Don't toss it. Fix it!

I like fixing things. When my son told me his retractable race track toy wouldn't work, I took it apart, figured out the problem, and got it working again. When I found a book with a broken binding at a used book store, I bought it for a steal and put it back together. And when a visiting child put his foot through our "inexpensive" family room ottoman, I made it as good as new.

I'm not an expert at fixing things, but I enjoy the challenge of trying to bring a little more life to something that other people might just toss out.

This trait translates well for my writing. When a manuscript doesn't seem to be working, often all it takes is a little extra effort (okay, often more than a little) to get it into shape. So when Corey told me a few weeks ago that an editor was interested in one of our manuscripts, but it would need a lot of work, I was all for it!

As with the broken toy and sunken-in ottoman, the story had to be taken apart and put together again. After weeks of cutting, tinkering, tweaking, and an especially difficult-to-assemble ending stanza, we had ourselves a story that worked!

Determination--and editor interest!--were all we needed to get our story into proper working order.

So now we wait. And if we need to work on it a bit more, I say bring it on!

What have you fixed lately?