How to Write SEO Content

As most of you know SEO stands for ''search engine optimized.'' A website is search engine optimized when it ranks high in results after people do a Google search and fill in a key word or words relevant to that website.

The business value of a website is directly proportional to how high it ranks in key word search engine results. Search engines list sites top to bottom in order of relevancy to any given key word or set of key words. The goal is to have your website place among the top ten results. The closer to the top of the list your website is in search engine results, the more likely it is to get clicked on and score a visit from a prospect.

You can't paste a list of key words on each page of a website and hope that a search engine will rank it very high. Search engines are smart enough to spot those techniques and discount them. The key words you use on each page must be carefully woven into the copy. They should be evenly distributed throughout, not just at the beginning.

Here is a list of best practices you can follow when writing web pages:

Focus on your audience first. Think about the people who will use your website, as well as the people you want to land on your website. Consider their interests and their state of mind as they fill a key word or a set of key words into a search engine. Think about their age (in some cases the size of font can matter), whether they are more likely to be men or women, the level of their education, their life situation and their attitudes, values or beliefs. (For example, are they stressed? Financially secure? Relaxed? Enjoying themselves?)

Write each page so it engages your audience. Web writing is no different from any other kind. It is supposed to provide meaningful content that informs and educates your readers so they feel they have gotten great value. It is also supposed to be your content, not someone else's. If you think you can copy from competing websites and change up one or two words and get away with that, think again. Your competitors routinely do Google searches on their own key words in order to assess their rankings and look at their competitors' websites. If they see content that is similar to theirs on your website, you may find yourself the recipient of a letter from that company's legal department. Make certain your content belongs to your company, sounds like your company and uses your key words. Make certain it is consistent with your brand and speaks to your website visitor in the voice of your brand.

Keep a key word list and sprinkle those key words on as many web pages as possible. The key word list comes from what you offer your website visitors, but it also should be a result of what your website visitors are looking for when they visit your site. That's why it is so important to begin by focusing on your audience, your prospective visitors and their state of mind as they perform a key word search. At the same time, remember this: When you Google your key words, you had better pull up your website or your competitors' websites. If the websites those searches pull up have nothing to do with your industry or service offerings, you should re-think your key words.

Make every website page different. Search engines and people are smart enough to realize when a website uses the same content on two or more pages, even when the heading is different. They ''mark off'' for that. So don't do it.

Boost rankings using key words in various ways. Place key words in:

• Headlines
  
• Italicized words
  
• Bullet lists
  
• Opening sentences
  
• Conclusions
  
• Related links

But don't repeat key words so often that they sound repetitive, or give visitors the impression you are just listing the key words one after another.

Improve rankings by using different forms of key words. Use verb present participles or past tenses of verbs. For example, if one of your key words is ''engine design,'' consider using ''When designing an engine…'' and the phrase, ''…a well designed engine…'' in the copy.

Think of your site as part of a community. Link your site to other logical sites and encourage the owners of those websites to link to you. Logical sites might include industry groups that your company belongs to or expert sites, for example, the sites of authors and other experts in your field. The more links of this kind that a search engine detects in a website, the higher it will rank it in its findings. Think in a new way. It is not just you vs. your competitors; it is you and your company as part of a connected community.

Finally, optimize your writing for search engines by optimizing it for prospects. If you get the impression that ''all this key word stuff'' is just for search engine rankings, then I haven't been direct enough: The true purpose is to provide best value to the people who you want to visit your website; best value in the form of valuable content, content that is valuable to them.

Tune in next month for more web writing tips.
In regards to my artistic writing: I am rewriting sections of novel #1 (I have also re-titled it) and am continuing on novel #2. And I am writing a new short story for my collection.

The Agony and Ecstasy of Writing

I readily admit I am hooked on writing. Yet there's pain involved. What's up with that? Masochism?

The lyrics to Cold Play's song, ''Fix You'' contains clues:

''When you try so hard but you don't succeed/
When you get what you want, but not what you need…/
Lights will guide you…/
And I will try to fix you.''

