glad to have you here, and in person too. It's great to be here, thank you. Awesome. Today, we're gonna talk about, and when we were brainstorming what to talk about, you were like, I know exactly what we're gonna talk about. I wanna talk about revision. And mindset, why did you pick those things? Well, I think it's revision seems so easy and awful at the same time. You know, you sit down and you're like, I am going to fix this. And then you suddenly are immersed in some words that you are amazed you wrote. And then some other words that you wish. You didn't never heard of before. And you're like, I wrote that. Yeah. I wrote that I wrote that, or I wrote that, right. It can go either way. I wrote it can flip on you easily within a paragraph. And I think if you go in with the right mindset, one, it can help you get through that revision, but two, there's just different parts of the process when you need to read it with a different hat on, in order to get the best work out of yourself. Oh, awesome. I can't wait to talk about that. Cause I'm all about. The brain and how it works and readers and things and I know where we're going and I'm so excited. I can't wait to geek out about this with you, but just backing up for a second. When you talk about revision What do you mean is revision just editing and I say this because we have a lot of well Yeah, but we have a lot of listeners who are writing their first book or who have written books before but don't have a lot of Background in this and we throw around this word revision. What is it? What does it mean? Well, yes, revision is not editing, right? I think we make that mistake. We head back in. We finished the end and we type the end on our rough draft and we just flip right back to page 1. And read and start line editing, right? And that's a different like, grammar and spelling choice and let's oh, I can make this sentence pretty or let me add in a description here. And that's not what we're talking about. When we talk about revision, we want to talk about. That big picture, 30, 000 foot view that you can see from the plane, right? We are, we're here in Arizona together. And I know on the flight here, we were flying over these beautiful vistas and the Grand Canyon and all this great stuff. And it looks a whole lot different from the airplane view than it does if you're standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Right? So you want to look at your stories. Where you can see it all together. I couldn't tell you if my plane flew over that. I was actually revising somebody's manuscript. Like literally doing what, well, I mean, there's different levels of it, but doing a developmental edit. So looking at somebody's pages and doing that 30, 000 foot view. But yeah, I didn't look out the window. There was a lot of snow, at least in the northern, northern part. And then I looked down and there was a lot of mountains, but I don't think I went over the Grand Canyon. Maybe on the way home, I'll have to take a look. All right, so revision. Yeah, it's, it's, it's got lots of different levels to it. Now, you work primarily with communications professionals and you come from that space, meaning people who work in communications. Like, what are some examples of that? Well, I worked in public relations specifically, so I think there's a lot of us out there. I think if you were a journalist or marketing professional, or even a copywriter for an advertising firm, like, there's all these different ways that communications plays a role in a professional setting. And I think all of us were closeted writers who wanted to find a way to make money, right? Like when I went to school, creative writing was not on the list of approved professions. I think that I was going to graduate. I totally agree. I like to say nobody ever told me that writing could be a job. And by the way, It can. You have to be a little bit creative about that. We can get into that later if you want to, but, but yeah, so you work with, I mean, you work with all kinds of different clients, but naturally, because of your background, you also coach writers who do have this communications background and I've worked with writers, I love working with writers from all walks of life, but especially writers who have that really strong writing sense already. Like, they're good at grammar and spelling and they don't have typos. And so what is it for them that they need to work on most in terms of writing a book? Like, they've already got those strong writing skills, but what is it that they need to learn about writing a novel, let's say? In a way, it's really just how to be expansive. I think that was the challenge. I came to with it. I could write a press release for you a 2 page, you know, white paper. You give me something brief and I can knock it out and tell you a complete story. In 1000 words, then suddenly you have 90, 000 words at your disposal. And what, what do you do right? There's so much that can go wrong. If you don't understand story structure, or you don't understand narrative and how to tell that story in a slower burn of a fashion. Right? I work