Scraping off burnt toast

That was a phrase from Jamie Ford’s advice to writers, which I linked to in an earlier post. The metaphor—meaning going back to something you wrote long ago and revising it and shining it up thinking even though it didn’t sell then, it might sell now—I found very apt. His opinion was don’t do it.

And then, there was Jane Yolen’s comment in the post I reprinted a couple of weeks ago:

“This past summer (2017) was a banner-waving, happy-dancing time for me. I sold four picture books and only one...