In my twenties (after graduating from Rutgers and serving in the Peace Corps) I tried to become a novelist, what I needed, and failed utterly at it. I found work as an advertising copywriter in New York City and got what I wanted.

I was living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on West 87th Street, a block or two off Central Part West. A ground-floor apartment with a garden in the back. Riding my bicycle to work at an ad agency at 59th just off Madison Avenue. I was in therapy because I wasn't happy. Now I would say I must have been crazy.

I applied to The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. I had heard it was sort of a half-decent place. My application was rejected. My wife at the time believed in my writing abilities more than I did, bless her soul.

''Let's move to Iowa City,'' she said. And she was a New Jersey girl. ''But they rejected me,'' I whined. I'll bet I pouted and sniveled, too. ''We'll move. You'll apply again. You'll be accepted this time,'' she said. That was precisely what happened. (I never thanked her for believing in my writing abilities. She changed my life.)

My years at the Iowa Workshop were profoundly inspiring and transformative. I had brilliant teachers including Angus Wilson, John Leggett, John Irving, Gail Godwin, Ben Santos, Vance Bourjaily and Fred Exley, among others.

It seemed I was on the verge of a dream come true, but that was not to be. I couldn't finish novels that I began. Great beginnings flamed and petered out. Writing was agonizing. The short stories I did complete were underwhelming to editors and agents.

After graduating with an MFA in creative writing, I put my dreams of being a novelist away in a desk drawer along with a colorful collection of rejection slips. I returned to New York City, working for ad agencies. Black Flag Roach Motel and Aarid Extra Dry were two accounts I worked on (wrote TV commercials for) but they might as well as well have been addresses where I lived.

I immigrated to Dallas. Finally, finally - I was still unhappy. I was the recipient of many gifts: A home, two beautiful children, a thriving freelance writing business. I learned to write speeches, white papers, case studies and the like. I kept trying to improve my writing skills; however, I was inconsistent. Sometimes I started strong but flamed out; however, most all the time I left clients jumping up and down for joy. I wasn't good at proofing my own work. Typos were my bugaboo. (Only I might have written in those days: ''Typoos were my bugaboo.'' I'm going to write a children's book someday entitled Typoos. ''The baby manatee sat on the typewriter and made a typoo.'')

I was diagnosed with adult ADHD and began taking medication for it. I responded well. Being inconsistent, impulsive and oblivious of your blessings; also, being unable to finish projects you start, and making typos are all symptoms of ADHD. They can also be symptoms of immaturity.

I met Paula Joyce, a creative coach, who in one forty-five minute session helped me breakthrough a creative block I never knew I had. Later that day I began writing Redemption, the novel I completed in November of 2010. Finishing that novel has been the greatest triumph of my life. It's key to why writing is such a joy for me now. Because it's the novel I was never able to finish in my twenties. Everything since has been so much fun.

Within a week of the session with Paula I e-mailed issue #1 of Chuck Lustig's ExcitingWriting Advisory to about 240 friends. You are now reading issue #110. I sent this one out to an opt-in list of more than 2,100.

I was able to concentrate. Every day was a revelation. I fell in love with a wonderful person; someone who deeply believes in me and in my writing abilities. After we were going together a few weeks I wanted to go out and she said to me, ''Didn't you say you were writing a novel?'' We've been together since 2005 and plan to be married next year. (Thank you, Gina.)

My mother gave me a copy of Driven to Distraction by Dr. Edward Hallowell, the world authority on ADHD. I came across a sentence in that book that gave me pause: ''Usually, adults who have undiagnosed ADD have some dream, some forgotten hope, that treatment can revive and help turn into a reality.'' My heart quickened. Can you imagine my excitement? (Thank you, Mom.)

I learned how to proof my work effectively. (Thank you, Kris Kozamchak.)

My strategy has been and remains to continually improve my writing skills. That strategy is at the heart of my ExcitingWriting brand as it applies to novels, short stories and marketing communications.

So now we're up to the present.

I was able to write this particular EWA issue, the hardest one I've ever written, because just last month I attended the 75th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and went through a soul bending experience as I connected with my tribe. My heart will always be in Iowa City.

