Stay the Course

This is part of a series, 30 Days to A Stronger Novel

Revision can often be a long, drawn-out affair. Work, family, life crises–many things can interrupt the novel revision process. Expect it.

Some of you will have a car wreck. Some will have a major computer crash. Some will experience illness. Some will experience loss of a family member. Some will get married! Grief, love, despair, joy, vacations, trips, births, deaths, strange spaces of time, short spaces of time, crisis mode, maintenance mode. Life is short. Life is full. Never busy–full.

Your job as a novelist is, in the midst of your full life, to keep on coming back–somehow– to the novel revision process until you finish it.

Editors often say that the first chapter of a novel is superb, but the rest of the novel doesn’t measure up. Writers tend to polish and polish that first chapter, but get distracted by a full life and don’t polish the rest. Don’t let that happen to your story.

Stay the course.

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