with so many folks who they cram that story in and they're like, well, why is it only 30, 000 parts? And I'm like, because you just rushed it. Like, we need. There's room to breathe in your story. Well, and I think in business writing, there's a lot to be said for cutting things down, right? And, and by the way, writers, when you get to the end and you're writing your synopsis and you're writing your query letter, yes, you're going to be brief and you're going to be sparse and you're going to be all the, all the darn things. But when you're in the moment, I mean. You know, I could always segue into show, don't tell writing, but you know, when you're have an entire 90, 000 word manuscript or novel or book, whatever you want to call it, you have that ability to slow it down in places and to actually stop and smell the roses and to show. And to. Actually have your reader experience things in a way that you don't in business writing or in report, you know, in journalism. So, yeah, I can see that. I actually have a couple of clients, myself in communications who are excellent, excellent writers and they find, you know, there's this sort of tell us what you're going to tell us and then tell us and then tell us what you told us when you're doing copywriting or when you're creating an article and we repeat ourselves in a way so that people can skim it. And get the soundbite and decide if they're going to actually read that and there's lots of tricks that you need. I use it myself in my newsletter process when I, for those of you who subscribe to my newsletter, that's what I do every week when I sit down to write that newsletter is I sort of have that structure. And then they have these awesome writers who bring me a chapter that way, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, you've just spoiled the entire chapter. You told me in the first paragraph what's going to happen, or you foreshadowed the whole thing. And you can't do that, right? Like there's some, some things that you need to unlearn. You almost need to see that arc that you used to do in an article over the entire 90, 000 words. And so, yeah, it's tricky, right? It can be tricky, but I think that's just it, right? Like when you were saying show, don't tell. It really is that. Expansive nature of it, right? You got in a copy or in an advertisement, you got to get to like, Billy is sad and this product makes Billy happy. Right? But when you're telling your novel, you have a lot of space to explain. How did Billy get so sad? And how can this help? You know, and yeah, and bring your reader in. So they also feel sad and they want to be with Billy, right? We want to help Billy. Yeah. I love the story about Billy. We should write. We should, Billy's going to be have a happily ever after for sure. So yeah. So that revision process can feel murky for. Every writer, whether you've, you know, got experience of writing at all, or no experience of writing, or you've written your 10th book, when are you ready to start the revision process? Okay, like, when am I ready to there's drafting, and I'm doing new pages, and I'm doing new pages, and I'm giving myself a sticker at the end of every time I do a word count. I don't know what your process is, but that But, you know, you're really excited and then you get to it and then you start revision. When, when do I start that? When are you allowed to start that? Or does it matter? I mean, I think you're allowed to start revision whenever you want to, because every writer's process is different. And I'm a big believer in that. I do know there are plenty of writers who revise as they go, right? They might. But I would call that editing as they go. I wouldn't call that revision as they go simply because if you're reading over the previous day's words, and you're kind of fixing a few things and tweaking. That's not really taking that big picture of you that we're looking at. So, when you're looking at a big picture revision. You want that to be after you've typed the end on that rough draft, right? So you've typed the end on the rough draft. And if you feel like, okay, that was the story I wanted to tell, maybe not the way I wanted to tell it yet. But you felt like you got most of that into your container, then you want to kind of take a step back and look at it then and read it with fresh eyes. with what I always call the reader's mindset. Like, I feel like you have to take a step in between your writing and editing and then read it fresh. That's when I like to start revision and kind of looking at the structure. Yeah. Okay, so mindset. What a, what a buzzword, right? Like, mindset. But, but it's like, it feels kind of hocus pocus when you talk about writing and then you're talking about mindset or getting into it. But, but really, mindset is a thing that I can tell you. I can meet a hundred writers. I can tell who's going to finish their books. I can tell who's going to be successfully promoting their books. I'm going to tell who's going to get their draft to the place that they want to be. And who has a, you know, who has a real shot in the industry and mindset is