I'll definitely be publishing my first novel, Redemption, the story of love lost and found in the dark days after 9/11. I'm now writing my second novel, Revolution, the story of a Peace Corps volunteer in the jungles of Colombia in 1967 who falls in love with a FARC revolutionary soldier. I'm also writing Unfinished Business, a collection of short stories I would have written in my twenties had I been able (only now they're a lot better because I've had a few years to rewrite them.) And I'm a freelance writer again with a thriving business.

And finally, finally, finally I am truly happy. Truly, truly, truly happy. I'm no longer a prig, although sometimes I'm still an asshole. When you try so hard but you can't succeed… You know the lyrics now. I've followed the lights for decades, and they have guided me home.

My love and gratitude to everyone who has helped me along my journey. That's quite a crowd. And it is about the journey, the agony and the ecstasy, and not about the arrival. I bet you know that. Thank you.

My Novel, Revolution, Develops Characters in Conflict

Welcome back. I once wrote an ad for Keds that had images of Bugs Bunny and other cartoon characters on them. My headline: ''Shoes with a little character, $9.95.'' This month's EWA is about developing characters in fiction. Over the last month, I spent five days in Iowa City attending the 75th Anniversary of the Iowa Writers' Workshop (an inspiring experience), I wrote a short story (one of a collection of stories I'm calling ''Unfinished Business'') and I spent literally weeks moving to a loft in downtown Dallas (a trying and arduous journey with a happy ending). Still I made excellent progress on my novel, Revolution. I've now finished the first four chapters, and I can't wait to move deeper into the story.

As I mentioned last month, my novel Revolution is about a Peace Corps volunteer who, while serving in Colombia, S.A. in 1967, becomes friendly with a FARC revolutionary soldier. Through a series of events, he gradually becomes radicalized and in a moment of truth has to decide whether he wants to be a member of the Peace Corps or the ''War Corps.''

Writers have always been challenged with making their characters complex and multi-dimensional with flaws, obsessions, dreams, and redeeming qualities readers can identify with.

Telling a story that makes a character plausible is one thing; telling a story that causes readers to deeply care about a character is quite another. It is the sine qua non of novel writing; if you get the caring thing right, there's not that much you can do wrong.

There's a well-worn formula for enticing readers to care: Make your characters intensely likeable but let circumstances place them in horrible circumstances. Here's a variation that can be made to work just as well: Make your characters seriously flawed but place them in horrible circumstances that call forth their redeeming features.

Notice the common denominator: horrible circumstances.

In my novel Revolution, I want to show characters in intense conflict with each other; I want to show characters creating horrible circumstances for each other. And I want to let the conflict and the turning points forced by the conflict delineate the story while they define the characters. I want to show my characters not just trying to overthrow governments and trying to keep governments from being overthrown; I also want to test and overthrow the most basic belief structures and most profound notions of what we are as human beings, workers and lovers. Yes, Revolution, like my first novel, Redemption is at its core a love story.

In writing Revolution, I am allowing myself to be influenced by Donald Maass and his book, Writing the Breakout Novel. Maas writes that ''escalating stakes'' in a breakout novel (escalating what is at stake for a reader) requires being ''willing to make your characters suffer.'' (And trust me, you can't get a reader to care about a character until something is at stake for him or her.)

Writes Maass: ''Trials and tests are the stuff of character building, of conflict. Ask yourself, who is the one ally your protagonist cannot afford to lose? Kill that character. What is your protagonist's greatest physical asset? Take it away. What is the one article of faith that for your protagonist is sacred? Undermine it. How much time does your protagonist have to solve his main problem? Shorten it. Push your characters to the edge, and you will pull your readers close… and add dimensions to your novel that will lift it above the crowd.''

This is the approach I've taken in planning Revolution. I've created two mind-maps of the novel, each more than 20 pages long, that visualize the conflict and events that heighten the conflict. I've also filled in a worksheet of Don Maass' that starts off with basic questions such as, ''Who is the main character and what is his main goal, conflict and problem?'' and ends with complex questions that demand a fuller conceptualization of the novel than many novelists begin with, such as, ''What are the five turning points toward the solution of your protagonist's main problem?'' and, ''Delineate the psychology of place with respect to the setting of the novel's climax.''

