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How to Keep Impatience at Bay and Give Your Manuscript the Love It Deserves

There are many writers who labor over a manuscript for long periods of time without any particular agenda or deadlines. They love to write, they have something to say, and they are working to say it in the best way possible. Others are more ambitious—they come to us with a very specific timeline, and they want to know if we can help them get their book published within that timeline. But sometimes even SMART goals aren’t so smart.

Many of you know that The Writer’s Ally used to be called Ambitious Enterprises. I used that business name for many years because it captured the essence of the kind of person we love to work with—people who are ambitious, who have big dreams and are willing to do the work to achieve those dreams. So in general, you can believe me when I say that I applaud those writers who set goals and take steps to make them happen.

But then, once in a while, we get an email that reads something like this:

I’ve written my first novel and I’m anxious to get it published as I know there are many readers who would enjoy my story. My goal is to have it published within a year.

Most recently, a very similar message came from a young woman who had only recently graduated college and who wanted editorial feedback on her memoir draft, which she’d written over the course of her last couple of years in school. As is often the case, our editor most well matched to her book couldn’t begin work for a few months, and she was dismayed. So we reassured her that putting off her publication goals (just for a bit) was not a bad thing.

In fact, we believe it is a critical step in her growth as a writer.

While most if not all writers feel some level of anxiousness and excitement about publishing their work, a rush to publish is fueled by misplaced ambition, because publication as quickly as possible is not, and never should be, the ultimate goal. The goal should be to write a great book that therefore deserves to be published and that is worthy of your readers’ valuable time and hard-earned money. You owe it to yourself, if you are at all serious about being a writer, to practice your craft and take whatever time it requires to learn how to write an engaging, effective book. You owe it to yourself to give your experiences the attention and seriousness they deserve as well.

Rather than viewing the upcoming months as wasted time, her would-be editor and I encouraged her to work on the draft more herself between now and the editor’s start date. We invited her to stay in touch so that she could get guidance on her revisions. Since her Free Project Review revealed that she wasn’t very familiar with her competition and didn’t have a clear picture of where her book would fit in on the shelves, we also advised that she should read some really good memoir, especially those that are similar in nature or themes to her own.

It’s as much our job as book editors to give good, honest guidance to our clients with regard to their careers as writers as it is to edit their work. If they reject this advice, it’s on them. But as a professional I will do my utmost to convince you of the course of action I think will get you to your goals, even if it’s a truth you don’t want to hear. And advising that one put off plans to publish their work, especially in this era of near-instant publication tools and platforms, definitely falls into the category of frequently true and frequently uncomfortable advice.

To help take the edge off, here are three tips for keeping impatience at bay and giving your manuscript the love it truly deserves:

1. First, if you’ve quite literally just finished writing or revising your draft, put it away somewhere you won’t look at or think about it for a while. Give yourself at least two full weeks, ideally a month or two, to regain some objectivity before you dive in again. There is no other way to get distance from your own work except to give it time.

2. While you’re waiting to return to your manuscript, identify the 3-5 top selling books in your category and read them. Yes, read them, cover to cover. Take notes, even. Pay attention to why these books became top sellers—what’s great about the writing or the content? What else was going on when they published? How does your platform compare to these authors’ backgrounds at the time of launch?

3. Now, go back to your draft and read through it, start to finish, making notes and comments but NO EDITS as you go. Pretend it is someone else’s book. Pretend it’s from one of your fellow critique group members, or better yet, pretend it is another book competing with the 3-5 you just read and evaluated. Write the comments to the author as if that wasn’t you. How does this book compare? What would make it stronger? What did you learn from the other books’ example that you can apply to this one? I guarantee that you will find plot holes, failed character arcs, and other problems you didn’t notice a few months ago.

What tips have you employed to help keep you from submitting or publishing your book too soon? This is such a common struggle for writers of all types, I’d love to hear about what’s helping you!

Founder of The Writer’s Ally, Ally E. Machate is a bestselling book collaborator, award-winning editor, and expert publishing consultant who loves using her insider knowledge and experience with the publishing industry to lead serious authors toward success. She and her team live to help make great books happen, whether that means showing a writer how to improve a manuscript, get an agent, or self-publish; or coaching an author on growing her platform to sell more books. Since 1999, she has supported hundreds of authors on their publishing journey and takes pride in serving as their books’ best ally.

