Edits! [part three]
Sometimes it all just goes the way you want it to.
On those days, you pop on a YouTube ambient noise playlist and get stuck in.
I had a weekend like that recently, after taking my own excellent advice to stop rushing myself, stop panicking and start doing things in small, manageable chunks.
Now, I’m not arrogant enough [yet] to believe I can give advice to other writers. For one thing, I firmly believe there is no one correct process for editing, for any of us. Or for writing, for that matter — most of my writerly friends are horrified that I don’t use Scrivener or some other kind of novelist-specific app to write with. I like Word, I know, I’m old-fashioned like that.
But, the Weekend That Worked was so good, I do think it would be churlish of me not to share why it worked. Not all of this might work for you, dear reader, and if anyone does find this post in future and want to make use of some of the tips I’d just say — take what works for you, leave the rest, and my goodness, good luck on your way!
Things that worked:
Cutting up my editorial notes.
Making written notes first.
Planning other fun.
YouTube.
Pre-planning my life.
So, firstly, I obviously don’t mean that I cut up my editorial notes in the sense that I destroyed them. No, what I mean is, I chopped them into actionable bullet points in a separate document and added my own points as well relating to things I wanted to do with this draft. Then, when I make my written notes from step two, I’ll go back to that list of bullet points and check some of those elements are being covered.
I like a to-do list. I like checking things off that list — this is essentially that, and it gives me a tiny boost of serotonin every time I identify that I’ve dealt with one of the editing notes!
I mentioned the written notes last time — I printed off my novel altogether, and now what I tend to do is make notes in the margins of approx. 3 chapters at a time. It’s a peaceful, no-pressure starting point (sometimes when I try to edit in my master document it feels overwhelming, or I panic that I’ve just deleted the wrong thing, blah, blah…) that allows me to come back to what is essentially, another to-do list when I’m ready.
What is becoming a bit of a pattern is that I do this written notes round-up on a Saturday, the bulk of the edits/moving scenes around/rewriting chapters on a Sunday, and then go back over it to check for cohesion on a Monday.
And then I don’t think about it until the following Saturday.
Planning other fun matters to me because I’m doing all of this on my weekends. I am very easily isolated, being an introvert who has all indoor hobbies. Oh, also, I have a lot of hobbies. I write (obviously), I read, I play cosy video games like My Time at Sandrock, Kynseed and Citizen Sleeper. I spin yarn from wool using 2 kinds of drop spindle. I weave on a rigid heddle loom and a tapestry loom. I make notebooks from scratch, and I am in the beginning process of learning how to make boxes using bookbinding techniques too.
If I don’t give myself time to do any of these things as well as edit, I will feel sad. Sometimes, I also might need/want to speak to a friend, or even (heaven forfend) go outside. I do tend to “write first”, to make sure I get something productive done, but I find that if I’ve planned to stop at six so I’ve got a few hours to spin, or weave, or read, feels good. Makes me feel like I’ve had a “proper” weekend as well as a productive one.
YouTube barely needs an introduction, I feel. I love a soundscape; adore a mix of medieval tavern music. Recently, I’ve started off my Sundays with a 2-hour writing session as designed by Abbie Emmons, who makes these incredible immersive writing sessions with built-in writing sprints and rest stops. I could probably design my own if I were so inclined, but it’s a brilliant resource to just… exist, for me.
And the final thing that has really helped me have positive weekends of editing: pre-planning my life. By this, I do mean chunking my time/writing to-do lists, but I also mean making sure I’ve got clean clothes ready for each day, and checking I’ve got low-prep food available in the fridge. I do still cook on editing days, but my maximum is an evening meal — I’m not cooking breakfast and lunch as well on those days, so I need stuff that’s grab-and-go.
I often try to fit a bit of housework into my 5-minute breaks between writing sprints — throw a load in the washing machine, say, or squirt some bleach around the bathroom. I feel like those 5-minute breaks are an opportunity to get up and move around, and if I can do that AND clean I feel a bit like superwoman.
The Weekend That Worked involved having a breakthrough with my plot structure and realising I can add whole scenes back in that I originally deleted to keep the wordcount down because having cut those 15k words I have more wordcount again! The following weekend might not have been as productive, but a lot of that was out of my hands (and will be the subject of the next update…)