RECIPIENT REFLECTION

​Mentorship Recipient:
Meat Sweats

Mentor Commentary:
Laura Maylene Walter

On the Revision Process for "Meat Sweats"

by ​Steven Carey-Walton

I had a vacation coming up and a novella to complete. I burned the candle at both ends and finished the piece three days before my departure date. I didn’t want to write anything new, but habit brought me back to the computer. I figured I’d pop out a crappy draft, let it stew while I was away, and edit it when I returned—my usual recipe. But I knocked out the first draft in a day, edited it the next day, and on the third day submitted it to the Gordon Square Review. I had never produced something so quickly. Though the writing came easy—I could feel the pulse of the characters—the ending felt forced and unsatisfying. My guilt didn’t last long; I was on vacation.  

Laura Walter’s feedback on “Meat Sweats” was validating. She liked my piece, but thought the ending needed an overhaul. I agreed and was relieved to hear I would receive the fiction mentorship.

To start, she challenged me to think of the story’s intention. Over several emails, we landed on what the ending should convey. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to remedy it without changing the whole story. Laura never told me what to write, but her suggestions were incisive: a line of internal dialogue to slow the pace and characterize; a physical description of Dre’s house to drag the reader into the deep end of the story and make them feel as isolated as the main character.

​Rereading the new draft, I recognized the story—it was still mine—but it came alive. She taught me how a few well-placed, purposeful sentences could change everything.

Steven Carey-Walton

Steven Carey-Walton grew up in San Francisco and studied in San Diego. He quit his college bartending gig in hopes of finding a “real” job. Instead, he found a temp agency. After months of stuffing envelopes, he took his mom’s advice and traveled to South Korea to teach English. A week later he met the woman that would become his wife. For the last five years he has been learning Korean and writing fiction. His work has appeared in GNU Journal and Likely Red Press.