For Ellie

Hi Ellie, I cannot post on the blog, so I'll do it here. 

Thank you for writing so much. It seems like these two ideas have won you over. They have enveloped you! I love that! I can sense your energy and your involvement in them. 

I am struck by how well you can tell the story of a disturbed mind. It’s chilling, really. Your writing reflects serious frenetic mental energy (your characters') and I like that.  There's a place for that, for sure.

I imagine these are first drafts.

Next, I’d like you to re-look at one of them. Take the piece sentence by sentence and really tighten it up. Focus not just on the images (which are terrifying) but on each sentence as a bullet, so to speak. 

If you make each sentence powerful, the piece becomes irresistible.

I know you’re just going with it, but at some point, as I've asked you to do with your duck-counting paragraph, you need to stop your writer-self (that writer self can be so unruly!) and sweat out a paragraph. Be disciplined about each word; demand something of each sentence. Make sure what you're writing is really what you want said. Make hard decisions about each word! :)

That said, Ellie, thank you for always being such an enthusiastic writer and a writer who writes far MORE than is expected. You can tell you sit and lose yourself in your writing. All I want now is for you to find a piece (any piece) to perfect. Really, really perfect. We'll talk more Friday. 

Love, Carolyn