Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Write-ish, the one-stop shop on your writer journey where we discuss everything writing related from shiny new ideas through publication and marketing.
Speaker: Whether it's on the indie or traditional path and the ish of life that feels and sometimes gets in the way of our creative pursuits.
Speaker: I'm Zara, a self-published author of young adult and new adult fiction, an alumni of the NYU Masters in Publishing Program, and the founder of Inimitable Books, LLC, a new book publisher dedicated to uplifting marginalized voices without forcing authors to spotlight their trauma.
Speaker: And I'm Kelly, a genre-hopping writer, trier of hobbies, and debuting author this year.
Speaker: My book, Down the Well, comes out in September, 2023.
Speaker: Be sure to add it on Goodreads or Zara's favorite alternative, Book Hype.
Speaker: Links will be in the show notes.
Speaker: All right, so what to do with your finished draft?
Speaker: We talked about how to finish your first draft or the importance of finishing your first draft.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not sure we talked about how to finish your first draft, but we talked about the importance of it.
Speaker: Yeah, so the importance of it, and now it's finished.
Speaker: Congratulations, you made it.
Speaker: Put that shit away.
Speaker: But how long should you shelf a finished project?
Speaker: I believe this goes into personal anecdote territory.
Speaker: Zara, would you like to give yours?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So maybe it's because I've always been writing while in school or since I graduated school.
Speaker: I've also been... Actually, I was going to say since I graduated school, I've been writing.
Speaker: That's not true because almost right after graduating school, I started a publishing company.
Speaker: So I haven't been working on my own stuff.
Speaker: But always having all that stuff in my mind, being juggled, I have always found that by the time I reach the end in a draft, not just the first draft, but the end of any draft, I've forgotten the start enough to...
Speaker: that I can go right back to the first chapter and start revising or editing, depending on what stage I'm at.
Speaker: Because I will remember the events, but I won't remember how did I write it?
Speaker: Did I want to change anything?
Speaker: Things like that.
Speaker: Over the course of my writing experience, I have changed in that if there's something that I know I want to change later, but I don't want to stop drafting things.
Speaker: I wouldn't say my drafting is fast, like fast drafting, but the idea of it where like you're not stopping to edit is something that I've adopted.
Speaker: So what I'll do is I'll write a comment and be like, oh, make sure to add this in later or something like that.
Speaker: So at least that's there.
Speaker: So I won't forget that I wanted to change something if I wanted to.
Speaker: But otherwise, even that I'm not holding that in my head because I've written it down.
Speaker: So for me, I don't put it away anymore.
Speaker: But what I used to do was I would put it away for at least a month.
Speaker: But by the third month, I'd be itching to go back and start revising or editing.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: I have something very similar to where, I mean, if we're looking at project ideas, once I finish a draft, normally I have so many others that are calling to me that I have no problem thinking.
Speaker: shelfing that draft for at least two months, but normally by month three, I'm like, okay, let's go back.
Speaker: Let's look at this over, kind of figure out what can be tweaked to it before sending it off to critique partners, alphas, you know, the whole shtick.
Speaker: Safe number three months.
Speaker: If this is like your very first ever finished draft, maybe let it sit longer and work on other stories because then that can actually help improve your writing.
Speaker: And then whenever you return,
Speaker: to that first initial draft that you've ever completed, you can see the improvement that you've made.
Speaker: And that's really gratifying.
Speaker: I think people used to throw around the number six months and some people used to say a year.
Speaker: To me, like Kelly and I both said, we're itching to get back to it at three months.
Speaker: I think you find your rhythm with how long to let things sit the more you've finished drafts and have experience with like...
Speaker: Okay, maybe I didn't give that enough time to sit for me to be able to see it with new eyes.
Speaker: So next time you'll leave a draft to sit longer, or maybe you'll be like, that felt too long.
Speaker: I wasn't able to focus on anything else.
Speaker: And, you know, like, maybe next time I'll try to go back to it sooner.
Speaker: I think too, it's important to take note.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: that depending to on what genre you're in at that time can also affect when you come back to it.