As I answered the questions I realized I was much better prepared to write Revolution than when I embarked on writing Redemption nine years ago. I think that the planning I've done will ultimately add tension and depth of character, and make the novel more exciting to read.

Next month: Why I think it's so much fun to write novels.

My Second Novel, Revolution, Begins to Take Shape and Acquire a Writing Style

Some of you wanted to know the status of Redemption, my first novel. I'm currently looking for a literary agent to represent it. A number of agents have expressed interest in it based on a one-page pitch letter I sent them. So far I've had no takers. Just last Friday a very fine agent requested that I send the first 75 pages of Redemption to her. She will give me an answer in four to six weeks. Keep your fingers crossed. (By the way, I've already decided my third novel will not be entitled Renovation.)

As I told you last month, my novel Revolution is about a Peace Corps volunteer who, while serving in Colombia, S.A. in 1967, becomes friendly with a FARC revolutionary soldier and gradually becomes radicalized. (That's as much as I'm saying about it. I don't want to give the story away.) There is an autobiographical angle to my novel: The story was prompted by events I experienced while serving in the Peace Corps on the northern coast of Colombia directly after I graduated from college in 1967.

As I wrote last month, I'm using revolution as a metaphor for human transformation. At its heart, my novel will be a love story.

I've now written about 40 double-spaced pages of the first draft. I'm on chapter four. Before beginning to write I spent months outlining the story, breaking it down into chapters, developing the characters and the themes, writing biographical sketches, visualizing the turning points and the unforgettable scenes—understanding the story as deeply as possible before beginning to write it. I expect the first draft will run about 300 or more pages.

It's interesting to me to notice how my novel is taking shape and particularly how the style of writing is developing.

What is writing style?

According to Jerome Stern in Making Shapely Fiction, "Style is how you tell your story. People often talk about the style and subject of a work of art as if they were separable. But if you think about it, the real subject of Van Gogh's landscapes is how he painted the landscapes and the subject of Cézanne's still lifes is how he painted the peaches.

So, too, in literature—the subject of Hemingway's stories is not fishing, but how he wrote about fishing, and the subject of Faulkner's novels is not the South, but how he wrote about the South."

Writing style is the most important element in artistic writing; it is one of the more important elements in business or academic writing. Why? Because style is about so many elements: word choice, length of sentences and one's choice of images and metaphors and the way one writes descriptions; it's also about subtext lurking below the surface and the ineffable feeling one gets from reading a single sentence or a paragraph. Once you decide how you want to tell your story, you can write it more effectively if the style you write it in elucidates the themes you are writing and the story you are telling.

I've known for some time that I want the language in Revolution to be as lush as the Colombian jungle and the narrative to be as open, magical and fable-like as possible, creating a syntax, a place in the novel, if you will, in which anything can happen, perhaps even events outside the physical laws of the universe.

I want to call upon the exotic animals of Colombia and the birds of breathtaking beauty in that land, and I want to contrast them with the characters in my story trying to make sense of their world-views under horrible conditions. In the midst of all that beauty, I wanted to describe revolutionary events pushing people beyond the breaking point.

And you might be thinking, "Oh, magical realism. Isn't that what Gabrielle Garcia Marquez is known for?"

His novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, has its roots in Marquez's childhood memories when he lived with his grandparents in the village of Aracataca, which is located about 150 miles away from the village of Manaure, my Peace Corps site. I visited Aracataca once while I was in the Peace Corps, before One Hundred Years of Solitude became a bestseller and Garcia Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Let me talk about influence: I think one writer chooses to let another writer's style influence him or her.

I read a number of novels in order to help me decide how to write Revolution:
The Island Under the Sea by Isabella Allende
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Brief Encounters with Che Guevera by Ben Fountain
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabrielle Garcia Marquez

I'm not trying to write like any of these extremely gifted writers, but I am open to letting their styles, their visions of the possibilities of their language, influence me. As a writer-friend said to me, "Read Marquez. Use what you can use. You'll be surprised: No one will think you're copying."

