Passive Support Group

I've been working on this novel for just over a year. Let me up that. I've been working hard on this novel for just over a year. The learning curve proved to be steeper than I expected, and I'm still waiting for the other side of it. You know, actually sending a query and getting either a rejection (gotta love those) or a "yes please, send me your unique and riveting manuscript right away." If someone used those words, I'd laugh and laugh and laugh. But I'm off topic again.

The craft of writing is even more complicated than scrap booking. I'm not saying like I scrap book. No, no, that'd be typing up my travel journal, printing it out, putting my pictures in those pages with sleeves and sticking it all in a binder. No. More like my sister's scrap booking style. At least three tables of paper, scissors, markers, stickers, stamps, embossing stuff, more paper, books, pages, punches, ribbon, those punch out things you buy at the store, maybe a Cricket machine . . . Novels are more like that. I'd say noveling has layers, like an onion, but that's old news.

Every time I go to a conference, read a book on writing, get critiques from my writing groups or just read a good book, I find yet another tool that I should be using when I write. This past month I learned enough about passive voice to know that I've got it. Like a disease, it's infiltrated every single page of my manuscript, and left it less than it should be. Trust me, it's amazing what a highlighter on the word "was" will do for the color cartridge in a printer. At least in my manuscript. Anyone else? I'm thinking of starting a support group.

I'm on the final (before query) down hill slope of editing. With this latest passive voice tool I should be able to up the quality. Maybe someone will want to read it. Heck, perhaps an agent will want to read it! That'd be cool.