Welcome to another edition of State of the Suz, in which I talk about where I’ve been, where I’m going, and what kind of unholy demands I’m going to put on myself to get there.
Inspirational, aren’t I?
Let’s talk about November first, okay?
Because I think that’s pertinent to where I’m at for December so far.
November was a good month for me. It was NaNoWriMo so I got to spend a lot of time writing, unapologetically, which is awesome. I won NaNo around the 23rd. My plan had been to finish before Thanksgiving so I could jack off and do nothing for a week during the holiday and spend some time with family. My plan went off without a hitch there.
After that week off, I decided to take a couple of days and get things set up for HIS LAST BREATH’s release on December 3rd. So this is all admin stuff, and it takes a different mindset than writing for me. Which is good, because then I can recharge my creative well while I’m working on other things, and then when I come back to writing, I’m refreshed and ready to go.
So I didn’t do any writing for the last eight days of November, which is okay, because that’s how I planned, right?
Here’s December.
My original plan was at the beginning of December, I’d sit down and start revisions on HER LAST KILL. It does need a lot of work, and I knew that, so I didn’t want to leave that to the last possible moment before it needs to go to the editor. Look at me, thinking ahead, right?
I probably should have considered that I scheduled a book release at the start of the month. Soooo… Already, I’m spending all my time this month with the Publishing Hat on. This means I’m spending all my time working on the marketing, writing newsletters, blog posts, recording podcasts… All that stuff. No writing. No revising, which was the original plan.
Sigh. The best-laid plans…
That said, it’s the beginning of the month still. I still have time to redeem myself. So my plan for this week is to actually open up HER LAST KILL and start working on the revisions. I did already do a revision board, so it should be relatively easy to open it up and start it, right?
For those of you not familiar with my revision board, here’s a picture of it. Basically, what I do is go through the draft, scene by scene, and write a one-sentence summary of each scene on a sticky note. Each sticky note is a certain color depending on POV. So, normally, I have two colors, but this book wanted to be special, so there are four. Yeah.
Anyway, I stick them up on the board in the appropriate place and then I look at places where I need to strengthen out the plot itself or fix an issue with the plot. Then I grab the appropriately-colored sticky note, write ADD IN at the top, and then do a one-sentence summary of the scene I’m going to have to add. And I always add scenes. A lot. I take out some too, or rewrite some, but there’s always adding. LOL.
Once I’m done with that, the revision board is my reference as I go through the draft. As I tackle the revision on each scene or write the new ones, I’ll take the sticky note down off my board. And I’ll do that until it’s all gone and I’m at the end.
It’s a little elaborate, I think. But I’m very visual, so seeing that progress is imperative for me and motivational when I get near the end and I’m frustrated by the book not being done yet. Because that happens too.
Anyway… I had plans to focus on Section Five for a bit, take a break from the regular obligations and do some fun writing but I think I just want to get this big part of the process for HER LAST KILL out of the way first. Because edits go fairly fast for me. It’s revisions that take so long, so I just kind of want to get the biggest part of the process out of the way so I don’t have to worry about it or stress that I won’t get it done. Because one of my goals for the New Year is to set things up for my writing so I don’t need to stress over it. Stress leads to burnout and we all know how that went last time. #twoyearwritinghiatus #letsnotdothatagain
So that’s the plan for the rest of December. I’m going to focus on HER LAST KILL revisions. I still need to write a few more blog posts for the month, both here and on Story Nerd and I need to record some more podcasts but… I can do it.
Easy does it.
December is always hard to get things done at all. I usually plan on things like revisions and edits instead of actual writing during December because this month is always difficult to focus on writing. Revisions and edits take a different part of my brain, so they’re much easier to handle than writing.
Okay, this turned into a REALLY long State of the Suz to say I’m doing revisions this month. LOL. I’m also working on my goals for next year, which kind of depend on what I get finished this month. Maybe I’ll just err on the side of caution and just start the New Year ahead if I finish, or be right where I need to be if I don’t. Look at me being smart. Ha.
For real, I’m going to stop typing now. I got revisions to take care of, remember?
Talk to you guys soon!
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