I’m continuing on with the productivity theme this week. :) That’s because I’m revamping some of my mindset to get more writing done.
I’ve always been pretty good about resisting perfectionism during first drafts. That’s because I’d never get anywhere with a book if I tried to make it perfect as I went. The first draft is supposed to be a disaster. I don’t look at what I wrote the day before, just end my writing time with a quick cheat sheet to tell me where I left off and where I need to pick up.
I’ve even tried to get over my perfectionism for the final draft that I send in to the publisher. I still send last minute emails to editors and my agent saying, “Would you please use this copy of the manuscript and not the one I emailed you yesterday?” I’ll do that a couple of times if they don’t cut me off. :) But I’m doing better about it. If it’s done, it’s done—if my editors see a problem with the book, then they’ll be sure to let me know and I’ll fix it during the revision process.
But now I’ve run into a new issue—a backlist title that has been giving me fits for a month or more. I’m trying to squeeze in revision work on it right now because I’m waiting on outline approval for the second book in the quilting mystery series…and I have a little break before Hickory Smoked Homicide comes out November 1.
My plan has been to re-release this backlist book as an ebook at some point later this year or early next year. I’ve hacked it into bits and changed massive parts of it and am still unhappy with it. And I haven’t even reached the end of the book yet.
Maybe for you it isn’t a backlist book…maybe it’s a manuscript that you put aside for a long while and are coming back to. The good thing about doing this is that we can see the manuscript with fresh eyes and can see all its faults. The bad thing is that we can see all its faults. :)
What I’ve been doing (which I’m now realizing is *not* working for me) is to reread and revise the book from the beginning. So I’ll take a few pages, edit them, then rewrite the scene from scratch—taking the meat of the scene and presenting it in a different way.
The problem with doing this is that it takes forever. I don’t edit my other manuscripts this way. So why am I treating this one differently?
What I’ve realized in the last couple of days is that I need to make separate passes through the document—and not to get off-track by spinning my wheels in one particular spot in the story by trying to make it perfect. I’ll treat it as a draft. I’ll make a pass for basic changes (deeper POV, showing instead of telling.) , a pass for setting, a pass for character development, a pass for subplots that add to the main plot, etc. Then at the end of that, maybe I’ll make a pass through and see if I want to add or delete scenes.
This, I think, will at least make me feel like I’m making progress on the book. I need to believe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel or I really start losing motivation. With repetitive passes through the book, I’ll get a little sick of the book, but it’s not as bad as realizing I’m halfway through and have already spent more time on revision as it usually takes to write a first draft.
How do you keep perfectionism from holding you back?
Elizabeth – Perfectionism is a major problem for me, too, and it really does hold me back in terms of productivity. That’s especially true when I’m working on more than one project (which I am just now). Your ideas about treating manuscripts like drafts and making different passes through them make sense. I do a similar thing. For example, if there’s a character who needs a lot of work (and there was one in the manuscript I just finished), I go through and fix her or him. Then I go through to see what effects that has on the story. Then I move to the next problem – say, a clunky “scotch-tape-and-glue” way for my detective to find a clue. I go fix that. And so on…. One problem at a time keeps the work manageable for me without making me lose motivation.
Synchronicity again, although not today’s blog post–it’s one I’ve been thinking of a lot, though. I JUST found out (after 6 months) that my publisher is FINALLY (after 6 months) giving my rights back to 2 books. One is the first one I wrote, and I’ve been doing massive, “Did I write that crap?” shudders as I try to get it ready for re-publication. Then I remember it actually won some awards, so someone must have thought it didn’t suck. (The other book which is a sequel, is actually the 4th book I wrote, and I’m amazed at the difference in quality).
Then, I’m trying to write another book so I can release a series of 3, and I keep thinking how much it sucks, and that it doesn’t really ‘fit’ with the other two, and I keep putting off tackling it, because it doesn’t seem “right”. But now that I have a real reversion of rights date, I’ll have to get more motivated. Barf it up now, clean it up later.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
It’s a big problem for me as well. These are my babies and I want them to go in public with their best (cleanest) clothes on and bows in their hair.
I do follow the way you and Margot go about things, I work on the big stuff first and then work through the little things like grammar and wording.
This is why Heinlein says not to rewrite except to editorial order. The problem is that you should, um, fire your “editor” (i.e. the hypercritical part of yourself which is calling the shots.)
All the same, I know what you’re going through. My current book is having a few of the problems where what I originally wrote may have been going for something different (and I’ve either changed my mind or forgotten what it was).
I really like Margot’s approach – attack one thing at a time instead of the whole monster in one go. This really makes sense to me, but also makes me a tad bitter I didn’t figure it out for myself. Sigh.
It’s a challenge because I am a perfectionist by nature. NaNo cured me of thinking that way on the first draft though.
How do I hold perfectionism from holding me back? Well, I don’t. It’s a real problem. The process you described – editing and editing and editing a particular scene – is a problem that I have constantly. I need to start doing things differently!
Hi Elizabeth — I also prefer to revise in steps, hitting plot first, then individual scenes, finally getting down to the nitty gritty of copy editing. And like you, I can always find something else to “fix” if I read the manuscript again. It’s a neverending story.
Man, I keep waffling on whether my latest is BAD or whether I’m being too hard on myself. After the rewrite, I swear i thought it was good, but as I go through now, i keep wondering if it’s full of problems… It is for a deadline though, so I really need to sort it out.
I think your approach with full rewrites may be the best way to go with an early book–I’m sure you’ve grown a ton.
Margot–I honestly think that’s the best way to do it. Otherwise, it’s just so overwhelming…
Clarissa–Ha! Love that analogy. This particular baby of mine is NOT looking her best right now. I’m going to knock out some big stuff in one pass, mark my place where I left off with the painful edits I’ve *been* doing, and then do another pass for other things.
Alex–That’s a good way to get over first draft perfection, for sure!
Terry–Yes! Exactly. And I’m so, so tired of that book! But I need to work a lot faster on it because I’ve got other books I need to be working on. I’m starting to wonder, though, if it would be just SO much quicker to write the thing over from scratch. I mean, really…it’s taking forever.
Hart–Yeah, sometimes if we’re on a deadline, just hand in what we’ve got–because it’s *done*, it just might not be done, to *us*!