A 12-step program for writers

We admitted we were powerless over writing — that our submissions had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves — an editor — could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our words and our lives over to the care of an editor as we understood him or her.

Made a searching and fearless alphabetical inventory of past work.

Admitted to our editors, to ourselves, and to our librarians the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to remove all these defects from our manuscripts.

Humbly asked the Editor for an extension in order to remove our “telling, not showing.”

Made a list of all words we had abused through bad grammar, cliché, and misuse of tense and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such words wherever possible, except when to do so would go over the word limit.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we couldn’t kill our darlings, we promptly did.

Sought through coffee and beta readers to improve our conscious contact with the Chicago Manual of Style, praying only for knowledge of accurate homonyms and the power to capitalize properly.

Having had a literal awakening as the result of these steps, we will leave other writers alone, as we would like to be left, and to practice these principles in all our submissions.