3 Secrets to Writing Success from NaNoWriMo

Beginning and even intermediate writers often struggle with the writing lifestyle. I mean things like keeping a disciplined writing schedule, finding and enjoying a community of similarly ambitious creatives, and meeting self-imposed deadlines to keep producing new work (also known as the “I’m Writing a Book—Yes, the Same Book I’ve Been Writing for Years” syndrome).

There are dozens if not hundreds of goal-setting and motivational programs for everyone from business owners to fitness geeks. So where’s the program for writers?

Enter National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. In their own words, NaNoWriMo is a nonprofit that believes your story matters—“valuing enthusiasm, determining, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.”

As a big fan of NaNoWriMo who has participated several times (and won a couple, too!), I try to encourage more writers to give it a try each fall. Fact is, NaNoWriMo is an excellent opportunity to strengthen some key writerly muscles and pick up some great new habits for goal-setting and motivation. And even if you aren’t writing fiction, you can make a similar structure work for you. Here’s how.

Setting a Goal and Sticking to It

People in the business world talk a lot about goal-setting, but it isn’t a topic that comes up too often among creative sets. That’s too bad, because all humans can benefit from a structured approach to achieving specific goals—it’s the main way we get anything important done!

When you’ve committed to SMART goals, it follows that you need to set up a plan for accomplishing your milestones along the way to success. In the case of writing a book, this usually means you’ve set a deadline for a word count, but it could also mean you have an outline for chapters and subtopics that you want to flesh out. Or maybe you’re revising and you have a list of issues you need to address.

With NaNoWriMo, the goal is simple: Write a novel of at least 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30. Period. It doesn’t have to be—and rarely is—excellent prose or even make a lot of sense. You just have to write it. Some Wrimos divide their overall target word count into big weekend-oriented bursts, while others doggedly churn out a couple thousand words each day (1,667 to be exact for a 30-day, 50,000-word count goal). Figure out your own goals and then break them down into micro goals—bite-sized goals that, when accumulated, will get you to your main goal.

It might seem romantic to talk about Muses and writer’s block, but the fact is if you don’t finish writing your book, and if you don’t finish revising your draft, you will never publish it.

Surrounding Yourself with the Right People

There’s an old saying that “it’s difficult to soar with the eagles when you’re scratching with the turkeys.” If you want to be a successful writer, you need to hang out with other motivated, smart, dedicated writers.

Spending time in a critique group where people are more intent on belittling each other than helping each other improve won’t get you anywhere. Going to local writers’ club meetings where everyone whines about how hard it is to get published or how no one will buy their books will just depress you. You can’t learn from people who don’t know what they’re doing wrong and you can’t improve your experiences based on the advice of people who haven’t had any.

NaNoWriMo offers a ton of online community-building through very active forums, Twitter hashtag conversations, even a Facebook Group. Offline, their website features an extensive list of volunteer coordinators who organize events locally for people to come together and write, commiserate, and at the end of November to celebrate their successes. Imagine sitting in a room of ambitious writers with fingers poised above their keyboards as they prepare to start a word sprint, especially when there are prizes involved—these local write-ins are a lot of fun!

So take stock of who you’re surrounding yourself with these days and consider this: Some say you are a composite of the five people you spend the most time with. So where does that leave you? If you spend a lot of time alone, seek out a group whose goals match yours. If your current group isn’t regularly inspiring you and motivating you, find a new one, stat.

Building a Routine for Regular Results

Try reading a few interviews with your favorite authors and you’ll notice none of them talk about waiting for inspiration to strike. I have yet to meet a successful author who does not have a writing routine; even the most experienced writers who don’t need the discipline of butt-in-chair each day to get their creative juices flowing still used routines in the earlier part of their career. This was one of my personal favorite experiences from doing NaNoWriMo—having the structure of the event forced me to commit to writing daily, and more importantly, to set aside time to work on my novel (as opposed to the million other things I write each day).

One theory is that the very act of sitting down in the same place at the same time each day preps your brain for writing and makes it easier for the work to flow. We humans often rely on cues to shift our mindset and even our behavior. Just think about how it is when you’re preparing to go to a party, or for an important meeting. So it makes sense that having a writing routine would help shift you into a more creative and productive space.

If you want to see regular results, you simply must have a regular routine for working. Consider how your goals break down into mini goals. Then, create the routine you’ll need to knock down each one in a timely manner. You’ll never find the time to write if you don’t make it first.

Have you tried NaNoWriMo before? What did you learn from your experiences? Tell us in the Comments section below! I also invite you to join our public Facebook Group, The Writer’s Allies, to connect with other ambitious authors who are attempting NaNoWriMo this year.