it. So what does it mean? Well, for me in this process, it really means to be where your feet are, right? So when you're writing, you want to put on that writer mindset hat and just let your imagination run wild, right? At that point, you have to really put Mr. Editor mindset. In the closet and say, I'm sorry, you can't be here right now because we're not talking about any wrong ideas, bad ideas. Whatever, right? That's when you can just let your characters take you where they want. Whatever it is that you're doing, you should be free to write your story for yourself in that rough draft phase. Then you do have to pull out Mr. Editor mindset at some point and say, okay, sit down next to me as we go through this and let's make it better. Let's make sure we're telling the story. I wanted to tell all that fun stuff. I think what we miss often is that reader mindset in the middle, because at some point you switch from writing for yourself to writing for a reader. If you want to be published, if that's your goal is to publish a book for someone else to read. If you're not, then maybe you can skip that part entirely. Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of writers, if you ask them, they say, well. Yeah. I don't know, maybe I'm writing for myself, but I can tell you, dear listener out there, that you're probably not giving yourself enough credit or not paying attention to why you're really This book, uh, most writers secretly, there are exceptions, but most writers secretly hope that even if they just wrote it for themselves, that somebody somewhere is going to find it. Just find it. And it's going to be so good that they're going to love it and read it and share it with their friends. And it's going to be an overnight sensation. But if you don't think about that beforehand, the chances of that happening go way down. They do. They do. And I think if you start editing before you read as that reader mindset, then that's when you miss the magic. So for me, I always think of it as. The editor mindset executes what the writer and the reader are putting together, if that makes sense. So when you're writing, you're writing your free story idea, but the reader is going to read it and take their own ideas from it. So it's sort of the why you're writing it is the writer mindset. The reader is the how and the editor is how we're going to get there. Yes, totally. But like the editor mindset kind of then can come in and say, okay, you had this one idea and you want it to mean this to someone else. How can I make those 2 visions happen together? But if you skip the, if you skip thinking about your reader, and you skip thinking about yourself as a reader, then when you're reading through your rough draft to revise it. You miss all the little fun nuance that you put into your story. I love that because, okay, so what does it, what does it look like if you're in a reader mindset? And this is actually really interesting to me. I'm throwing out a question I don't know the answer to because I do this. I do it with my own work because I've trained myself to be a reader. I mean, I'm an editor, but really I'm a developmental editor, which means I am reacting. So you're, you know, if you're working with me, you're getting comments. You're getting, hey, I don't get this, which is pretty scary, by the way, to say as an editor, or as a developmental editor, to be like, hey, writer, like, maybe, and sometimes I have to go back and make sure I didn't miss something. I'm like, did I miss this? Or is it just not here? Right? Like, you have to be brave and really be honest with the writer and say, look, I'm just, I'm just not getting it. But how do you, what does that mean? Like, how do you know that you're in that reader mindset? I don't know how I do it, by the way. So if you've got some tips on how to help people get. Into that line. So I mean, I think when it's your own work, there are some tricks that you can do that are just like technical, right? So you can make sure that you give yourself distance from your manuscript for a little while. I'm doing this right now. I'm in a big revision for a book that I finished a year and a half ago, but we're about to go out on submission. So I'm back in it in a much different way. And it's like, oh, thank goodness. I've had this much time away from it because I'm looking at it in a completely different way. So you don't have to take a year and a half away from your book. But a week, 2 weeks, a month, you know, those are the kind if you can give yourself that time frame, it just gets you out of the expectation of knowing. Oh, I know. I just I know what I wrote a week ago, you know, whatever that is. So you take some space, put it in a different font, put it on a different device. I always read my work in a different place than where I wrote it, which seems silly, but I will go read it in my bed because that's where I read books. I'll go read it on my front porch because that's where I read books. I don't read it in my office because that's where I write books and that can really help trick your mind into. Oh, this is something. Different