You can learn a lot from genre, even if you aspire to lit-ra-ture.

I am in the process of revising a story that I'd like to send out by the end of the month. Revision is almost always a frustrating process (thus, the procrastinatory blog post), but I have recently found a website that gives some really good advice. The author who runs it, Holly Lisle, is a sci-fi and fantasy writer. I have never read any of her work, but the way she talks about writing makes me believe that she takes it just as seriously as any writer of literary fiction that I know. I am trying to escape what she has termed "revision hell," where I do nothing but languish in a story fiddling aimlessly and without certainty. It's tough, but I think I'm making headway.

Here's just one of the many pages from her website that I've found immensely useful. It's worth it, I think, to wander around the site, too--you can come across some really great, inspirational articles.
Workshop: Burn It, Bury It, Let it Live

Happy revising! I shall get back to mine now. I'll let you know how it works out. I may even post stories to this site from time to time. We'll see.