self-editing

Chronicling The Craft: Six Writing Lessons I Learned While Working On My WIP

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Chronicling The Craft is a series where I share my experience with working on my YA fantasy novel THE KEEPER’S CURSE. These articles alternate between a) progress updates and fun “TKC-related” content, and b) revising / editing tips. Today we finish our celebration of the end of Draft #3 with a tips-oriented post.

Working on a novel is a learning experience in and of itself. You’ll make right and wrong decisions, figure things out, and find ways of improving the story. You’ll also absorb tips away from the WIP via blog articles, workshops, and literary conferences. That “self-teaching” can double – or even triple – your knowledge about writing between Day 1 of Draft #1 and The End of Draft #3. And after wrapping up my WIP’s third draft, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned about the craft of writing and about myself as a writer.

So, the last Chronicle for Draft #3 isn’t exactly a tips-oriented post. Instead, it’s a retrospect of discoveries I’ve made since I started working on The Keeper’s Curse (or TKC). Perhaps these lessons might help you on your own writing journey (or maybe you’ve already embraced them). Then, at the end, I’d love to know what you have learned about yourself or your process from any of your writing projects. 🙂
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First WHW Resident Writing Coach Post Is Live!

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Writers Helping Writers

My first post as a Resident Writing Coach at Writer Helping Writers is live! I decided to offer tips on an aspect of the writing process that all writers struggle with: our “inner editor.” You know, that voice inside your head that can make you question your every writing-related decision and discourage you to the point of distraction. But our inner editor doesn’t always criticize or doubt us. In fact, its advice can sometimes be helpful. It’s all a matter of recognizing when and why we should listen to it.

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Chronicling The Craft: Draft #2 Revisions – 30% Complete

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Six Steps to Saving Your Self-Edits for Later – Plus, a New Worksheet and Another Excerpt from The Keeper’s Curse

“Chronicling The Craft” is an article series where I share my experience with working on my YA fantasy novel THE KEEPER’S CURSE, starting with the first draft and now into revisions. Each article contains a progress update as well as writing / revising tips and excerpts from the updated draft. Today’s installment celebrates 30-percent completion of Draft #2 of THE KEEPER’S CURSE.

Huh? It’s been 2 months since the last Chronicle?? *blinks* I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. Summer tends to be my slowest writing season, since I’m more motivated to get out and enjoy the nice weather. But that’s OK. It prevents me from becoming a hermit, right? 🙂

Originally I was going to post updates for every 20-percent milestone (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100%). However, since gaps between those updates might be lengthy, I’m changing the frequency to every 10-percent milestone. Here’s what I’ve done since mid-June:
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Chronicling The Craft: 85,000 Words

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How To Recognize When To Kill Your Darlings

Chapters Completed: 21

Chapters In Progress: 6

Chapters Not Started: 7

“Chronicling The Craft” is an article series where I share my experience with writing my current work-in-progress (WIP), which is a fantasy novel. Every 5,000 words, I let readers know what I’ve accomplished since the previous article and share advice, discoveries, techniques, etc. Besides the word count in each article title, a “chapter ticker” at the top also tracks my progress as I use the skip-around / “writercopter” method to write the novel. Today’s installment celebrates the book reaching 85,000 words in length.

After seeing my October schedule fill up, I took advantage of whatever free time I had in September to write, write, write. In some ways it was easy, since not much was going on offline. In other ways, however, it wasn’t. One weekend in particular left me ready to yank out my hair. Between an important bit of world-building I’d previously overlooked and revising a scene I’d previously written because its tone (not so much the content) needed to change, progress slowed to a crawl for two sessions. But that’s behind me now. It’s time to celebrate the new milestone – and then get back to work!

So, what’s happened with the WIP since the previous Chronicle? Continue reading →