The Goodjelly Blog

By Christine Carron

In last week's post, I mentioned a time at a writing conference where I asked a pointless, fawning question that I imagine led to an internal eye roll by the editor to whom the question was directed.  As soon as I stepped away from the conversation I was like, “Why...

By Christine Carron

Once a manager attempted to pressure me into committing fraud. When I refused, that person attempted to spin the story so that it appeared that I had been in the wrong and was not a team player. It created a period of discomfort in my life, in my career. I...

By Christine Carron

I should be devastated. After a discussion with my first readers, it became clear that the revision I had been working on for ten months did not work. 

I am not devastated. I am relieved. Clarity is a beautiful thing. No matter how difficult the truth.

Once you have...

By Christine Carron

As I thought about what I would write this week, a memory kept sneaking up on me: the first time I used a mouse. It was also the first time I used a personal computer. I was a senior in high school nearing graduation and visiting my older sister at college. I had a final paper...

By Christine Carron

I am not much of a gambler. Once I was in Las Vegas on a business trip and went with some colleagues to play blackjack. I giddily explained my novice status to our dealer, a white woman so brown and wizened it looked like she spent every non-working, waking hour in the sun,...

By Christine Carron

A friend is proofreading the revision I have been working on for months. After all the creative, intellectual, and emotional effort that went into that particular revision, it is a relief to have it off my desk and out of my mind. 

Its absence has opened up time in my...

By Christine Carron

Nobody puts Baby in a corner. So goes a famous line from the movie Dirty Dancing. Doubt on the writing adventure is like Baby. It will not be put in a corner. Like any emotion, doubt wants to be felt. To be moved. To be attended to. 

I was reminded of this last week as I...

By Christine Carron

I love jigsaw puzzles. Last night, I finished a particularly tricky one. My puzzle speed slowed dramatically toward the end as I sorted out the last fifty pieces or so, which all looked very similar. I got it done through a combination of methodical analysis, leaps of...

By Christine Carron

Are you familiar with this moment? The one where you have made all the big picture changes on a revision. And you have done multiple passes through the manuscript, reading and/or reading aloud, listening for musicality, for clunkiness, for awkwardness. Line-editing mode...

By Christine Carron

There was a weeping willow tree in the backyard of the house where I spent my youngest childhood years. I have a particular memory of climbing it. Higher and higher I went until I was clinging to the central leader at the very top of that willow. I inchwormed myself up just...

By Christine Carron

In software development, the process that ensures that a delivered product works as expected is called quality assurance (QA). Perhaps as a result of being steeped in software development for over twenty-five years, I have always thought of the editing and revision process in...

By Christine Carron

If you’re a writer, then I figure I’m not going too far out on the proverbial limb if I state that you probably want someone, even lots of someones, to read your work. Basically, you want readers. I fully admit to having that particular want myself. 

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