Let me give you a two-sentence excerpt from my novel that is written in a style infused with the lushness of the Colombian jungle:

"On a map of Colombia the Magdalena River appears to be like an immense slithering boa constrictor. With the eye of the snake at the city of Barrenquilla on the coast, where the boa constrictor's mouth is splayed open wide, as though about to swallow a field rat, the river snakes southward for hundreds of miles through jungle and eventually grows numerous tails which transform into lakes and rapids, some areas marked by picturesque waterfalls."

Having lived in the Coastal Region of Colombia, I can say it is both strange and beautiful and unexplainable how living there puts one's mind in a magical mood. And that is why I want the characters and the events described in my novel Revolution to be informed by a magical and lush style of writing.

Next month: Keys to character development

Welcome to my Unfolding Revolution

Starting this month, in addition to the usual ExcitingWriting topics, I'll take you along with me as I write my second novel, Revolution. Each month, I'll tell you the progress I've made and point out relevant writing principles.

Before we get to that, let's cover a topic that befuddles many: If someone asks after your health and you are okay, do you say, good, fine or well?

Good is an adjective. It could relate to one's behavior in relation to an ethical norm or to the degree of skill one has.

Well is an adverb. It describes how one feels and is the word one usually uses to communicate that one is in good health.

Fine is an adjective that means of superior quality, admirable, consisting of small particles, refined and delicately fashioned. It has other uses, as well. For example, a fine musician is one of excellent quality. That is where it approaches one use of the word good; however, a fine musician is clearly better than a good musician.

So, when someone asks you how are you, how do you answer? If you are feeling chipper, the standard answer is ''I'm fine,'' picking up on the superior quality meaning of that word. However, if you want to emphasize that you are in good health, you could say, ''I'm well.'' The answer ''I'm good,'' is not really appropriate. However if you are a baby sitter you could tell the parents when they return home that their children were good to indicate they were well behaved.

My novel, Revolution.

Revolution will be a work of fiction, but the story was prompted by events I experienced while serving in the Peace Corps on the northern coast of Colombia directly after I graduated from college in 1967.

Here is the story I wish to tell: In 1967, a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia, S.A. meets and becomes friendly with a FARC revolutionary soldier, and what happens next. (Trust me: I'm not giving the story away. I would not be that cruel.)

Che Guevara was killed in the mountains of Bolivia with the help of the CIA about a month after I arrived in my little village of Manaure. In the summer of 1967 many revolutions were in process around the globe. Parts of major U.S. cities went up in flames.

I'm using revolution as a metaphor for human transformation. At its heart, my novel will be a love story.

Here's an important point: In business writing, as in fiction writing, the whole point of the effort is the solving or the working out of a problem. A novel can work out a character's problem as much as issuing a press release can solve a business communication problem.

In Revolution, my Peace Corps volunteer and principal character, Jake Lancer, has a problem: How to stay in the Peace Corps for the next two years so he won't be drafted and sent to fight in Viet Nam. As he is exposed to the on-going revolution in Colombia and struggles with his own conflicting desires, he increasingly experiences his personal Viet Nam where he is in Colombia.

I will tell you more about my novel next month, and share with you the process I went through in getting it to its current state of development.

No one can say whether Revolution will ever be published, and, if it is, whether it will shoot to the top of the best-seller charts or molder on the remainder tables. That's the fun of embarking on this journey and taking my 2000+ ExcitingWriting Advisory readers along with me. One thing I know for sure: If Revolution is successful, you will be able to say, ''I remember when Chuck was writing it.'' See you next month.

On Business Writing & Fiction Writing

Some people are amazed that I can write marketing communications by day and fiction by night. I tell them it's just like being a werewolf. Fiction requires a different relationship with the night and with full moons, too. Sometimes it requires night vision, spiritually seeing and penetrating the darker side.

Or think of it this way: Business writers exude a sense of confidence, competence and control in their writing. Fiction writers do the same, of course, but they simultaneously create an environment of carefully controlled chaos. It's called a story. They manipulate or seduce their readers into feeling fear, terror, horror, loss, grief, irony or humor.

