You know the best part of my writing mistakes and the lessons that I have to learn the hard way? You get to read my blog posts and learn them the easy way! Why make all the mistakes if I’ve already made them for you and am willing to spread the knowledge? Gatekeeping is for assholes.
Without further ado, let’s talk about four things that I’ve learned from this third draft and second revision of the sequel to my adult fantasy novel, A Landscape of Shadows.
#1 Make a detailed revision schedule. I knew I needed a pretty quick turnaround on this revision. I gave myself a month to do it, and then I dilly-dallied for two weeks, so I had to crank it out in two weeks. The first thing I did when that reality sank in was make a schedule. The schedule included all of the changes I needed to make, what order I’d make them in, and how many days I had for each one. For instance, if I was deleting Character A, then I had Saturday and Sunday, the 17th and 18th, to erase their entire existence from the book and attribute any of their pertinent dialogue to a different character.
This actually made a huge difference for me. It’s just a slightly more detailed version of the editing form that I normally use (i.e., we’ll delete unnecessary characters A and L in draft two). The stricter timeline kept me focused, and the micro-deadlines let me center on the work being done without obsessing about the final deadline.
#2 When in doubt, cut it out. I went into draft three with a massive wordcount. And I mean massive. It was the longest book I’d ever written to date. And I knew that, as much as I love a hefty book, it just wasn’t practical for several reasons. Because there was so much material to work with, I told myself I had to be ruthless with cuts. When I wavered, I cut. When I questioned, I cut.
I didn’t delete anything. Everything was safe in a previous version of the document, so if I changed my mind, or a beta reader thought something was missing, I still had the old material. But there’s something very freeing about taking a story down to its essentials.
Now, some people might have the opposite problem of me. I’m wordy, but your leaning might be to be too lean. Don’t take this advice in that case!
#3 Set the deadline and make it nonnegotiable. In essence, take away your safety net. If you tell yourself that you can have an extension if you really need it, you’ll take it. If you tell yourself that the deadline isn’t a big deal because it’s only a promise you made to yourself, you’ll disrespect yourself and break that promise.
I could have asked my beta for an extension because I played around for two weeks and literally lost half my revision time. Instead, I decided to gun it and see if I could make it, and I did – with three days to spare!
You are way more capable than you think you are. Don’t sell yourself short by playing chicken with a deadline and losing. Don’t be the chicken. You’ve got this.
#4 Commit to loving the story as is, as it was, and as it’s going to be. I like to think of my novel and its many drafts as a person going through growth. I love the first draft. I love the second draft. I love the third draft most of all. I’ll probably love the fourth draft even more. It’s still my story in every single stage, and I don’t have to be discouraged by the stage it’s in because the next one looks more promising, and I don’t have to hate/throw away the previous stage because the current one is better.
Every single draft is the best that you had in you at that time. And that’s wonderful. It’s a reflection on your growth and persistence as a writer. Let yourself be excited about that. Let yourself love that process. And when you commit to being kind to yourself and your draft, you’ll find yourself getting less frustrated and discouraged when it gets tricky.
I’m a firm believer that we as writers can learn something every single time we sit down to write. What are some of your favorite lessons?