Three Slightly Unconventional Rules for Writing

The world of writing books and websites is littered with rules about how exactly to excel as a writer. You must use an outline, or you must use index cards. You must barrel through that first draft, never stopping to edit your work. You must write only in the evenings, or only in the mornings, and you must focus only on one project.

I think we run into problems when ideas transform into rules. As writers, we do share a lot of common experiences. Some are wonderful, like the unfettered joy of completing a first draft or that glorious writer’s high you feel when you know you’ve been productive. And some are frustrating, like the agony of knowing exactly how the scene needs to play out but somehow not being able to get it right.

But some people, and some would-be experts, see common experiences and imagine that all writers are the same. From this perspective, I think they steer a lot of people wrong.

So I’d like to share with you a slightly different set of rules.

1.) Respect Your Individuality

The truth of the matter is that we’re not all the same. We’re all individual writers with individual writer-brains, and that means that what works for one person may not work for another.

Consider, for example, that rule about never editing until you complete a draft. For a lot of writers, particularly those prone to distraction, this can be a terrific piece of advice, but it’s never worked for me. I’m an editor, not just in occupation but in mentality, and consequently I’ve never been able to move ahead while still uncomfortable with what I’ve already written. That means a lot of revising as I go, and a completed first draft that is more polished than your average first draft—but also takes longer to write.

This works for me. It might not work for you.

2.) Find Your Strategy

So we writers need to beware of treating as rules what should be advice and following them blindly. Instead, the trick is to try enough different things to learn for yourself what works best for you and your own writer-brain.

Maybe you’ll find that, despite once being certain that you could only write on your own, you’re actually a lot more productive when you write with a group of other writers. This is what I’ve discovered about myself. For years, I dismissed the idea of participating in a writing group, but once I decided to give it a try I became more productive than I’d ever been before.

At the same time, you may find that, despite always assuming that you could only be productive with others, you get a lot more done when you’re on your own. You may find that outlines make absolutely no sense to you. You may find that the ideal time to start writing is 2:36 in the afternoon.

And if it works for you, how can anyone question it?

3.) Make the Time

But there is one bit of advice that should indeed be taken as a rule: Writers write. However you do it, and whenever you do it, you do need to set the time aside every week to devote yourself to writing. Maybe that means one hour every day, or maybe it means five hours every Sunday. Only you can decide that for yourself.

But no writer in the world can finish a novel or memoir or anything else if they never take the time actually to write it. No writer in the world can become a better writer if they don’t practice.

So write, and write often, but also write smart. Follow only the rules that make sense for you, and be open to trying new things.

Developmental editor Harrison Demchick came up in the world of small press publishing and along the way has worked on more than fifty published novels and memoirs, several of which have been optioned for film. An expert in middle-grade, young adult, and adult manuscripts in categories as diverse as science-fiction, fantasy, mystery, literary fiction, women’s fiction, and memoir, Harrison is known for quite possibly the most detailed and informative editorial letters in the industry—if not the entire universe. He is also an award-winning, twice-optioned screenwriter, and the author of literary horror novel The Listeners (Bancroft Press, 2012).

Finding and Making the Time to Write

It’s easy to claim that you don’t have time to write. In fact, it’s probably true. There are never enough hours in the day, and often your creative project gets placed on a back burner.

In his recent guest post on Lia Mack’s blog, TWA’s own Harrison Demchick discusses the importance of making the time to write. To frame his discussion, Harrison shares a friend’s personal triumph at the writer’s club meeting where she completed the first draft of her novel and why setting aside the time for the club helped her accomplish this.

In his article, “Why You Can’t Make the Draft Without Making the Time,” Harrison stresses the importance of regularly making time to work on your writing projects. He explains that it doesn’t matter where or how you make the time, you can never finish a draft or make progress if you never sit down and work.

Reaching a milestone in a project, such as the end of the first draft, is a joyful occasion—it may not be the end of your journey but it often reaffirms the value of the effort you inject. Harrison’s post definitely reminded me of that feeling.

How do you make the time to write? Feel free to leave a comment on Harrison’s blog post or below!

Lastly, a big thank you to friend and TWA client Lia Mack, author of Waiting for Paint to Dry, for inviting Harrison to write a guest post for her blog.

Harrison Demchick came up in the world of small press publishing, working along the way on more than two dozen published novels and memoirs, several of which have been optioned for film. He is an award-winning, twice-optioned screenwriter, and the author of literary horror novel The Listeners. He’s part of The Writer’s Ally team as a developmental editor of fiction and memoir, for which he’s currently accepting new clients.

