My NEW Writing Process

Hello again! 

Did you know that I'm entering my fifth year as an Indie Author? On July 4th of this year, I will have been an Indie Author for half a decade. 

With this big anniversary fast approaching, I've been feeling nostalgic, and I've been reflecting on how I've changed as a writer. Back in April of 2021, I started a series called "My writing process" and though it was a relatively accurate account of how I wrote at the time; today it reads more like a time capsule, so I've decided to update it. 

The original series was five posts long, but I think I can be a little more concise this time around, so I plan to finish it in three:

1. Drafting, Writing, and Initial Edits

2. Alpha and Beta Readers

3. Final Edits, and Finishing the Manuscript

Today, we'll be starting with Drafting, Writing, and Initial Edits.

A first draft starts like most things in this world, with an idea, and a little bit of hard work. The idea can come from anywhere, a dream, a random thought, or even an old story you told as a child. The important part is that it's a story you are interested in telling, because you're going to be spending a lot of time with it. 

But an idea alone is not a draft. I've talked about my micro-drafting before, so I'll simply send you to THIS POST rather than going back over it now. After micro-drafting, I have a very rough draft, at which point I need to start really writing.

How do you write? Would it surprise you to hear that I don't really know? Personally, I force myself to sit in front of my keyboard, and eventually a story comes out, but I know that isn't very helpful, so I'll try to elaborate. 

Writing is a decision you need to make, not something that is going to happen for you. As poetic as it feels to clunk yourself down in front of a keyboard/notebook/typewriter for twenty minutes, and then complain about "the muse" or "writer's block." The truth is that writing can only begin after you take accountability for the book you want to create. Sitting down and writing may seem easy at first, but the hard part is going back to that keyboard when it stops being easy and fun.

Of course, the muse is real, and there are times when it will strike, but chasing it is often futile, and it always takes time away from actually practicing your craft. Far more importantly, writer's block is also very real, and I hope you learn to take breaks and build healthy habits to avoid burning yourself out. (I even have a POST of tricks for helping you break out of that slump.) But I have personally misused these phrases, acting as if they were my "writer aesthetic" when my only real problems were a lack of practice and experience, for which there is no shortcut.

I start editing once I have a complete draft. It typically takes me an edit or two before I'm entirely clear on what my book is supposed to look like, so I begin by focusing on basic things such as continuity errors, typos, and run-on sentences. After I know where I'm going with my story, I'll edit it until I think it's readable. I don't have a set number of times I edit my story anymore, but altogether, I probably end up going through it 3-5 times, before I turn it over to my Alpha editor, which is where we'll pick this series back up, next month. 

Have a great day, and keep writing!