Happy Friday, everyone!
I hope you’re all looking forward to something relaxing or fun this weekend, or at the minimum, a break from life’s grind.
I’m in a period of rest because this week I handed in a complete draft of my novel manuscript! As usual, it shrunk as I revised. It clocked in at 41k words, which is more than 3/4 the size of a short YA novel. Yesssss! My mentor encouraged me to send some outtakes as well, so then we’re looking at close to 50 thousand. Either way, this is a triumph for me.
It’s a book with a beginning, middle and end. It makes sense! It has character development and dramatic tension and a few passages of description of hospital life that still move me.
But I have a couple of weeks of downtime before the next round of revisions begin. So what do I do with this time? I could mess around with the manuscript, making lists of possible new scenes, listening to previously recorded conversations with my mentor, scanning for errors. I’ll be doing that soon, though, and perhaps a short break will help my critical distance when we do look at the whole manuscript together.
So, writers, what do you recommend? Are there any essays or books by writers on the in-between periods? Are you burning with good advice? This is your chance to share with me! I’m an open channel at the moment, so let ‘er rip!
I am not a writer - I write computer software, which is emphatically NOT the same, though it is a writing process -- I would step away from it for those couple of weeks, and let it percolate in the back of your mind, which you know it's going to do anyway. I get so many new ideas from taking a walk, for example, that I've many times just stepped away from the current process and then returned later on with a fresh look.
And -- congratulations!
Congratulations 🍾 and best of luck with your book.