​I teach a high school language arts class on-line and today I graded the literary analysis papers for The Virginian by Owen Wister. The students did an excellent job choosing themes and supporting their thesis statements with examples. I intensely added comments about past and present tense and proper use of quotes among other things. By the time I sent back their papers, I'd marked up a lot of things. So, today in class I waxed eloquent (I've always wanted to use that phrase) about the privilege of having one teacher for five students and how the revision process is a great learning experience. After my lengthy and inspiring speech, one of the students asked, "So, you want us to correct the papers and turn them back in?" Yeah, that 's what I meant.

I attended the BYU Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference last summer. From that conference I compiled a list of revision questions. Many of these are from Ann Cannon's class. She is an awesome teacher and author and mentor. The list also includes ideas from classes by Dandi Mackall, Ann Dee Ellis, and James Dashner. This is a great tool to use when revising. It is available in pdf form.
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I'm making another commitment to blog regularly. I haven't decided if that's once a month or once a week. As a "writer" I feel a lot of pressure to come up with something brilliant and profound and have it sound perfect. Oh, that's because I'm a perfectionist. Until I come up with brilliant, profound, and perfect, I'll let you know what I've been up to.  I'm revising A Kiss and a Curse for the 22nd time. This time it will be brilliant and profound because I finally understand what an editor told me a year ago about finding more depth in Juliana's character. I've added a lot more inner conflict and increased the conflict with her cursing. In about a month, I'll send it to the patient and brilliant editor and hope she likes it this time. Also, I'm teaching a high school language arts class twice a week for Ensign Education, an LDS homeschooling virtual classroom. I love it. I love analyzing literature and interacting with my five students via webcam. We are finishing up The Virginian by Owen Wister. When I analyzed literature in high school, I didn't understand much of it, but now I enjoy looking for theme and symbols, and analyzing the characters.
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Also, I'm having flashbacks of my own teenager years as my oldest child is fifteen and received her first chocolates from a guy. Sigh. I'm so glad I made it through the teenage years and met my husband. He is my ideal man.