also, no red pens, no pieces of paper, right? You're just going to read it through. You're not going to stop and say, oh, there's continuity error here. I just put them in a different state than they were in the last chapter. We're not doing that to stay in that reader's mindset. You really just want to sit down and read your book as a book and then congratulate yourself. You wrote a book, right? That's a big thing that we often forget to remind ourselves that this is the thing we did. And it's a huge accomplishment. Yeah, those are great tips. So change the font or the color, look on a different device, change the spot. I don't think I've ever heard that one before, but it's really smart. Change, like go to someplace where you would normally read. Do you print yours off? I mean, that's gets expensive. I've run out of printer cartridges. But another, another trick I like to use is actually to listen to your own manuscript. And people used to tell me to read it aloud. And I thought that was really. Silly number one, my household's very busy. They don't like me. I mean, I'm a singer as well. And my family does not appreciate me practicing with their home. The other day I was practicing and because anyways, there's a whole other story I'll probably talk about on a podcast coming soon, but I've managed to form a small band, which I'm very excited about, but I was singing and I didn't know that my daughter was home. My husband thought she went with him and she came down and she's like. So I was on Snapchat with my friends, and they all think you're a little bit different, um, because you've been singing down here. And I'm like, well, it sucks. But yeah, so reading it out loud to yourself may not work in your situation, but I actually have my devices read it to me. And it, it's a bit electronic and a bit mechanical, but I am shocked, like I started doing this probably six or seven years ago. And the amount that that technology has improved is fantastic. I've heard the Microsoft word voice is fantastic. They can do like, yeah, I use Siri on, on iPhone, but they, they can do intonation. Yeah. They didn't used to be able to do contractions, which was really distracting and now they can do contractions. It was like, don't t or like, you'd have to kind of adjust to it. But yeah, you have to get used to it. But okay, so you're getting into that mindset. What is there like, what is the right mindset? Or is there a right mindset? Is it like, you're coming in as a reader who wants to love it? Or you're coming in as a reader who's going to be critical or what? What do you want to be as your quote, unquote, I'm doing air quotes, but the listeners can't see me. The reader mindset, what would you say? Is there a right way to do it? Now? I think when you pick up any book from the library or your bookstore, right, you're coming at it with an open mind for an open experience. So I think you want to give yourself that same grace. You know, you want to come to the page and say what. What is the story and what is it about? So I think you want to approach it with curiosity, openness, and then just see what's developing. I don't think if you come in too much thinking, I want to see if this is a good book, or I'm coming. I want to see if this is. Sellable book, right? Those are the kinds of things that are going to distract you and you're going to miss. The great things that you did on the page and then not understand how to fix the less than great things you did on the page. So I think just coming in open and saying, if I was reading this book, what do I like about it? What is challenging for me about it? What would I say to a friend about this book? Right? You want to think about it as if you had to go write a book review about it and then use that to inform how you want to. Awesome. Okay. So we've read it and we've formed some general perceptions of our own writing and hopefully I see one of two things happening. I don't know. I'd love to hear your take on this, but hot take here. I see either writer saying it's awesome. I'm the best. Right. And they're not really looking. I mean, maybe, maybe that's true. Sometimes we just hear it in our own voice and we kind of miss this. We miss that it's not all there yet, so that's really hard. But more often than that, I actually hear the opposite, which is writers are like, whew, right? This is not what I thought I'd written. It isn't the same as that best selling novel that's sitting on my nightstand. I should give up, right? No, I think that's when you keep curious and you say, what was it that I was trying to do? If this is not the story I imagined that I wrote, what was the story I was trying to write? And then what is the story I did write and where do they intersect? Sometimes you don't write the story that you set out to write and it ends up being, sometimes that's okay. Yeah. Sometimes that's a great thing. And you're like, Oh, this went a whole new direction. Sometimes it's not though. And you want to regroup. Okay. So yeah, you want to be curious about if the story is not what you thought you told to figure out why. Determine if you want