Three writing tips
Hard-won lessons from an almost final manuscript
As previously mentioned, I’m about a month away from finalizing my book manuscript. I wish I had more to say about the writing techniques or scheduling habits I’m using, as I previously loved reading and writing that kind of granular productivity-adjacent advice. But as I approach the manuscript finish line, no habit or trick has been anywhere near as effective as the magic of “correct dose of thyroid medication” and “vestibular exercises twice a day.” Boring? Yes. Life-changing? Yes.
That said, these last rounds of edits have surfaced to consciousness three techniques I’ve long used but never articulated to myself or anyone else. Here they are for your next project.
1. End one sentence early
For years, I’ve labored over the last sentences of articles, trying to find the perfect image or idea to wrap things up. And for years, my editors have frequently cut that last, labored-over sentence, leaving my penultimate one to conclude the piece. That way, I’ve realized, the reader gets to come to the thought or feeling the piece has been building toward on their own, which makes it hit even harder. I’ve finally started to save my editors and me a lot of trouble, and when I think, “this [section/chapter/book] needs one more sentence to stick the landing,” I just…don’t write it.
2. Do the easiest edits first
I love getting edits because once I do, writing stops feeling like vomiting up my soul and starts feeling like solving discrete problems. The only part of editing I don’t like is that first scroll-through of the track changes, when I realize, yet again, that I will never produce anything that can’t be improved, and I get to feel all the emotions it brings up. The way to digest those emotions and start enjoying the editing process is to get up and walk away for a while, and when you come back, deal with the easiest edits first.
If your editor has a question, skip it. If you aren’t sure you like their suggestion, skip it. If you need to go back to your research or notes, skip it. On this first pass, you’ll be accepting punctuation changes, rephrasings you either like or don’t mind, and anything else you look at and think, “sure, fine.” By the time you’ve gotten to the end of that first pass, you’ll be ready to go back to the beginning and start again with the next-easiest stuff. When you get to the truly hard stuff, you’ll have so much momentum you’ll be dying to finish.
3. If you don’t take days off, the days off will take you
When I’m really in the zone, I often work weekends. There’s something magical about a Saturday afternoon-into-evening writing session for me, probably because it’s the one time I can be absolutely positive no one is trying to reach me with different, shinier, more urgent work—and if they are, it’s okay to ignore them. (Hardly anyone is ever trying to reach me about anything urgent, Saturday evening or not, but my subconscious doesn’t believe that.) So for the last several months, I’ve worked every weekend, and I haven’t planned any days off. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t taken any days off, because eventually my brain and body would simply give up for a day here or there. This is not a pleasant cycle, but it is a familiar one. I accepted it for a while as the price of maximum productivity, and I’m sure I will again. But it really is more effective to schedule days off before you need them, and to take them before you have no choice in the matter, and perhaps someday I will learn that.