Guest Post: Mia Hayson

Please welcome the awesome, amazing Mia Hayson to my blog!

Mia Hayson is a writer who lives in Scotland. She loves odd socks, graphical things, zombies and horror movies. In her spare time she enjoys collecting boots, and has her very own apocalypse plan.

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When Komal asked me to guest post, not going to lie, I panicked. I mean, I was honoured! Me! I never get asked away from Jam HQ! This is like a mini holiday for me! Woo! I am wearing sunglasses right now. My ensemble is somewhat muted by the PJ bottoms and thick jumper I am sporting, sure, but in my mind I am in shorts and a shirt. Anywhichway, despite this there is a part of me, by no means small, that is a little terrified of guest posting. I never have ideas! Alas! And when I do they are generally a little OUT THERE.

Komal is very forgiving and lovely and amazing, though, so I think this might not be a problem. Also, because I am about 3 years old, I made her give me a prompt. I know; I am a bad person. This is probably the most important thing about me you will learn today. BAD BAD PERSON. I hide it between stapling my hand to things accidentally and collecting boots but it's still THERE.

Anyway, so, thanks to powers above and beyond me this post is about revising. Don't run away yet; the second most important thing you will learn today is WE DO NOT LIKE THE LENGTHY BOGGY PASSIVE EXPLANATIONS HERE so there is no need to worry. No no. Besides which, I totally do not own the monopoly on revising. Normally when I revise I am returning to a manuscript after a PRETTY LONG time apart and I tend to become very liberal with the scissors. Haha.

I think everyone has their own revising style, right? Some people are super fast and know exactly what is what, and others are still finding out. I'm in the latter group; I like to think of us as the explorers. We are still discovering things and it is half awesome half frustrating.  And in the midst of discovering things I can settle and pretend I'm pantsing again. Because, for me, the torture of revision isn't the sheer volume of words that need fixing, or the cutting out scenes that are fabtacular but essentially go nowhere, it's in knowing exactly what is ahead. It's a kind of futility at times, seeing the path before it arrives.

To a certain extent! I know this cannot be avoided. It's your novel, eventually you're going to have to know what happens. But I guess I like to trick myself. I like to find that original excitement and enthusiasm and unleash it upon old words. I love the thrill of a blank page, sometimes when something is totally depressing me I open a new document and pretend I am starting again. I pretend to myself and tell my fingers there is nothing ahead and nothing behind this. I whisper to the keys, swearing that they can do what they like because we are not limited by a set path.

So, in short, I full out lie when I am revising. As we have already established, I am actually kind of a bad person; just nobody has noticed it yet. Mwahahahahaaa.

How do you revise?! Any tips I am totally missing? Are you a one revision or two or many revision kind of person? The best part of revisioning has got to be the snacks, right? I cannot be the only person who uses revisions as an excuse to basically attempt to consume the entire gastronomic universe in one sitting? Never works but I always like to try.