to go back and reevaluate that and then try and tell that story. And then you also, if you're comparing yourself to the bestseller, then you go back to that bestseller and study it. What did that writer do that? You didn't do? Is there something you can learn from that? Is there. A tactic or, but there's so many times I was reading a book recently that has nothing to do with the book that I'm writing. But there was a tiny little tidbit of this woman's job was so important to her as a character that it kind of. Was peppered in and a lot of different ways of how she saw the world and I was like, oh, that's what's missing. For my book, her job is so important. And I hope that there's so many things, again, segwaying into show, don't tell. I'm like, oh, the detail! Yeah, because sometimes you see that in a book, and I mean, I consume so much material, and if I see that in a book, I hope it had something to do with the point of the story, and the whole, did it? Because if you're doing that, and you're just giving a lot of detail about her job, And it's because it's something that you're interested in or something that you've researched, then those are not the points to, but yeah, is it all came together in this particular example? It was just how she, it was so important because her job was a little bit mysterious and that. She was a little bit of a charlotte and she didn't believe what she was selling kind of an idea, right? She was trying to. Do this thing, and she didn't really believe it. So it informed a lot of how she saw the world. It informed us about her character. Was she telling the truth all the time? Was she not? She could so easily in her job, put up this front to pretend to be something she didn't actually believe in. And so the same thing, my character has this, the way that she does her job informs how she sees relationships. And so it was interesting to say, oh, let me take this very random thing. And it did. Did it blow up my book? No, it was like five different scenes out here somewhere that I had small as a couple of sentences here and there and such a big difference to your reader. It's interesting that you bring that one up because vocation or somebody's job is something that actually a lot of writers miss. So if you're listening to this and you're writing a book. Please tell me that you know, especially if you're writing a woman, it's something that we miss, and especially if you're writing historical for women, that we miss that women, yes, okay, perhaps if they lived in the 1800s, then the most important thing for their life's outcome is who are they going to marry? And how many children are they going to have? And where are they going to live? But if they were in a modern day society and they had a choice, what would they be? What skills do they have? And what, what hobbies do they have? Because that can come back. It can, yeah, exactly what you said. It can make such a difference. It can come back and color how they view the world and how they're going to react in a certain situation. It can help your readers anticipate how they're going to act and feel super smart. And it can also give them some cool skills to get them out of situations. I like to make my strong women in my books like carpenters or something as an aside, because then, you know, when the whole structure is falling down, they can be the ones and they don't have to wait for. The handyman to save them, right? All right. No, but I think that is also a great point, too, that you were making is that if it's on the page, it should be important. Right? Yeah. So, again, yes, that job was important in that book. Just like it should be anywhere. So, if you're mentioning a job. Then it better show you something about that character. Yeah, absolutely. It should, yeah, so choose a job that isn't just a random job that you just happen to see out your window when you're writing. Right, or that you happen to have experience with. You're like, oh, what's this? Yeah, it's a pharmacist. Exactly, yeah, and then you geek out about how you get, uh, to be a pharmacist or something, and it's like nothing to do with the story. Yeah, that, that is not helpful detail. Everything in your story actually should tie together. Okay, so we've read our books and we've formed some opinions, and yeah, please don't compare your first drafts in particular to, to a bestseller. And that, I think that's the danger. Yes, don't compare your book at all or figure out what it is, but remember, you're reading your first draft, and be kind to yourself, because I don't care What anybody says, and many of my colleagues will have this debate at conferences over wine, when they teach how to write a book in six weeks or something, and then all kinds of writers get discouraged because they feel like they should be able to do that. Well, okay, some, some people do it. But in that six weeks, they are not also doing other things. They have a lot of skills. They perhaps have been planning that book for two years in their brain. There's a lot that goes into it that we're not sharing. And they still do three passes, at least, at