St Michael the Archangel

St. Michael is one of my favourite saints. He's a fighter, a warrior, the field commander of God's Army.

St. Michael is amazing, because he was just an archangel. He was one of the lower ranking angels in the nine angelic choirs. Lucifer, ever after known as Satan, or the devil, was a Seraphim, the highest ranking angel in all of God's legions. Yet, it was the highest, purest, most perfect angel in the whole heavenly host that fell, and it was the archangel that obeyed God's laws and brought about his downfall. It is a great symbol of humility, that one so low should be brought so high.

Even though he is an archangel, the Greek fathers and many others place him over all the other angels, naming him as "the Prince of the Seraphim."

The name Michael means "Who is like God?" It illuminates his humility, that he refers all his glory, accomplishments, and honour back to God.

He is invoked as the patron and protector of the Catholic Church. He is the Patron saint of grocers, mariners, paratroopers, and police.

Other sites to read about St. Michael:

http://www.catholic-saints.info/patron-saints/saint-michael-the-archangel.htm/
http://www.2heartsnetwork.org/Michael.htm/

A Finished Manuscript... or so you THOUGHT

Once you get to the end of that manuscript, what's the first thing you do?

Me, I gloat.

Oh," I say, flashing a bright and beaming smile around at my family. "Look at this paper. Isn't it amazing? That's a whole story here. Did you hear me? I wrote a whole story. Hey, look at this, I actually finished. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that great? What a good feeling! That's a lot of work, you know. I finished! I finished!"

(In less polite words, people may say I'm going "Neener neener." I'm really not. I'm just so jazzed with completing a story I have to strut my stuff a little bit.)

However, once that rough first draft (yup, it's not an actual ready-for-submission manuscript quite yet, peeps) is completed, praised, and flashed around, next comes the second step, often dreaded. Revision.

Revision isn't so bad. I like to drink a pot of coffee while I'm doing it. The worst part, for me, is the red-eyed look I develop. (Just kidding.) No, I actually get just a wee bit daunted by the sheer amount of words I have to go through. I think to myself, "Golly, Cat, did you have to be so eloquent?" It's a lot of cutting, cutting, switching around, erasing, deleting...erm, yeah, cutting. But at the same time, it's kind of fun. It's like taking a beautiful red apple, and paring, and paring, and paring, until you've got a lovely mound of white clean apple meat, cored and seeded, and sweetened in a bath of sugar and cinnamon, placed in a bed of beautiful crust, and baked until the most gorgeous apple pie emerges.

I'm probably the first person to compare revision to making apple pie, but think about it. If you didn't go through all the work of making that apple perfect for a pie, how good would your pie be?

When I revise, I like to go through it once, twice, three times, four times....until someone clicks their fingers under my nose and says, "Come in, Katrina." Sometimes I start back to front, with my last chapter first and my first chapter last, just to see how that view looks. Sometimes I'll try switching the point of view, to see how the character comes through best. But at the end of the day, I always find out one more thing.

Revision can be fun, and it will never be done.

Especially if you're a perfectionist.

So tell. What do you like about revising? I like the coffee that goes with it, and the journey of rediscovering my character all over again.

Right On Target

Writing is like a game of darts.

Okay, I can see you all going, "What? Has Katrina LOST it?"

Well, I admit. My family were playing darts outside, and each game reminded me of a writer's perseverance.

Think about it. You've got the bulls-eye, which is your primary goal, an acceptance for publication. Then you've got the plain little targets which are like your multiple submissions with either personal or form rejections. Then there's the doubles, and triples, which are like your royalties or advances.

So, then there are the darts themselves. A dart is an idea. Each idea you aim at your board either lands on an acceptance or rejection. If you land on a rejection, you need to revise...in other words, you get to aim again. If it lands on an acceptance, bulls-eye!

But sometimes a dart pops out. That's usually an idea that fizzles. You can either try to revise it, or just choose a new dart. I usually try to revise my darts. I can't stand seeing a dart go to waste. Most of the time, when I aim again, I manage to get the dart to stick. Not all fizzles are failures.

Would anyone like to join me? The board is new, and the darts are fantastic.