Hard Work Ahead

As I near the six-month mark of my full-time writing journey, I have discovered there are some writing processes that are much easier and faster than I expected or imagined, yet that "making your novel stand out from the crowd" requires quite a bit of time and effort.

Thanks to Rock Your Plot and Rock Your Revisions, plotting and revisions are no where near as demanding as I expected, yet I have realized First Drafting and working through the techniques presented in Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook is hard work.

The discipline it takes to First Draft sometimes alludes me. Over the past few months, I have experimented with different tools and techniques to increase my production and productivity. Since I'm floundering at present, it's time to review what worked best and what didn't, then re-implement the former.

The brainpower it takes to "add tension" to every page, is exhausting, yet the results are well-worth the effort; however, the time it takes to employ such techniques cannot be discounted when creating a realistic writing schedule.

According to Cathy Yardley's Rock Your Revisions, you can expect to spend three times as long with revisions as you did writing the first draft. Since I'm using her Rock Your Plot process up front, that should cut the time for revision considerably, yet adding the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook techniques will add more time; thus, I need to consider the time involved in realistic revision efforts.

For now, I reevaluate, plan and schedule because there's Hard Work Ahead.