Putting Your Novel in a Drawer and Pulling It Back Out

Coming off of the heels of NaNoWriMo, you might have a completed novel in your hands. Or a completed project or on the verge of finishing what you started in November. This is to talk about the next step that you could or could not take, depending on if you feel that it's right for you or not. Like I've been saying all along, this has to be something that you want to do. If it doesn't feel right, then don't do it. I feel like that should be the subtitle for my blog considering how many times it makes it into the posts.

So, putting your novel in a drawer. This goes to the idea that you can get burn out on a project that you're working on. You've pushed it to the forefront of your mind for the last however many days you're working on it and you're fatigued. Worse, you might miss dummy mistakes like she for he and other things. So you put it away for x amount of time. Some recommend a month, some a week, but at least it is out of sight out of mind. You can reboot your mind and come back fresh to the project in order to see the tiny typos.

So, after an amount of time, I recommend at least two weeks but no longer than a month, you dig it back out of the drawer. It is time to figure out how you want to edit the novel. Some like to do so on the computer but my favorite method is to print out the entire thing and go through it in a smaller binder. That smaller binder could hold up to five to seven chapters at a time. You should also read what you've written out loud and make sure that all the lines work. One should also remember, something I'm a bit horrible on, is that your reader doesn't live inside your mind. What you think sounds good and descriptive to you could be that your mind is filling in the gaps. Whenever you have a page that has no editing marks on it, go back and read it a second time. If you still have no marks, bookmark it and go back to it when you're done with the chapter. This will make sure that you really are sure that the novel completely makes sense.

When you're all done with editing and putting in the edits, that's when you stick it in a drawer again. However, it needs to be 1 month this time, as a max and a minimum. Any shorter and you won't see things that you missed. Any longer and you forget about it. This is where you give it one more read and then send it out to either friends who expressed interest reading it or an editor you hired. Or, if you're feeling ambitious, you send it out to be published.

Yes, it is going to take a while. No, there are no shortcuts. You can make it shorter, in the beginning, but you really need to give a complete break with the second drawer. Any shorter and you'll only see the brightness of your idea and not the fingermarks dirtying it. As always, I hope this helps and gives you the kick in the pants you need to start editing. Until next time, keep on writing (and editing if you're there).