Day 19
30 mins editing + 15 mins planning + 1 hr planned writing
Make editing a regular part of your routine.
Jacqui acknowledges that this week’s advice may be at odds with what she’s said previously about creating freely and never looking back, like some Thelma-and-Louise-themed writing drive.
But that was just to trick us into getting something down, because fiction writing demands the effort to get our sentences “just so”. However, rather than switching wholly between writing and editing days, Jacqui suggests blending editing into the first 15-30 mins of a session, to ease into the work, while also improving previous efforts.
The advantage of this is that the “improved” draft starts to emerge daily, rather than having to wait until the end of the shitty first draft. It helps the belief that, one day, this work will be readable.
Exercise
- 30 mins: edit your previous efforts, whether cutting or expanding it
- 1,500 words aim (I added 15 minutes planning): get into the scene straight after editing the previous work
My response
- I liked the opportunity to review previous work for 30 mins. It got me back into the world of the novel and writing afterwards felt easier, like I had already “warmed up”. I liked that it came with no specific word count attached.
- It also made me realise that, although what I’ve written is sketchy, and sometimes random, it is not that bad. Certainly something upon which I can build ideas.
- The scene I chose to write today was unconnected to the editing but I felt able to get into it fairly easily, although I found it so hard to finish the last 200 words, due to my lack of general writing fitness (more on that below).
- This was the first time that I didn’t do my writing and blog post on the allocated week. True, I had other things going on and it had been an intense fortnight, but the feeling was lack of motivation, like it didn’t matter whether I did the exercise or not. I felt flat as a pancake. Then I felt crap about not doing the work.
- A week later, I’m doing the work, and trying to get out of the motivation hole I’m in. This will be an important time for me. I didn’t consciously expect perfection, but unconsciously I might have: I expected myself to post every week on the allotted day, as a test of my commitment. I made it into a test more than a habit. Now I’ve failed the test, what do I make it mean? If I see it as a blip and carry on, I will be pleased. Because typically I tend to take motivation holes as reasons to give up, and a blemished record as something invalidating the whole project. (Seems such an over-reaction when I write it out.) If I can apply some perspective, and dust myself off, it will be growth for me.
all course content copyright Jacqui Lofthouse thewritingcoach.co.uk