The requirements of business writing are vastly different from those of fiction writing, but both require manipulative skills. Yes, I admit it openly: Writers manipulate or attempt to manipulate their readers' emotions. The good ones are heartless.

Whether it's day or night, the first business of being a writer is drafting. And that's why in this EWA, I'll be giving you a few tips for drafting success.

What is drafting? Why don't we just call it writing? Drafting means getting those first words down on the page. It is a special circumstance with rules of its own.

I'm now drafting my second novel, so I know whereof I speak. Writers often talk about getting a draft ''out'' as though the writing gestates inside. At a certain point we must externalize it. The birth metaphor reigns.

Montaigne, the innovator of the essay in the 1500s, talked about the need to test out our ideas by writing them in the form of essays, using the French word that means ''attempt'' or ''try.'' Norman Mailer went further, saying he writes in order to find out what he is thinking.

With no further delay, here are a few tips for drafting success:

Do yoga or exercise first. Writing is action. Getting your body in action is good preparation. Yoga or exercise can help you stretch the mind and shake something loose. That something can be your writing. I always exercise first thing in the morning, then meditate, and do my best writing in the morning. Some other preliminary activities: Take a shower. Consider this: The shower is the only place you can't write (or can't write very well). Ideas can be shy about showing up. They may purposely decide to appear where you can't easily write them down. Make sure you capture them in the shower. For example, you can place them inside a soap container until you towel off. Sleeping can sometimes work, too, if you can capture your visions upon awaking. Keep a pen and paper by your night table.

Write quickly. Outline what you want to say. Then take each part of the outline and write that part in an intense, fast-writing session. Write as quickly as possibly. Don't waste time trying to find the perfect word out there. There are no perfect words out there. The only perfect words are the ones in here, in your heart. And all those words are perfect. Just express it as best you can. Now. You may find better ways of expressing it when you know it better, but then again, you may not. In the case of the novel I'm drafting: I made a mind-map of the entire story. Think of a mind-map as a visual outline with words and diagrams and pictures. I broke the mind-map into chapters. And now I'm about to begin taking each chapter, reading over what happens in that chapter and then drafting that chapter very rapidly. When you're writing at this speed, don't look back. Don't look to the side. Just look ahead and don't stop until you've finished the chapter. Using this method, I expect I'll be able to finish the first draft in about three weeks.

Don't be afraid of making errors. It's likely one big error anyway. Admit to yourself: It's wrong. Awful. Horrible. Bad. But, at the same time, know that it's your creation. Take ownership of it and all its faults. And remember, it could just as easily be bold, beautiful, right, true and brilliant. Just like you. The point is, it's your creation. It's what you were thinking. And when you're writing that first draft, don't forget to make plenty of punctuation, spelling, syntax and verb-agreement errors. You're free. You're free to be wrong. You're drafting.

Start out by writing down what you want to accomplish. If you don't know how to write it yet, that's fine. Start out by describing how you want the finished piece to read or the impression you want the finished piece to make on the reader. Write whatever you can write. The process of writing it, of being in the action of writing, will help the rest of it show up for you.

Forgive yourself. Be patient. Writing often doesn't work out the first time. Or the second or third time. That's the joy of writing, and of, eventually, getting it right. (See last month's entry on writing revisions.)

War & Peace Was Not Written in One Day

Writers revise to improve their writing. When you read a finished piece, it's easy to assume you are reading first-draft material. You don't see the hours of toil and the various draft revisions that the writer put into it.

I have a cousin who speaks to her Airedale in grave tones whenever the dog misbehaves, demanding to know, ''What did you do?'' That's the question you must confront head on if you want to become effective at revising your own work.

Ask yourself: What did you do? You have to approach the piece of writing as though someone else wrote it and then apply the same critical eye you might to a stranger's piece of writing, objectively assessing its strengths and weaknesses.

Does that sound cold and heartless? Here's something even more cold and heartless: If you're not willing to approach your own writing as another person would, you'll never be a good writer.

