Do the Works

Afternoon, everybody! This month, as you well know, we’re talking about ways to treat yourself and your writing this holiday season. I’m doing my best to take my own advice, too. Actually, this past Friday I (finally) finished reading World War Z, and now I’m knee deep in a reread of Dekker’s Adam. And I’ve gone to the store and people watched for a while—let me tell you, that was fun.

But for today, there’s something really important I want to talk to you about, a day that you should never ignore, whether you’re a seasoned vet or a newbie, whether you’re an outliner or a seat-of-your-pantser.

Editing/Outlining Day

Everybody’s gotta edit. Yes, I know "gotta" isn’t a word. Roll with me here.

Everybody’s also gotta outline, whether you’re an outliner or not.

So, take a day for it. I’ve given you both options, so if you’re in the middle of a work, you’ll take some time to outline what you have left, and if you’re at the end, you’ll take some time to refine what you’ve already done.

Especially during the holidays, it’s important that we don’t forget any of the steps involved with writing. There’s a lot we have to do, be it writing, reading, researching, outlining, or editing—and we cannot allow ourselves to let any of it go by the wayside, even during a time of year where we rarely have time for anything.

Treat yourself.

Take a day, or an afternoon, or just a couple hours, and do what needs doing. Treat your writing to what it needs. Sit down in a quiet room (or a loud one, if that’s your thing) and figure out where your story is going. Determine what’s really going on in the story, what you need, what you don’t need. If there’s editing that needs doing, do it. If you need to figure out what’s going on in the story, sit down and plot it out.

The point is, you can’t let this stuff slide, and if you set aside some time for it, you can have some fun with it. Play around with your story, figure out what you can and cannot do with it. There are a million options, so explore them. Try out a few different outlines, see if they suck or if they’d make your story better. Work out some editing kinks, see if you have any extra characters that could be cut out without altering the story (I’ll be honest with you, I’ve had a few of those in my day).

But, make sure you think of it as a treat. Don’t think of it as a chore you have to do, a thing that you don’t want to do but that you have to. Keep it in your head, that this is a treat. This is time you’re taking, during the holidays, to make sure you’re still doing the things your writing needs you to do.

Yeah, I’ll take a day this week. Pinky promise.

[love and merry Christmas!]

{Rani Divine}