a very minimum. All writers do. And I don't care who tells you otherwise. It just isn't true. I wish you guys could see. I wish you guys could see Monica's face. No, it's not true. And they all have editors, right? If you're reading a book that's that's traditionally published or even. You know, that's not chances are, it's been through some sort of an edit. Someone else has touched it. And when you're reading your rough drafts. You're the only one touching it, and you've only touched it once so far, so. So you can't really compare, I mean, so yes, I mean, if you're saying, Oh my gosh, my book doesn't read like that best selling novel. No, it doesn't yet. What would it take to get there? And just remember that that other book had lots of support and help along the way. If you doubt me, open the page to their acknowledgements and see just what a village it took. If that book has made it onto your bed stand and it's a bestseller. I guarantee you that that is a long page full of names. So we've read our own book, we've formed some opinions, now what? How do we get into revising? Because that isn't really, you know, that, that's like, how do we make a list? How, where do we start? What do we do? I know, right? That's always the hard part. I mean, there's tons of checklists that you can probably find out in the world, but I think what you want to do first is just. Answer the big questions. Like, do you know what your character wants? Do you know if they get it at the end? Do you know what they need? Did they get it at the end? What was standing in your character's way? Is there a natural story progression happening, right? Is your character making choices that are leading to consequences? And how is that building on itself through the end? I would hope that if you are reading it with a reader's mindset, you started to notice those things, right? You're going to start seeing, oh, no, I don't know what just happened in chapter 4. Nothing. It was an info dump. You get to go back and kind of say, okay, I can see now what wasn't working and what, what, what is it for what was. So, I think, yeah, you can just start kind of going through and making that list. I think reading it 1st through as a taking a 1st pass through means that then you can go back and read with more detail and more. Get down into that nitty gritty. That's when I start liking making spreadsheets. That's what happens for me. That's when you go work with Monica. I know, come with me and we will make a spreadsheet. It's not scary because I am not a spreadsheet person, but when we revise we use a spreadsheet and all my clients hate it until they don't. Until they don't because they realize just how fun it can actually be. Yeah, I love it. So, okay, so We've been talking a lot about revision strategies on your own. When is it time to get feedback, like from somebody other than yourself? Such a great question. I always like. I don't like personally, I don't like getting manuscripts that have not been revised at least 1 time by the writer. Right? Like, I want you to have made a good faith effort to structure the story the way you want it to be. It does not need to be, like, the most polished filter for word free version of the manuscript you're ever going to have. But I'd like for. I would recommend not getting outside help until you've kind of structured it the way that's telling a story you're hoping to tell so that then those outside eyes can tell you, okay, you did, or you didn't, or you're missing the mark in these places. Right? You want to have a good take it as far as you can. Exactly. I think take it as far as you can. Until then you realize you might be stuck and you're not sure. You just know it's not right because most writers. Right. The ones that you were describing as the ones that you can see that are going to be successful. You feel it. You know when it's not quite right. You know that it doesn't compare to that bestseller, but you're not quite, you've taken it as far as you can. And you're not quite sure what the next step is. That's when someone can come in and help hold your hand to say, this is, you're doing all these things. Great. Stop focusing on those. Right. Let's focus on these areas over here. Yeah. What if, what if you don't agree with the advice that you get? Oh, that's always a good question. I mean, that depends. It depends. On whether you were open about it or not. Right. And I think it depends on how the advice was given personally for me. I'm not going to give you advice as to how to change a plot or a character, right? Like, this is your story and I'm here to help you tell your story in the best way that you can. So it's more about skills. If I see that there's a lot of. Telling and not showing, then we're going to talk about what kind of skills do we need to beef up to make that happen? I'm not going to tell you what you need to show or what you need to tell. That's up for the writer to decide because it's their story. But I think so. You need to look at that advice and really take in is this advice helping me tell the story I want or. Yeah. Is it putting me in a