As I write this entry, the short story “The Last Friend” is entering into its 15th draft. It is an odd sensation to be happy when a story is rejected. With rejection comes a twinge of pain and an opportunity to improve—and “The Last Friend” is greatly improved.

It has been said that rewriting is the majority of a writer’s work. I know when I was a teenager trying to break into writing that I did not understand the role of rewriting. I thought rewriting was just clearing up a few points of grammar and making sure my spelling was correct—with my specific learning disability, checking my spelling was a time consuming task in the days before spell check on word processing programs. As an adult, I spend hours with my second best friend—a thesaurus—re-reading and re-wording narrative and dialogue in a quest to find the best combination of words to bring it to life.

The “Last Friend” will go through three more drafts before I send it to a professional editor to make corrections and recommendations. Then another draft or two after that and I will send it out again.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the stories I write and other events. Please also note that I have changed the schedule of my blogs. The new schedule is on my website.