You did it! You finished the first draft of your novel. Time to celebrate! With a hot cuppa (finally, since the others were stone cold because you were too focused on getting that story down on paper). Maybe splash out on some champagne. After all, it’s a huge milestone.
But once that euphoria subsides, other feelings start to emerge. Confusion. Disorientation. No one prepares you for the sudden full stop. The end. Done. Feeling a little lost or uncertain after finishing your draft is incredibly common and a normal part of the process. But these feelings will pass. When I finished the first draft of my current WIP, I felt like a 60m sprinter who’d just hurled themselves at the wall at peak speed.
But finishing the manuscript is only part of the journey.
Now you are standing at the bottom of revision mountain and, from your viewpoint, you can’t see the top. But before you start panicking about everything that needs changing, you need to gain objectivity first. You can’t self-edit until you’ve let your work rest.
Objectivity isn’t easy to obtain, especially with your own work. There are no hard-and-fast rules about how long you should leave a manuscript at the bottom of your virtual drawers. Recommendations for resting periods vary: some writers find that about two weeks is enough, while others prefer several months, or even up to a year. With my current WIP, I put it in the drawer for a couple of weeks, because I’d already taken 3 weeks off in the summer when I was about 10 per cent from the end. My debut went in the drawer for over a year before I started revising it.
You are your best judge of how long you need to step away from the story so that when you come back, you can see the story that’s on the page and not the one in your head.
Signs that might indicate you’re ready:
- Feeling curious about the manuscript again.
- Thinking about it without the emotional intensity you felt when you typed The End.
- Being able to read passages with a certain detachment.
- Finding a scene or beat you’re genuinely excited to rework.
Three things you can do while you let your manuscript rest before revisions
Start a new project
The temptation to start something new as soon as you finish will be strong. You’re on a roll. You have too many story ideas and not enough lives to write them.
Your new project could be a short story, or two. Maybe a novelette. Something you can work on during those few weeks or months without getting carried away into the grind of a full novel.
Working in a shorter format lets you hone your writing by cutting the fluff. In short stories, every sentence, every paragraph needs to pull its weight. There’s no space for fluff. This format can also help with your full novel, since you’ll likely spot fluffy prose more easily.
A word of warning from an author who finds it hard to stick to short stories and novelettes: if you decide to launch yourself into another novel idea, make sure you’re willing to leave the first one long enough to finish the second. Or, you don’t mind leaving projects unfinished and coming back to them when your manuscript needs another cooling-off period.
Picking up a half-finished manuscript after your brain has been in editor mode for so long is no easy feat. It’s something I’m still trying to navigate myself. If you do launch into another idea, make sure you don’t accidentally create another entry for your graveyard of abandoned manuscripts.
Read books on creative writing
Sometimes, your brain is still too preoccupied by the world you’ve just created. A classic manuscript hangover. It’s that feeling where you’re incapable of starting anything new because every time you open a word processor or grab a pen and paper, your mind jumps straight back into the universe you are trying to distance yourself from. When this happens, I replace my writing time with reading.
Books on creative writing or the editing process can help you understand the next part of the process better and perhaps equip you with new techniques to try.
A few books to get you started:
- Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (the book I wished I’d read sooner)
- Intuitive Editing: A Creative & Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing by Tiffany Yates Martin
- Refuse to be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell
- The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr
- Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Change creative outlet
If you want to give your brain a complete break from the writing process, it may be time to switch creative outlets. In those moments when you’d usually sit at your computer typing away, try picking up a pencil, a paintbrush, or a crochet hook instead. Not into any of that? Learn a new language, go for more walks, take photos of random things that you wouldn’t usually take the time to notice… The possibilities are endless.
Let your mind wander, distract itself, and pour everything it has into something other than your writing. Focusing on something new will help chase away the bleak ghosts of your characters, long enough to let the details fade. At least long enough to forget micro-details and spot major plot holes.
These are just some of the strategies I use to gain objectivity before launching myself up revision mountain. And remember, what might work for me won’t always work for you.
Writing is a personal activity. And part of the fun (other than causing chaos for our characters) is discovering our process, from when the idea germinates to when we have a polished manuscript.
What are your top strategies for surviving the cooling-off period? Let me know in the comments.
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