What I’m doing different with my next book

Writing my debut novel (“Nothing Left To Lose But You,” out April 25, 2023) was a learning experience. I knew going in I planned to self-publish, but I didn’t know how much work was involved for an indie author.

There’s more to do than just write the book. In fact, that may be the easiest part (I’m still thinking about if this is true). You’ve got to be your own: copy editor (at least for the first round of edits), cheerleader and hype person, publishing educator, software expert, designer and formatter, and marketing wizard. And because that’s not enough, I also created my cover because I truly enjoy design work. Of course, you can hire out many of these steps, but many indie authors (myself included) operate on tight budgets.

As a self-proclaimed moderation failure, when I decided to write a book, I went all in. For me, that meant every minute not taken up by work or family time went to writing. I was awake until 12:30 AM (at least) writing or editing. In the last few weeks to wrap up my first draft and edit my second, I was up at a coffee shop to work by 6:30 AM most mornings.

It was too much and unnecessarily stressful for my family and myself. I’m seeing it as a lesson learned, but I’m still crazy proud I completed a manuscript from the first word to ‘the end’ in two months.

Moving into the beginnings of Book 2 of the Nothing Left series, I’m taking the parts of indie authorship that made me miserable and implementing changes.

1. Going to bed earlier: As a night owl, I have an ongoing case of ‘bedtime revenge’ and it hit toxic levels while writing NLTLBY. Anytime 10 PM is my time, after spending a majority of the day doing for others. Unfortunately, I ran myself into the ground and for no good reason. Authors have to take care of their wellbeing, too, and creativity can’t be at its fullest when I’m running on empty.
   
2. Decreasing my daily word count: I wrote NLTLBY’s manuscript between late August and the end of October, with a two-week break where I wrote almost nothing. The pace was self set and completely unreasonable. I’m slowing my pace for my next project. My goal is still to write something daily, even if it’s only 200-300 words. Repeat after me: words become sentences, sentences become paragraphs, paragraphs become scenes… etc.
   
3. Cut back on overwriting: My first draft was nearly 120,000 words. I cut so many scenes (even an entire chapter) during my first round of edits. I tend toward overwriting and over-explaining, but I’d love to pull that back during the first draft, knowing I can always add more. Cutting out 15K+ words you poured your time, creativity, and heart into is gutting, but in this case necessary.
   
4. Have more fun: It’s time to nix the ‘suffering artist’ bit. Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Big Magic” talks about this idea at length. It’s interesting to explore why creatives feel like suffering is important to the process. NLTLBY was incredibly fun to write, but also could have been more fun if I’d had a more easygoing mindset.

If you’re a fellow writer, do any of the changes I’m implementing resound with you?

Until next time friends,