|
Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the to-do list numbers are quite different from last week’s—and that’s because I was inadvertently looking at my pages completed rather than the to-do list numbers on my Trello card and didn’t even notice they were the same! I’ve still got quite a lot of to-dos, but I haven’t broken 100 quite yet. Over the course of the week, I got through the remainder of draft two, based on the paper and pen editing pass I did in December, and I’ve started working my way through draft three. The goals for this draft are to plug any big holes in the chapters; to pay close attention to the takeaways that end each chapter to make sure they are specific and actionable (and that they exist, since many chapters don’t have them yet!); and to get myself tuned up to write what I think will be three to five new chapters to round out the book. I’ll send draft three out to beta readers, and then draft four will be focused on incorporating their feedback as well as writing those new pieces. And speaking of beta readers, I’ve got a way for you to sign up now if you are interested! I hope to have a draft ready to circulate by the end of the month, and readers will have three weeks or so to read and give feedback. As a thank you, you’ll get a free copy of the finished book in whatever format you prefer. Coming back to the writing work, I had one revelation I wanted to document for myself and for you. An important part of the revision process is getting the whole book loaded up into your working memory. It’s a piece of the work that’s invisible, so we often forget that it is work. Tracking the changes from draft one to draft two, it looks like I made about 1,200 edits—not that many, really, for a manuscript of 55,000 words. But the process of making those changes included one close reading of the entire manuscript and another less-close reading to enter my changes. The payoff came on Wednesday, which I had blocked off for the book. I’d spent a couple hours on it the day before, and I knew I wanted to try to draft the introduction, which had one paragraph (pulled from the chapter that will now be a conclusion) as well as some placeholder notes. I woke up Wednesday morning thinking about the book and suddenly entire paragraphs of the introduction unspooled in my mind. I rushed downstairs and thumb-typed them into a Google doc on my phone as the coffee brewed. The magic continued that day as I fleshed out the rest of the introduction and started going through the book from the beginning again. This time I spotted new opportunities to expand on points that I know haven’t gotten enough attention in the book as a whole. I can see the manuscript from various vantage points now—the high-level book description level, the outline or chapter level, and the words-on-the page sentence level—which gives me the confidence to make substantial revisions. The lesson here? Consider making that manuscript uploading step a concrete to-do item and carving out time for it whenever you’ve taken more than a few weeks away from work on your book. Maybe even turn it into a rewarding ritual, giving yourself one or two reading days with a paper copy and a notebook in a coffee shop or another cozy spot. Sometimes life forces you to take time away from your manuscript when you don’t intend to. Rather than beat yourself up about that lost time, use the fallow rest period to your advantage. Creating a rereading ritual will ease you back into the revision work, and the time away from the book will allow you to see it with new eyes.
|
