EtchingsMagazine Issue 34.1

Barbara Shoup Interview ETCHINGS: What would you say to budding writers struggling to finish and revise a longer piece of work?

BARBARA SHOUP: Be patient. Writing a long piece takes a long time if you do it right—sometimes years—and revising is extremely challenging because there are so many things (and questions) to consider. You need to switch to the analytical part of your head to answer these questions—which doesn’t feel creative at all. Yet it is an important part of the creative process. I find it useless to try to revise by going through the manuscript, correcting as I go. Eventually, I start skimming, missing things, and when I get to the end, I know only vaguely what I need to do. So, I use a spreadsheet to track characters, threads, and whatever else I think I need to track for any given novel. When I’m “finished,” I have a list of very specific revisions to make. Then I make them, checking them off as I go. Finished is in quotes because I almost always go through this process numerous times before I think a book is ready to send out. Then, when it’s bought, the editor will have her own ideas about what the book needs, so I go through it again.

This sounds awful, I know. But I actually love revising. Getting the first draft down is the hardest part of writing to me.

E: How do you work through moments of discouragement?

BS: I talk to other writers, blow off steam in my journal, do yoga, take my dog for a walk. I remind myself the moment will pass. I. Keep. On. Writing.

E: Through your work with the Indiana Writers Center, you have supported many emerging writers. What advice do you have for Greyhounds interested in revising their work to prepare for the world of publishing?

BS: Never, ever send a piece out as soon as you’ve finished it no matter how good you think it may be. An editor only gets one first look at a manuscript and even if she’s willing to reconsider the piece with revisions, the ghost of what she read first will always get in the way. So let it sit a while. Stuff that needs to be revised will jump out at you when you take a second look. Take a second pass, but it probably still won’t be finished because you can’t know what the words on the page are doing because you can’t read them without bringing what’s in your head to the page. This means you need good critics to help you see the dif10 Etchings