Editing & skin-shedding
OCTOBER 2023
Exciting news… the first draft of my middle grade (9-12 years) novel is done!
It’s been so fun bringing Tom’s adventure to life on the page, but with roughly 43k words down, it’s time for the tricky part… polishing the rough draft into something worthy of potential readers.
Hello self-doubt!
Thankfully, I’ve got a helping hand from Jessica Brody’s fantastic Write Mastery Membership, which has a ton of courses and resources perfect for novel writers. I’ve been diving deep into her Complete Novel Revision Course and while it’s a bit overwhelming, I know it will give me the structure that I need.
And speaking of being overwhelmed, can we just talk about how starting over can ring all sorts of bells for us in the anxiety department? I see this pattern repeated over and over in my life; getting comfortable and competent with something and then wanting to switch it up and go back to ‘beginner’ again. I’ve always felt the lure of the new, and I love learning, but when our identity is still firmly rooted in the ‘now’ the mind-monkeys can have a field day.
It didn’t help that when I mentioned to my previous publisher that I was writing a children’s book, their response was less enthusiastic than I'd hoped…
"You don't have a platform in that genre"
"You'll be starting all over again"
"Nobody knows you for writing children's books"
"What if you write it and no-one buys it?"
I really took that advice to heart and stalled this project for a while to concentrate on the 2nd edition of my non-fiction book The Happiness Habits Transformation - believing I was a non-fiction author, that that's where my identity lay.
But sometimes we need to shed those identities like so many snake skins. In one of his latest podcast episodes, Rob Bell talks about this saying “Identity can be like a prison we build for ourselves - it’s like there’s a lock on the door but it’s on the inside.” We need to break out in order to see what’s on the other side.
So I’ve been leaning into my happiness habits, focusing on goal setting and planning, and using the tools I used to share with my coaching clients to keep any anxiety at bay.
My plan is to get a first round of edits done by the late middle of October, so I can hand it over to my beta readers for their feedback while we’re on Autumn break in Spain, and work on the next set of revisions when we’re back. I’d love to get the whole thing finished and published by Christmas - a stretch goal but if it all comes together it’s possible I think?
In the meantime I've completed step one of the Complete Revision Course - get some distance from the story - with a fun day out in Cambridge with my hubbie. We followed a self-guided walking tour from A Lady In London and luckily we had lovely weather for it!
Beta readers
I mentioned before that as soon as my first edits are done I'll be sending the book off to my beta readers for feedback. I still have some spaces on my Beta list so if you have a 8-12 year old who loves Minecraft and would be excited to be the first to read a brand new story set in that world in return for answering some simple questions about their experience, send me a message on my CONTACT ME page. I'd love to have you on board!
Until next time friends,
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