Top 5 Reasons To Try NaNoWriMo This Year

The benefits of participating in a speedwriting endeavor such as NaNoWriMo go beyond the drafting of a manuscript. I know—I’ve participated several times and won a few, too! I feel extremely positive about my NaNoWriMo experiences, partly because when I “won” I accomplished a very difficult thing that I wasn’t sure I could do, but also because I learned valuable lessons throughout the thirty-day “seat-of-your-pants literary adventure” as Executive Director Chris Baty calls it. Here are my top 5 reasons why you should join me in trying NaNoWriMo this year.

1. Freedom Opens Your Creative Floodgates

If you end up with something publishable, good for you! But that isn’t the point of the exercise. NaNoWriMo is “permission” to write 50K words of what may be total crap, and it’s extraordinarily freeing. I don’t have to—in fact, can’t—quibble with my editor-brain over which phrasing sounds better, or whether my protagonist should be a tall brunette or a short blond. All I have to do is keep those fingers moving. If you’ve ever struggled with writer’s block, insecurity, or finding the time to write, committing to NaNoWriMo could change your writing life. And you may be surprised by what you end up with when you give yourself the freedom to just create.

2. 30 Days Helps Make a Habit

The very act of sitting down to write on a regular basis helps train your brain to write more, better, faster. It also helps strengthen your ability to defy emotional reasoning (i.e. “I really don’t feel like working today, so I’m not going to.”), which in turn encourages discipline. Moreover, experts often say that it takes the average person 21-28 days of repeating a new activity before it becomes a true habit and thus easier to maintain. Research suggests this is an underestimation, but certainly doing something daily for a whole month will go a long way toward cultivating a new habit, even if it isn’t completely automatic at that point! To take maximum advantage of this benefit, choose a time of day you can stick to once November is over. That way you won’t upset your new routine.

3. Annual Event = 1 Novel Per Year

Again, you’re training your brain to be creative on a constant basis. It’s essentially practice in churning out a rough draft quickly. You may take another year or more to revise it into something great, sure. But that’s better than spending a year on the rough draft and THEN another few years on the revising. Imagine that you draft a new novel every November. If you diligently maintain your new writing habit and revise your manuscript throughout the year, you’ll easily be able to take advantage of the “three drawer system.” This is a method by which writers manage their revision process so their brains don’t lose their objectivity or get bored. How it works: When you’ve finished a complete first draft (note that NaNoWriMo produces a rough draft, which will need some work before it can really be considered a completed first draft), you put it aside and start on your next one. When you’ve finished with that, start a third. After you’ve drafted your third, return to that first manuscript and start a round of deep revisions. Continue to work in this cascading fashion until you have a draft ready for workshopping or for an editor.

4. NaNoWriMo Makes Accountability Fun

Many people have what they feel is a great idea for a book, but can never find the time to work on it, either because they’re truly busy or because they’re afraid. NaNoWriMo is the literary equivalent of Weight Watchers: When you join NaNoWriMo, you’re making a more solid commitment than just saying you want to write a book. The NaNoWriMo website offers an array of tools and toys to help you stay on track with your word count goals including downloadable widgets, a word progress function so you can compare yourself to your friends, regional competitions, and more. And, since writing a novel can seem so daunting, committing only 30 days to the effort makes it seem less scary.

5. A Robust Community Offers Support

One of the benefits of registering with the NaNoWriMo website is creating connections with Writing Buddies. These are Wrimos with whom you link up and then monitor on your dashboard. Seeing how your progress bar compares to theirs, especially if these are real-life friends, can give you a much-needed boost when you’re falling behind. For example, one year I buddied with my friend and colleague Angela Render who is a very prolific writer, while I tend to write slowly, so competing to stay on par with her word count or even ahead helped me stay focused.

The robust NaNoWriMo website also offers community online and offline. Online you have forums based on everything from region to genre. When I need a break, I enjoy chatting with other local writers. I also enjoy checking out the kinds of obstacles others are facing (and the advice that the friendly Wrimo community shares in response). Offline, many regions offer “Write-ins.” These are organized by volunteers. A “Write-in” is where local Wrimos gather at a designated place, typically once a week for a couple of hours, to socialize and hammer out some words. I typically add at least 1,000 words to my word count every time I attended a Write-in.

Stay tuned to our public Facebook group, The Writer’s Allies, throughout November for updates on our community’s NaNoWriMo experience. I hope you’ll join the group and join in the fun!

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How to Keep Impatience at Bay and Give Your Manuscript the Love It Deserves