Woo hoo! It's Day 16 in my quest to write the 1st draft of a book in 20 days--and it is "sweet" because a few moments ago I FINISHED the last chapter!
Next week I'll edit everything.
You may remember back on Day 4 that I said I don't spend a lot of time editing as I'm writing. My goal in the writing phase is to get something down on paper that corresponds as close as possible to the elevator statement, objectives, and blueprint.
The writing phase is the time to write, not edit. You can't really edit as you go along because you don't have the whole book in front of you. How can you edit chapter 8 when you haven't written chapter 18 yet?
So now that I have a rough manuscript in front of me, I can go through the entire thing and edit it. It's been a few weeks since I've read some of the earlier chapters, so stuff is gonna start jumping out at me, such as:
Didn't you say that 3 chapters ago?
You made a huge leap here--needs a segue.
This chapter really needs to go in another section.
So I'm taking off tomorrow and will be back on Monday with more tips for you. If you're in the US, have a good Memorial Day. Thank God for all our troops and those who've given their lives for our freedom in the past 235 years.
Congrats, Diane! Must feel good. You made your deadline and have an entire first draft finished.
I decided to write my 40,000-word book in June. In research phase now. I'll need longer than 20 days because I don't have 6 hours a day to devote to it. Aiming for 30 days. Sundays AND Saturdays off. :-)
Posted by: Lucy Ann Moll | 05/29/2011 at 02:36 PM