Speaker: So if you're a genre hopper, you know, going from fantasy to a contemporary may really help your process.
Speaker: And then like three months down the road, when you've written a contemporary novel and you're ready to switch back into fantasy, you're going to have contemporary writers eyes looking at it.
Speaker: So fantasy is going to feel fresh and new.
Speaker: So Kelly, you talked about how when you're letting a project sit, you move on to another one.
Speaker: And you said you had a lot of other ideas, which is true because Kelly has 50 novel ideas, including her debut.
Speaker: A perfect 50.
Speaker: I have...
Speaker: 46 unfinished ideas.
Speaker: One is maybe like a third written.
Speaker: I have some other stories that I had started writing forever ago and then was like, no, I want to completely rewrite them and I haven't gotten back to them.
Speaker: But 46 non-published novel ideas.
Speaker: That's a lot.
Speaker: For a lot of people.
Speaker: I know back when I had fewer than 46, I think I had 40 at the time.
Speaker: I mentioned it in a Kate Kavanaugh livestream and then she made a video where she mentioned what I call a to-be-written list.
Speaker: Then she was saying like 40 is a crazy number.
Speaker: Kelly beat me.
Speaker: But what do you do when you have so many ideas?
Speaker: How do you pick the next one?
Speaker: I think it's important to look at what you've just written.
Speaker: So what draft you just written before moving on to the next story.
Speaker: That's something to take into consideration.
Speaker: So definitely work on something that calls to you.
Speaker: If you're agented or working with a publisher, have a discussion with them about the next move.
Speaker: I know Zara and I have had a discussion because my debut buddy, Sam, whose novel comes out in June of this year, you can actually go on pre-orders.
Speaker: that now.
Speaker: I'm sure Zara will put the links in the description of the show notes.
Speaker: But I know I was talking to Zara like, hey, I was thinking about working on this project.
Speaker: But then I found out what Sam is wanting her next project to be.
Speaker: And I made the call of those are too similar.
Speaker: I have a bigger list to pull from.
Speaker: So I will let not let I it's more of I have no problem with
Speaker: picking something else off this list because I know it's a big one.
Speaker: Because I thought there were certain things of the plot that would have been too similar and I don't want us to cannibalize each other.
Speaker: Which I appreciate and if I thought you were I also would have brought that up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've talked about how fantasy is kind of your bread and butter.
Speaker: And a lot of authors will publish a lot in the same genre first to like build up an audience there.
Speaker: But as we know, you don't necessarily always publish things in the order that they're written, especially if you're doing traditional publishing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I have personally written all over the freaking place when it comes to genre, different subgenres of romance.
Speaker: My next project is not romance at all.
Speaker: It's a new adult spy thriller with lots of action that people have told me is even crazier than The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Speaker: So that's fun if you know that reference.
Speaker: That's something to look forward to.
Speaker: So the question that some people might have is, should you stick to the same genre?
Speaker: Kelly, your introduction is that you're a genre hopping writer.
Speaker: So what's your advice?
Speaker: As far as what genre to pick, I feel like it's kind of a trial and error thing.
Speaker: If you write a fantasy novel and going to a contemporary romance kind of works to shift gears like that for you, then I say do that.
Speaker: But there's only one way to find out if that works and that's to try it.
Speaker: Personally, I know after I turn in book two to you this year, I am planning on still doing a fantasy novel for one of my camp projects.
Speaker: I am one of those people that can stay in the fantasy gear, the same genre, and go with that.
Speaker: But I know it's not for everyone, so got to do trial and error to figure out if you have to kind of rotate your genres.
Speaker: Would I like to write a contemporary romance for myself?
Speaker: Of course, I would absolutely love that.
Speaker: But I think it's important to evaluate where you're at in your career, because where I'm at is obviously going to be different from where other people are at.
Speaker: And with my spot, it's better to kind of put the focus on fantasy at this point in time.
Speaker: So if I do get a contemporary out this year, great.
Speaker: If not, it's not on my list of three books to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like I mentioned, my first seven published books are all romance subgenres.
