Cathy Coley

Hello!

Firstly, thank you to those of you who bought copies of Felix the Comet through me so far! I still have some copies on hand that I would love to sign for a student, teacher, or you! Please email through my Contact page if you'd like to park one in a 4th-7th grade classroom for the new school year, signed! It's a fun story of friendship and negotiating social miasma at 12 with a little science thrown in. If you run into an error message in Contact, you can DM me in Twitter or Facebook. So far, things seem to be working well since the webpage redesign.

Secondly, in my writing career reboot since (see my last couple of blogs) my big life transitions, I am digging back into projects for editing and rewriting. I left off another children's book a few years back, a fantasy that was becoming a can of worms I couldn't contain. I didn't have plot bunnies, as they say, I had plot elves, centaurs and Chthulus. I am opening that back up again. I am also taking another dive into the recent fantasy-horror short I wrote in a rush to a deadline where it didn't get accepted. Working toward a deadline was a good jumping point to exercise my atrophied writing muscles. It's a good little story, just needs to be cleaned up.

One tool that works for me as I edit is to print the project out and break out colored pens. I can slash lines more easily that need to be cut, and rewrite in margins and page backs. Yes, I know great software programs exist for that now, but I'm an old dog who likes her old tricks. My brain works tactilely as well as visually. My handwriting is a mess but it helps me process mentally much better to write things out. Then when I go back into the digital version, I rewrite what I can't read in my handwriting, and usually third time is the charm.

Do you write or are you another type of creative, visual, music, performance? I'd love to hear from you how your process works. We can talk through my Contact Page.

Happy mid-August,

Cath