Elizabeth Zelvin, author of Death Will Get
You Sober and Death Will Help You Leave Him, capped a two-week tour
through North Carolina yesterday at the Sternberger Center in Greensboro with
her presentation "The End is Just the Beginning: Editing, Critique, and
Craft."

Liz repeats the following mantras to herself when she
writes:

• Just keep telling the story. This one is most important to her during first drafts.
• Nothing is wasted. Liz has analyzed her rejections for ways
  to improve her manuscripts and used down time to build her network and support
  system.
• I'm writing the best that I can at this time.

She shared numerous stories of her publishing wisdom with
the audience. For example, she originally alternated first-person viewpoints
between two characters, Bruce and Barbara, in Death Will Get You Sober.
An editor at St. Martins (her current publisher) commented that Bruce was the
stronger voice of the two. At first, Liz resisted the idea of making Bruce the
main character and Barbara the sidekick because Barbara was her female voice.
But after she completed a major edit that took Barbara out of the first person
and cast her voice into the third person, she discovered that the edit
separated the character from the author. This allowed Liz to give Barbara more
freedom.

The enemy of craft, says Liz, is impatience. She counts the
traits of emotional security and willingness to be vulnerable as essential in
helping a writer receive the level of critique that will improve his or her
manuscript the most.

Agatha award winning author Chris Roerden arranged
Liz's tour. Thanks to Chris and Liz for the presentation yesterday. And what a
pleasure to meet Liz my sister Guppy at last, after several years of
emails!