After #NaNoWriMo: A Writer's Checklist
It's December 1st.
#NaNoWriMo is over. Or as non-writers/sane people call it, November. You're sitting at your desk, unkempt and exhausted, a pile of papers in front of you that resembles a manuscript. You've done it! Congratulations are in order... You have a first draft!
You have a first draft. Now what? As my own book nears its publication date, I look back on the whole process from first draft to here and I wish I'd had a better sense of all the stages. And writers love lists, right? So I put together a list. I hope it helps.
The First Draft is Done: Twelve Next Steps for Writers
1) Celebrate. Enjoy a beer or a Pinot Grigio or a chocolate milk or a big huge cake or a dance party or whatever else feels celebratory to you. Finishing a book manuscript is no small feat, especially if you wrote the bulk of it in one harried month. Pause for a while to bask in what you've accomplished, to ceremoniously cross write a book off your bucket list. Print out the manuscript and carry it around under your arm just to feel the bulk of it. Maybe throw a picture or two up on Twitter or Instagram. Caption it: Look! I wrote a book! But don't celebrate for too long, because the time will come to...
2) Take a deep breath and acknowledge that a first draft is only about 50% of the work, if that. I've written about my own lowly first drafts here and here. I once read that agents are so swamped with manuscripts pumped out during #NaNoWriMo that many have taken to closing off December submissions. Sending your NaNoWriMo draft to an agent/publisher on December 1st is sort of like signing your newborn baby up to write the SATs. Not ready! Slow down! Put your book in a drawer for a while, a few days or a week or longer. The editing process will be - should be! - arduous. Take a breather before you start. And when you feel ready, pull it out of the drawer and...
3) Read your manuscript really closely. Be cruel and be kind. Remember, this is just a first draft. Don't let sloppy writing get you down; this isn't a line edit. The first read should be about taking notes and asking bigger picture questions. Do you see your book as a thriller? What are the elements of a good thriller? Do you have them in your story? What about your characters? Are they thin? Contrived? Can you find major plot holes? Scenes that are too short/long? Scenes that could be cut without changing the story at all? Sections where the pacing is too fast or too slow? The She's Novel site has some excellent suggestions on how to proceed. Some writers may want to start their second draft on their own, others might need to...
4) Find an outside reader or two. Find someone who reads a lot, someone who can understand the limitations of the first (or second, if you've gotten that far) draft. Ask gently and humbly and be okay with people saying no, because reading an early draft is sort of like agreeing to babysit someone's child for a weekend; it's no small undertaking. Ideally, you'll find someone else with an early draft and you can exchange. #Nanowrimo local groups are a good place to look, and meetup.com also lists many writing groups by geography & genre (will I sound like a mom if I add here that you should always use your street smarts when meeting up with strangers?) If funds allow, consider hiring a professional editor to help you. In Canada? Find an editor here. Once you have a reader, you'll need to give them time to read and absorb. So...
5) Use the time between drafts well. Published writers will tell you that over the course of a book's lifetime, from first draft to book-on-shelf, there will be lots of waiting, and some of it will be agonizing. One way is to pass the time is to write other things. Use daily prompts like those Sarah Selecky tweets daily. Outline your next project. READ A TON. Read books that match your own genre, books with similar themes to yours, and take notes on what you feel works or doesn't as you read. Read books entirely unrelated to your own work. And while you're at it...
6) Engage in the marketplace. If you're not already there, join Twitter and follow writers, editors, booksellers, agents, publishers, literary magazines, book reviews, book bloggers, etc. The Write Life offers great Twitter suggestions for writers. Attend local readings or literary events. The publishing world is relatively small and supportive, and connecting with other writers can be very helpful at every stage. Also, when the time comes to put your work out there, it's a bonus for agents and publishers to see that you're already active in the publishing scene. Immerse yourself. And soon enough, the waiting will be over, your manuscript will be returned to you with feedback and you'll be forced to...
7) Accept the trials of the editing process.There are endless quotes from famous writers on the torturous editing process. Writers must be open to it, must be humble and ready to get to work. Ignore constructive feedback at your peril. Edit with a "customer is always right" sensibility; of course, your readers may not always right, but if they are telling you that something isn't working, you'd best take a good look. Be prepared to cut passages or scenes or even characters you love simply because they don't fit. Be prepared to kill your darlings. Need some guidance? Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is one of my favourite books on the editing process, and Joanna Penn's website The Creative Penn also has lots of great tools. Push through that second draft until you've got something better than the first. Then...
8) Go back to #1 on this list and start again. Then again. My rule of thumb is that no publishing professional should see anything earlier than a third or fourth draft. Find new readers or give it to willing previous ones again. Hone it. Move from bigger picture to scene by scene to line edits. Keep editing until you find yourself reading pages and pages at a time without catching anything you want to change, until it reads like a novel you'd pull off your own bookshelf. The editing process could take up 8 steps on this list, it's that important. When you've finally got a polished draft in hand...
9) Now you're ready to begin the submission process. Like every other stage, submission should be a thoughtful one. DO NOT write a form query letter and send it to every agent or publisher in the world. Start by doing your research. Will you self publish? Jane Friedman offers an excellent guide to self-publishing if that's your preferred route. If you want to publish traditionally, would you rather work with an agent or submit to publishers directly? What are the pros and cons of each option? Either way, you'll need to find agents or publishers that best suit the genre and audience for your particular book. Writer's Digest The Writer's Market & Guide to Literary Agents are both super helpful. Curate the ideal list of recipients. Once you have that list in hand...
10) Write a strong query letter and synopsis of your book. No skimping here! Your query and your synopsis need to be perfect. Your query is the first thing (and if it doesn't grab them, the only thing) an agent or the intern in charge of the slush pile will read. Again, Writer's Digest's Chuck Sambuchino and The Writer's Market have excellent samples. Be sure to personalize all correspondence and follow agents' or publishers' submission guidelines to the letter. If they want you to start with an email query only, don't mail them a hardcopy of your entire book. Get it right. Agents and editors are profoundly busy people, so the adage applies: You only have one chance to make a good impression.Once you've nailed the query letter and the synopsis, it's time (finally!) to...
11) Press send. But only when everything is in perfect order, when you feel confident you've honoured the process and written the best book you can write. Then remember...
12) No matter what, try not to lose sight of #1.The celebration. The acknowledgement of your feat. Keep your writerly chin up, even if the rejections come in droves, even if the waiting seems unnecessarily long, even if news from the book world seems discouraging. As Edward Albee said, writing is an act of optimism. Writing is art and sacrifice. Just by doing it you're acknowledging an important part of yourself and you're putting something good into the world. Try to remember that and keep your pen to the page, your fingers to the keyboard no matter what.