Revising isn't just editing, which can include improving sentence structure or grammar; it isn't just proofreading, which can include correcting punctuation or spelling mistakes. Revising addresses the big questions: Is it any good? If so, what is its value? How could its value be improved?

So the first step is to read what you wrote with a fresh mind. If you're out to materially improve the work, don't be afraid to rip it apart and put it back together again in a whole new way.

Remember, if you don't like the result, you can always put it back the way it was. By the way, before you begin revising a piece, make sure you save the previous version so you can always have it at the ready if you decide you want to go back to that version.

As you're re-reading, you'll find that four categories of concern come up:

Sections that need rewriting: Read through what you wrote critically for logic, structure, tone and style. Think about your audience. Will they get what you are writing? Will they agree with the assumptions you make in the opening? Will they comprehend and be able to follow your organization as you transition from point to point? Will they appreciate the attitude behind the writing? And will they like your manner of writing, what writers call style?
As you read through it, place question marks where you think the writing could be clearer, or where transitions could be made stronger. Find places where the logic falters or where your ideas lack clarity. Then rewrite based on your findings.

Paragraphs that need reorganizing: Go through your draft giving each paragraph a number. Then, on a separate piece of paper, write down what the purpose of that paragraph is in a phrase or a sentence. See if you can find entire paragraphs you can drop or re-order. Then go into each paragraph and see if you can find instances where ideas are not developed logically. Does each paragraph have a topic sentence that reveals the subject of that paragraph? The same goes for sentences. Are there any you can strengthen?

New sections that must be added: In most drafts you'll find areas that need additional development. Maybe in your draft you started with Idea #1 and went directly to Idea #3, but forgot to mention Idea #2 that logically comes between Idea #1 and #3. This is your chance to put Idea #2 where it belongs and develop it.

Parts that should be cut out: This includes areas that on second thought you decide you don't need to include. Delete them.

If all this sounds like a lot of work, it is. This is the work of writing. If you can revise on your own, without supervision, you can work independently, and become a much better writer. One of my favorite mottos that I use in business writing is, ''Revise without being asked to.'' It has served me well, and is just as applicable to my literary novel writing.

How I revised my novel: After writing Redemption for more than six years, I paid an excellent editor, Bridget Foley, to review it and make suggestions. She did line-edits on the entire 620-page manuscript and wrote a 12-page, single-space letter addressing theme, structure, tone, character, plot, subplots, etc., all the elements a novelist must deal with.

Bridget suggested that I combine two characters into one, in one case, and three characters into one, in another case; that I could drop entire parts of the novel if I wanted; that I could drop entire characters I had been writing, living with, so to speak, all those years; that I might consider killing off one of my characters, all for the purpose of improving my book's entertainment value (that's how ghastly gruesome being a writer can be) while still getting across the same theme with the same principal characters and with the same resolution.

I made only one decision as I went into this process: I would keep an open mind. And that is what I did. Bridget seemed to understand what I was trying to accomplish with my novel. She never once told me what to do. She simply suggested options. I was alive to the possibilities. I began a massive revision. Amazingly, I found I could repurpose about 75% of the actual writing in a new novel that tells a compressed but livelier version of the story. The revision took me about nine months to complete. Then I did a second revision that took another six months. At that point I knew I had finished my novel. It came in at 540 pages. The entire project took me 8-1/2 years.

Here's what I know without a doubt: The 620-page novel would never have been published. I had to totally rip apart what I had been working on for 6-1/2 years in order to unlock the novel within the novel. By cutting, rewriting, adding in a few new sections and repurposing old material, I brought the work through a destructive-creation process that unleashed a great deal of emotion and passion not present in the book previously. I now have a novel that I believe is a tremendous accomplishment. And here's my point: The sense of accomplishment I get from writing is mostly found in the rewriting. That's where the triumph is. It's the reason people say, ''Novels are not written, they're rewritten.'' And here's my final point: I got a sense of accomplishment by rewriting this EWA that is similar to that which I got from rewriting my novel. You see, the process is the same. The scale of the two projects is slightly different.