Speaker: So you don't necessarily have to completely jump from one genre to another, but it's fun to experiment in other things.
Speaker: You can learn things about your writing, get better at certain parts of your writing if you experiment in different genres.
Speaker: So I don't think anyone should ever say never to writing another genre over their lifetime.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you also never have to publish something outside of the genre that you started publishing in.
Speaker: Yeah, correct.
Speaker: So just to kind of add on, but you don't have to write another novel right away.
Speaker: Something that I've seen that has kind of been around in the community online is flash fiction has kind of been popping off.
Speaker: And I think that that's great because you don't have to write another novel right away, but you can do things like flash.
Speaker: And that's going to help level up your writing game because it's strengthening writing scenes or dialogue or, you know, whatever it is that you need to work.
Speaker: work on.
Speaker: You can do that with Flash.
Speaker: Short stories can offer like help with with working the writing muscle regarding keeping the plot tight.
Speaker: So you don't have to write another novel right away.
Speaker: You can do other avenues of writing to still level up without taking on another novel.
Speaker: Yeah, I have tried writing shorter form fiction.
Speaker: mostly because I was required to in creative writing classes.
Speaker: It's not really for me.
Speaker: My stories grow too far.
Speaker: Like, even if I'm, oh, this could be a cool short story, by the end of the short story, it's no longer a short story.
Speaker: So I've stopped lying to myself.
Speaker: That said, this is going to be mind-blowing, I know.
Speaker: A series is longer than a standalone.
Speaker: So what I try to do is intersperse writing a standalone between writing series.
Speaker: Now, the Stellar Blood trilogy absolutely jumped the line.
Speaker: And that was rude, but I liked the story.
Speaker: And obviously I did that.
Speaker: And I published them after the Belgrave Legacy trilogy.
Speaker: But switching between series and standalones gives me a kind of similar experience from writing a novel versus a short story.
Speaker: So I do think the advice still stands.
Speaker: Speaking of like how you said stellar blood jumped the line, let's talk about something that I'm always texting you about is shiny new ideas.
Speaker: So you've picked a project, but what if you get distracted along the way because you have a shiny new idea pop up?
Speaker: Something that's been really helpful that Zara's kind of conditioned me to do now is brain dump.
Speaker: everything that you can and then move on from that brain dump because you know focus on what you're writing and then go brain dump it i brain dump in an ocean it's how my list gets so damn long because it's like every time i'm drafting something three stories emerge from it it's like a hydra
Speaker: Those things are hard to kill.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: But maybe fully switch because your gut's telling you something.
Speaker: But I'm more on the train of this works for me is dumping it and then moving on and then coming back to it later.
Speaker: And also kind of builds up the excitement and motivation to finish whatever it is I'm working on to be able to go back and work on that.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm absolutely the same as you.
Speaker: Obviously, we mentioned earlier that if you have a publisher, they might have thoughts about what you're writing next, give you a deadline.
Speaker: If you can manage multiple projects at once, cool, but...
Speaker: A deadline's a deadline, especially when it comes from a publisher versus a deadline that you set for yourself that's like only you as we talked about with the previous episode.
Speaker: So we're not talking about that.
Speaker: But if you have a hard deadline from an external source, you do need to prioritize that.
Speaker: But, you know, for me, I also brain dump.
Speaker: I used to brain dump in the iPhone notes app before it started acting glitchy for me.
Speaker: But Kelly and I, I think, spent three hours on a co-working call one day where I was like, oh, I thought of a romance series and like I need to figure out names because the names are super important.
Speaker: That was so fun.
Speaker: So that took a while and that was fun.
Speaker: But those books are...
Speaker: unless they jump the line, are not going to be written for at least two years, probably longer.
Speaker: But, you know, I had that down and I was like, I want to get this.
Speaker: done so I can put it out of my mind.
Speaker: Otherwise, I'm going to be thinking about like, oh, what are their names?
Speaker: What are their names?
Speaker: You know, and it's actually really uncommon for me to not know the names of my characters once I get the idea.
Speaker: So I knew that was going to nag me.
