YA author and longtime YA fiction editor Lexa Hillyer is on the BC blog today with a post I really want to encourage everyone to read! (Full disclosure: Lexa edited my 3 YA books, so I have a lot of experience learning from her, and I can vouch that she is brilliant.)

Lexa asks writers to ask themselves what their writing hang-up is:

• Are you trying to prove something? Some of us are so desperate for a pat on the head and to be told we’re good writers that we add seventeen descriptors where only one is needed. Notice me! Notice me!
• Are you trying to avoid something? Some of us are afraid of the emotions or revelations that could come out if we let them.
• Are you afraid you are not up to the task? Some of us fear we’re not equipped enough to do justice to the fictional world we’ve created, and so we shy away from the level of specificity it should have.
• Are you too focused on the competition? Some of us worry too much about other writers and don’t spend enough time connecting to our own work.

I loved this list. Curious whether any of these strike a chord with any of you folks. How have you dealt with it if so?

A good blog post.

My writing hang up? Self analysis is tricky and unreliable. I don't think I have any problems in the areas mentioned. My hang-up is since I am a hermit by disposition, I don't like the tasks involved in selling my books.

Brilliant. A very insightful list. I think that, for me, I get bogged down in descriptions because I want to go too deeply into the look/feel/smell of places and tell too much about the mannerisms/appearance/personality of characters. I want readers to imagine them MY way. Only MY way! So I add description after description...

I have to remind myself to let it go.

And use the backspace key heavily.