different direction? I love that you can put that coach's hat on and you can remember that it's their story. And I think for the writers out there, remember it is your story, but be open to listening to it. You don't have to take anybody's advice, not even your own editor and publisher. I mean, I'm traditionally published and I don't always take the advice, I'll be like. But what I do take is I listen to where people are telling me it's not working and their reactions matter. If they tell me to change it in eight different ways, I get to pick. I get to pick, right? Or I have writers come back a lot of times and say to me, Hey Susie, I heard you. And I didn't love the solution, which is fine, by the way. Remember, I said you have to be brave as an editor. So even offering a solution, I would never just say, hey, you should change this in your book. But hey, this scene doesn't work. Here is why I feel it isn't working from a story structure perspective and from a reader perspective. And here's some possible ways that you could change it. Let's discuss, you know, which one of these might work. Sometimes they take, usually they'll take one of those, and sometimes they'll say, Hey, none of those are quite right, but I thought of something even better that I feel good with. They'll flip me a note and be like, Hey, I, you know, is it okay? And they ask my permission, which they don't need. Um, they don't need, but they want it, right? They want to see, hey, does that solve what wasn't working for you? And I would tell you 99%, actually 100 percent of the time. Yeah, it, it works. It's up to you, but, but as long as you're paying attention to what. Doesn't work for your reader. Yeah, it makes sense. It does. I think too, if you don't agree initially with it, feedback that you get from an editor, you need to be curious as to whether that's a knee jerk initial. Oh, my feelings are hurt reaction because of course, all our feelings are hurt. When someone tells you this beautiful thing part, it's not right. Yeah. It's like, Oh, no. And then put the knife in and twist it. I mean, I do the same thing. I get my feedback. I read it. I get a little bit mad about it, and then I put it away for a day, and then I come back to it, and I say, oh, now I get what they're trying to say, right? Your feelings will be hurt initially, because I think they just can be easily. They might not be. Maybe you're a really good, strong person, but I think most of us, right, because we wear our hurts on our sleeves anyway. So just get curious about that feedback. And I think too, people often forget that they can come back and ask questions, right? When you're saying, hey, this isn't working for me and you explain why there's nothing wrong with that writer coming back to you and saying, wait, I need you to explain this a bit to me more or I don't understand exactly or I disagree with this, but I'm not sure why can we discuss that's the part that you want to keep. Yeah. Now, all editors are not open to this, but I don't know what your policy is. But my policy certainly is, I mean, we go through on a phone call and we go through the nitty gritty, but I do it pretty quickly after the writer has gotten the feedback. And the reason is I don't, number one, I don't want them to come back or try to resolve it all and then send it back to me and then, like, ask me if it's, like, then we're just going to have this meeting six months from now. Like, realistically. I tell them, hey, take a quick look, let's discuss it all, bring your questions. But if, of course, if you go over it later, I want that writer leaving feeling excited. By the way, it's never, it's, you know, a lot of writers are surprised when they get revisions. I don't know whether that's true with you or not, but I, I like, I always say. Be sure to read my feedback in my always supportive, incredibly positive voice, something to that effect. Because the thing is, is that we're there to help you. Right? And hopefully you can work with an editor that's there to help. Well, I don't know if it's your experience too, but I find that most people come to me and 1 of the 1st things they'll say before we start working together is I just need to know if I should. Still be a writer, like, I just need someone to tell me whether I should continue and then they get feedback and it's, you would think those people would be the 1st to say, oh, no, I should quit them because look, there's so many problems. They're not, they're excited and invigorated and inspired. And again, same thing. They might not use the solution that I help them brainstorm, but, like, I'll get an email a week later. I just figured out. My character's problem and you're like, great. Let's do it. Write it. Get it out there. So awesome. Well, thank you for doing that work because sometimes we just need somebody to care about our story as much as we do and we want that to be our friends and family who are not writers, but it won't be right. We can laugh for the next 5 minutes. Maybe we might have to edit this part out. But yeah, it's not it's not going to be those people because they just aren't