Revision is a juggling act in which you use both intuition and logic to correct or improve your writing. It is a decision-making process in which you add or cut words. Most of the time you do both.

1. Treat revision as play. If your attitude is "I'll die if this doesn't work," you'll take all the fun out of writing. Try things out. Make revising an adventure. Even missteps have value. Allow yourself to be wrong. Nothing is wasted. Whatever you do is part of your writing process. Allow the unexpected to happen.

2. When you revise, do what feels easy first. Save the most difficult decisions for last. By the time you come to more difficult decisions, you will feel more confident knowing you have already made decisions that work.

3. Save all your revisions. Whenever you feel yourself losing energy--losing the "life" in your writing--retrace your steps and return to the last draft that had energy; the last draft that interested or excited you. Your saved drafts are your safety net. If you go in the wrong direction, you'll have nothing to worry about, since you can always find your way back.

4. Pay attention to those "pinpricks" of feeling that tell you when something in your writing is off. If you don't know what it is, try to identify the general area that doesn't feel right, then either give yourself permission to play with the writing, which means you are not invested in the result, or put it away for several days so you can see it with fresh eyes.

5. Visualize the details in your writing. If you can't "see" every detail clearly, the writing is probably unclear. See each image as though it is a film still.

6. If you want to see your writing from a different angle, change the font, the font size and the spacing. Change the point of view. If, for example, you are writing in first person, change to third person. You can always change back.

7. If you're stuck on a sentence, forget about writing it. Instead, say out loud whatever you're trying to write. Or say it into a tape recorder.

8. If you freeze or get nervous while revising, take frequent breaks. Make a call. Have coffee. Distract yourself. Often, when you're not thinking about what to do, when you stop trying, the right words "come" to you as if by magic. Those moments happen when you stop getting in your own way. You might even turn on the radio or TV while you write. This background noise may actually drown out the fearful thoughts that stop you.

9. Read into a tape recorder. Pay attention to any place where you stumble. Each of you has an inner rhythm that is evident in the way you walk, in your breathing, in your patterns of speech. There is also a rhythm in the words you write. When you stumble, there is a reason. The rhythm may be off. Or certain words don't feel right: maybe their meaning is wrong or unclear; maybe there are words that are superfluous or sound "phony".

10. To change the ending, use a timer. Set it for a time limit of your own choosing--anywhere from 1 to 20 minutes. Read over the last part of your writing, set your timer and go. Write before you know what you are going to say. Keep doing this exercise--as many times as you need to--until you come up with an ending that feels right.

About the Author

Roberta Allen is a New York Times-praised author with eight books, fiction and nonfiction. She has helped thousands of people through her writing guide, FAST FICTION, and through her latest guides, THE PLAYFUL WAY TO SERIOUS WRITING, and THE PLAYFUL WAY TO KNOWING YOURSELF, the latter two published by Houghton Mifflin with Roberta's photographs and drawings. She is on the faculty of New School University, has taught in the writing program at Columbia University, and in private workshops since 1991. Workshops take place in Woodstock, NY and Manhattan. She also coaches writers privately by email and phone. A visual artist as well, she has exhibited worldwide, with work in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. More info at www.robertaallen.com