4 Tips to Un-Fry Your Brain and Polish Your Novel

November is finally over, and now that you’ve had a chance to catch up on some much-needed sleep, you might be planning the next steps in the life of your novel. Today, author and Municipal Liaison E.A. Comiskey shares her advice for polishing the draft you wrote in November:

I
hope you are wildly proud of yourself! You took a chance on a wild
journey this November, and even if you didn’t end up
exactly where you expected, I have no doubt you made
some remarkable progress. 

So,
now what? Here are a few suggestions for next steps:

1. Step away from your novel.

First
of all, step away. Fifty
thousand words in thirty days is enough to fry the most seasoned
writer’s brain. You’re done. You’re no longer seeing clearly. Walk
away for a little while. Go introduce yourself to those people in
your living room. I’ll bet they’ve missed you! Breathe in some fresh
air. Stretch your muscles. Do some Christmas shopping. Read a book.
Any book except the one you just wrote. 

Once
you’ve had a little time away, come back and read what you wrote. The
good news is: what you wrote is probably better than you felt it was
in the midst of your end-of-November haze. The
bad news is: there is zero chance it’s ready to go out into the
world. 

Trust
me. It’s not. 

I
once heard someone compare writing a first draft to digging clay out
of the riverbank. When you’re done, you don’t have a beautiful pot,
but you’ve got something tangible to work with. 

Don’t
rush to query or self-publish your “lump of clay.” You’ll
end up regretting it down the road.  

2. Research different editing methods.

Don’t
know how to edit? Do a simple Google search—you’ll find heaping mountains of solid advice. It’s worth taking the time to
sift through the different methods and find your style. As with any practice, finding
a handful of trusted friends who have already succeeded at what you want to do will also be invaluable. I put emphasis on that,
because people can’t guide you down a road they’ve never traveled.
Take advice, but be wise about it.  

3. Research your publishing options.

After you’ve
polished it as much as you possibly can, then you’re
ready to consider publishing. How
are you going to do it? Are you going to self-publish? Go through a
small press? Take the traditional agent or Big Five route? 

It’s
time to start Googling again. Be aware that there is good and bad in
every option. Figure out what you want to achieve and follow the path
most likely to get you the results you’re looking for. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of doing your research. Don't be
one of the many who get rejected before you start because you began your email with “Dear Editor."  

4. Be patient.

I
know this can all sound a little daunting, but you wrote a book in
thirty days! That’s amazing! If you did that, you can do this, too—no doubt about it! The number one thing that will be in
your favor is patience.  

You
know how you love sinking into a book because it slowly draws you
into a new world and immerses you inside some fantastic story? You
know how the book (a long, slow read) is always better than the movie
(a quick, easy experience)? 

The key here is to take it slow. Churning
out a first draft in thirty days is an exhilarating experience,
but in a world of rushing around, publishing still
moves at a snail’s pace, and you need to learn to be OK with
that. Your story is absolutely, unequivocally, beyond a
doubt worth telling.

Give yourself enough time
to guarantee you’re telling your story as well as it can be told. And
when you’re done with that, trust you’ve done well. Be at peace. Take
another break. Celebrate. And then… 

Tell
us another one! 

E.A. Comiskey is a NaNo ML from Michigan. Her first NaNoWriMo project
was published through a small press AFTER she learned the lessons
above and it became a best-seller in its category on Amazon. She
now has two published novels, two more coming in 2018, two currently
being queried, and one big lump of clay from this past month.  

Top photo licensed under Creative Commons from Alexandre Dulaunoy on Flickr.