Speaker: So I went down a controlled rabbit hole of being like, okay, I need a brain dump enough that I can put this from my mind and let it percolate in the back, back burner, whatever, you know, maybe in the back kitchen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why shouldn't my mind be a mansion?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why have to be a New York sized apartment?
Speaker: Stop.
Speaker: But you know, I did what I had to do.
Speaker: And now I can wait its turn.
Speaker: It better wait its turn.
Speaker: So yeah, brain dumping is our friends.
Speaker: If it doesn't wait its turn, I'm not going to be mad.
Speaker: I was so excited whenever you were explaining like how you want the story to go.
Speaker: I was like, this is going to be fucking great.
Speaker: well okay i'm excited for all my story ideas otherwise i'd be like no i'm not gonna turn you into a story yeah it's exciting but there's just something about the principle my ideas need to wait their turn no it's okay the principle they need to wait their turn but you know they might jump the line a little bit hell how many well now i know that's a possibility how many times have i put something in at the bottom of my list and then like a few weeks later it's like more towards the top
Speaker: I lost count.
Speaker: Because it happens so damn often.
Speaker: It's a miracle that Project Adventure has stayed in its slot for as long as it has now.
Speaker: You know, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it if we need to.
Speaker: But as long as you're focused in Thimbleton until it's over, you know, to meet your deadlines.
Speaker: That's what matters.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Meeting external deadlines.
Speaker: Why don't we talk about Sophomore Slump?
Speaker: If you've finished your first book ever, and we're not necessarily talking about publication, although the term normally refers to an author's second published book, and you're writing your second book, we always talk about how your writing is generally going to get better the more you do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because you learn things along the way, and hopefully you take those lessons and put them into practice, because that's what lessons are for.
Speaker: But there's something exciting in marketing that
Speaker: about a debut novel.
Speaker: And in traditional publishing, if the first book doesn't do well, normally a second book
Speaker: isn't even signed, which is not something I'll be doing with my publishing company.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: Because I think that's unfair to authors and readers.
Speaker: But there's also the internalized fear that your second book isn't going to be as good as your first book.
Speaker: Assuming that like you've polished the first book, we're not comparing a first draft to a first draft because like we said, your writing normally got better.
Speaker: So you have the fear that your second book isn't going to be as good as your first.
Speaker: What do you do?
Speaker: don't compare.
Speaker: Just do the thing again.
Speaker: Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker: It's just like, you're like, don't compare.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh yeah, see our episode on war of perfectionism where we talked about how things are easier said than done.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely that.
Speaker: I mean, you should celebrate little wins if you're like, oh, this thing that was hard in my writing process the first time around feels a little bit better because I'm, you know, I've had experience with it.
Speaker: Some people are really uncomfortable with dialogue.
Speaker: But then maybe later on in their writing career, which could be as soon as the next project, maybe not.
Speaker: Don't beat yourself up if it's not.
Speaker: But, you know, they might say, oh, writing dialogue is easier now.
Speaker: And like, that's great.
Speaker: You should take note of that.
Speaker: You should celebrate that in some small way, even if it's all internally.
Speaker: But don't say, oh,
Speaker: oh, this isn't as good as the first time around, or this is harder than the first time around.
Speaker: Revision and editing should still be part of every single story.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Again, like, don't worry about stuff.
Speaker: Just get the story down.
Speaker: It is good to remember that the next book is just a building block for the last, whether it's a trilogy, a duology, or just the next book that's a standalone.
Speaker: Your writing should show some form of improvement is what I think we're getting at with the sophomore slump.
Speaker: I know...
Speaker: I've talked about my expectations before with like my debut novel and how they've changed.
Speaker: So I think looking at it as a building block and this is just the start of something that's really good is a healthier way, much better way to look at your writing and publication, like your published works.
Speaker: You finished the damn thing.
Speaker: So have fun with the next one.
Speaker: I have nothing to add.
Speaker: So with that, this is the Writish Podcast and we'll be back with another episode next week.
Speaker: And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at the Writish Podcast on Hive Social and Kofi at Writish.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
