Tacka tacka tacka tacka tacka tacka

That’s the sound of one writer editing furiously.

You may recall this kaPOWerful post from early July, declaring my mission to finish my bulky edits by the time we leave for French Polynesia. By “bulky” I meant the rewrites, the new scenes, the untangling of plot-snarls, chunky stuff like that. Scary stuff like that… Before setting my goal, I had my list of must-edits locked in a cupboard while I cowered under a table.

What was I so scared of? I thought the scope of my revisions would be too daunting to summit, that I’d realize the book was one giant mess that I could never fix. But I reminded myself that big tasks are completed one small step at a time. I also realized that by stewing in my anxiety, I was making my anxiety last longer, so if I wanted to remove that anxiety I’d have to start editing.

I’m happy to say it’s been much less painful that expected!! I’m still in the midst of it, but here was my process:

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100k!

Look at that shiny, glorious number! Can’t you just see the heavenly light rays bursting between its digits? And nope, there’s nothing wrong with your Spotify – that IS a chorus of angels singing “Hallelujah” through this picture. (I hired them to do that and they’d like a tip, so…)

You really DON’T have to write every day.

Two weeks ago I discussed writing slow,  a process often touted against but which I believe has merit. I decided to continue that theme with a post about other rules you can safely ignore.

There are important rules in writing, of course. Lots of rules are well-founded and should definitely be followed. What I don’t support is the attitude some authors have about these Rules with Capital R’s, the ones they shout from their desk with a zealously pointed index finger. “YOU. BAD AUTHOR. YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.”

Let’s start with the one I see pushed most aggressively: Write every day.

I write slow, and I’m okay with that

I’m a slow writer. I’m so slow that I actually forced a 30-minute time limit on this entry because otherwise I’d take too much time away from my other projects, musingly tapping my pencil on my chin for ages. Actually I’m typing this on my laptop, but the pencil thing was a nice visual effect, yeah? If I actually hand-wrote these things it’d be take me double-ages. Triple-ages! But I’m getting off track.