I've reached the half-way point with my proofreads. That's a great feeling because the end of making a sequel is within sight.
As I've worked my way through the chapters, I've realized that editing is much easier than writing something from scratch. And not only is it easier, it's more fun. I imagine that most people think that worldbuilding and writing action scenes are the best part of writing. They aren't.
With editing, I have so much direction in my writing. I don't have to experiment or wonder if what I'm putting on the page is going to work or not. I know what's there works, I just have to make it better.
When writing new content, I have to consider a multitude of things all at once. 1) Is this the direction the story should go? 2) Is this what the character would sound like/act like in this situation? 3) Am I building tension or deflating it? 4) Have I recently used this word/expression? 5) Is this the proper place for narration, description, or dialogue? 6) Am I following my outline? And so on and so on.
That's exhausting. When I edit, I just have to fix what's right in front of me. It's easy and fast.
So what can I or you learn from this? Easy: just get something down on the page! The first draft is going to be ugly, messy, and non-sensical. All those problems can be fixed in editing later. Just get the raw story down, so you can move on to more manageable chunks of writing.
I guess that's what it really comes down to - breaking up the process into more manageable chunks. That's how I work best in other areas of my life, so it's no surprise that my writing follows the same pattern.
And that's your writing tip for the day!
Peace,
-Troy
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