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This is Elizabeth Stark in the Book Writing World. Welcome to Revise Your Book, Week 11.
Congratulations! You’ve done a LOT of work on revising your book over the past months. You probably took some time off from your book and turned to your favorite authors to inspire you and remind you of what you love. You examined your own questions about craft and applied your answers to your manuscript. You attempted to read your book as a stranger, with the distance of time to help you in that project. You looked at your premise, your characters, setting and structure. You made lists of the work you have left to do, filtering your book through the elements of revision.
Now what? If you need to take some time off and revisit your book afresh, cycling back through the “Revise Your Book” course will support you in making that process effective and productive. If you want to keep fine-tuning your book, jump into the “Finish Your Book” course. You do not have to be done with your book at the end of the “Finish Your Book” course. You can even come back to “Revise Your Book” then if you feel the need to consider the elements of your project again.
The point is to stay close to your book, to read with a generous heart and a curious eye, to take first draft material (or second or third draft material) and make it stronger. Make it work. Make it great. This takes time. The published authors I coach are as baffled as the beginners about how “inefficient” the writing process inevitably turns out to be. You can’t write a polished draft first. You can plan—and you planned. You can draft with guidance and support—and you drafted. But ultimately, you have to read your work and rewrite it, painstakingly, attentively, with love.
You have to find ways to stay fresh to the material when you are so close to it you can’t see it anymore and so sick of it you don’t want to see it. That’s one reason to cycle back through this process of taking time off now and then. You have to hold your original vision close while being willing to see it expand and change. It’s a balancing act, a tricky one. And you have to take the time it takes, follow the “inefficient” process that is writing a book, trust it, even. The people around you may be asking, “Are you done yet?” and you must learn to answer with pride, “No, I am still working on my book.” You are in good company. Many of the books we love and cherish took years to write, years when their authors seemed to be accomplishing nothing to the outside world. Writing is a quiet, internal activity. But inside the bubble, worlds are exploding, minds are changing, history is being made and undone.
Assignment: Post your answers to the following questions: What have you learned about your whole writing process as you’ve been revising your book? What works for you, keeps you inspired and keeps the manuscript improving? And what’s the next step for you and your book?