Almost The End

We are coming to the end of Nanowrimo and our novels will soon be done. Ok, so my current novel is a day or two away for completion of the first draft. Once I’ve finished that, my practice is to leave it for a couple of months and then go back and edit it with a fresh mind. During those couple of months, I would write the next novel. It’s how I leapfrog my work. Write novel 1, then write novel 2, then edit novel 1, then write novel 3, then edit novel 2, then write novel 4 etc...this keeps everything fresh in my head and allows me to add or remove bits as and when they crop up. This way I can keep tabs on where my writing is going.

But when should I leave time for novel ideas? Between writing and editing, should I leave a week and allow myself to acclimatize? Or should I carry on regardless? I know everyone has their own little routines, and leaving a week between work seems like such a long time to me. I know we all reward ourselves after we finish a novel. For me, it’s ‘Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream’, for others, it’s a bit of time off from the typing.

Now, with the novel about to finish, it is tempting to either carry on the story, which can be seriously damaging, or rush to complete it. If you rush to finish it, which I think we’ve all done with our first novels, that’s where you begin to make mistakes. So rather than rush to the end, I’m taking a bit more time and giving myself a couple of extra days to make sure I get the ending right. The ending can be just as important as the beginning, especially if leading onto a sequel.

But when do we get time to prepare the manuscript for publishing? When do we do that bit? I do that during the editing phase of my work. Once I’m happy with how the novel sounds, then I edit the layout, and make sure it is to the publisher’s specifications.

What do you do? Do you have any tips for other budding authors out there? Let me know what you think. Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x