IWSG: Thinking About Pitfalls

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Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!
August 1 question – What pitfalls would you warn other writers to avoid on their publication journey?
The awesome co-hosts for the August 1 posting of the IWSG are Erika Beebe, Sandra Hoover, Susan Gourley, and Lee Lowery!
If I have to think about it, I spent too much time revising my first novel. I did the set it aside thing… more than once… and I just kept going. In hindsight, what I would have done is this: I would have set it aside and started another novel.
Which is actually one of the questions that fluttered through my mind back then. How long do you set it aside before revising? Well, every reference I could find talked about it in terms of “at least a month” or a year. Or thirty six-days, twelve hours, nine minutes and forty two seconds. In terms of time.
I’m  not sure if I could have left it alone for long enough to write another one, back then. (And revising that book was equally impossible.) I was still in awe of the fact that I had written a whole book. But that’s the answer I needed.
Go write another book. Then, come back.

5 Comments

  1. Reply

    Time is so subjective! I’ve pulled old manuscripts out that are yellow with age (back when they were – gulp, typed!) and wondered, “Who the heck wrote this?” Now, I’m doing good if I can wait until my laptop finishes shutting down. I’m a chronic fusser. I love to go over and over things, tweaking, adding, deleting until I know I’m not making it better, just different. Then it’s time to put it into someone else’s hands to get a fresh viewpoint. By then, I’ve cleaned my house, my office, watered my plants that I’ve forgotten, and checked the expiration date on things in the freezer. And then I am so ready to get back to it. I have to shift from writing overdrive into a nice mellow idle. Then I can see things clearly.

  2. Loni Townsend

    Reply

    Great advice. Hopefully I can follow it when it comes to finally finishing up my book. My brain usually gets stuck on the one book and doesn’t want to move on.

  3. Reply

    Sounds like good advice to me. Leaving it alone when I get it done will be hard though. Cross your fingers for me. Happy belated IWSG

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