in it the way that you are. So if you're stuck. Take it as far as you can, work with somebody who cares about it, who's going to spend that time with you, who will chat with you about it, give you some feedback, and then take it further again. Here's the age old question, how long should I spend revising my book? As long as it takes. Is that like, is that like one week or like 10 years? I don't know. Right. Well, I mean, that also depends on your pace and how you work. Right. Some of us are writing in the cracks of life and it might take you a little bit longer than it might take someone who is spending the next month at a mountain retreat doing whatever. Right. So you kind of have to work within your own timeframe and give yourself a lot of. Permission to mess up and try again. And some parts are easy to revise and quick to do. And then others you pull on a thread and it unravels the whole sleeve and you got to stitch it back in. And that just takes a little bit longer. So I don't know. It takes what it takes. Yeah, there's no, that wasn't a fair question. I meant for it to be unfair. Monica knows. I know. Yeah, absolutely. But set a goal, set a goal. And the more you work on it, and especially, you know, if you're working with a spreadsheet like Monica's got. Then, then you can knock those tasks off and get you one step further. And all this led to all this work with clients and looking at this led you and the spreadsheets that you've created. It's all so cool. It's led you to design your revision roadmap. Do you want to tell us just a little bit about that? Yeah. So essentially it is a way to kind of teach you how to self edit and do this kind of first pass. Look at it yourself, because again, right? We are all people with limited budgets and we want outside help, but we can't always afford to do it for, like, every piece of the process. And we want, or at least I know I do. I think that you as well, based on this podcast and everything else, right? We're trying to teach writers how to do this. I can talk about writing all day long. If I could, I always say if I could like bottle all this knowledge in my head and somehow just feed it to anybody who wants it, I would if I could, but instead we have to come at it one piece at a time and in 10 different ways and hope that. Something somewhere helps you get unstuck and get that story written because we need your story. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes you need the handholding while you're doing it. And sometimes you don't on the same task, right? You just never know. So, yeah, the revision roadmap just kind of came out of my own process and then working with writers and realizing what they were getting stuck with and giving them sort of a framework. I think that's the thing, right? You look at this giant revision and you've written all these words. And then it's hard not to get stuck in line edits because you're starting back on page 1, right? So it's a way to just create a container so that you can fix these things as you get, right? So even with revision passes, it might be 16 passes, not because you're going through it 16 times, but because the first time you're looking at it, you're only looking for one issue and you're fixing that issue throughout. And then you're going through and looking at the next issue and fixing it throughout. As opposed to, I'm trying to fix all the issues in chronological order. I love that you said that. That's exactly how I do it is, you know, and so when you say how many revision passes and I see three or whatever. It's not because, yeah, I would way prefer to go through and fix one character through the whole thing if you make a decision. That changes how they would act in certain situation. Go through. Look at all of their dialogue. Look at all of their actions and thoughts and see what needs to be tweaked. It's kind of fun and super satisfying. I don't know. Maybe that's why we're editors. So we love this so much. I don't know. I was on the plane today doing that just on dialogue. I was like, I'm just looking at dialogue. Yeah, it was so fun because I'm like skipping all the other stuff. Yeah. And you can sort of knock it off your list. Right? Okay. So where can we find you? You can find me at monicacox. net and I'm on Instagram at, at Monica Cox writes and talking about all this stuff all the time because I love revisions so much. Thanks for tuning in to Show Don't Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vidori. I'll be continuing to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening. Also, visit SuzyVidori. com forward slash newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community. If you're feeling brave, check the show notes and send us a page of your writing that isn't quite where you want it to be yet for our show don't tell page review episodes. Remember that book and your writing is going to open doors that you haven't even thought of. And I can't wait to help you make it the absolute best. If you're feeling called to write that book, keep going and I'm going to be right here cheering you on. See you again next week.