Writing a book is messy, even for seasoned authors. Wrangling your material into cohesive shape is real work. There will be times when you sag with despair and cry out “This is a mess!” Rest assured. This is normal. This is not a function of your ineptitude, the lameness of your book or your inability to pull it all together. It’s part of the process of writing a book. Take a deep breath and trust yourself. Let’s look at how to sort this mess out. Be patient; it might take some time.
Depending on where you are with the process, it might be helpful to print the book up. Many of us are writing in one long on-screen document. Scrolling can be a nightmare, and rolling back and forth can contribute to your feeling of chaos. If you have a draft, even a shaggy draft, print the whole thing. Make sure that the pages are 1.5- or double-spaced, with page numbers at the bottom. Reviewing a printed copy makes it so much easier to see the whole. When I went through my printed draft, it was clear that the table of contents needed to be reordered.
With your printed manuscript in hand, step away from the computer. Take your notebook and pen with you. Your plan is to make a “punch list” of things to work on next. This is a term borrowed from the construction industry, where there’s a walk-through of a house before it’s finished or before a sale. The punch list includes things to fix or work on. Make a punch list for your book. You want one list that you can work through methodically later.
Now, back to the messy draft. Read through everything you have written. This read-through is for the purpose of seeing the whole, for distinguishing what’s working and what’s missing. Read like a teacher who wants to help the student make this paper as good as possible. Put check marks, smiley faces or stars next to things that are working. Add to your punch list as needed. Avoid getting caught up in wordsmithing: if you see sentences that you want to revise, underline them or circle words you want to change, but don’t get caught in the details now. Include the bigger things to work on, not the details. These could include:
- Revise chapter two.
- Add examples for chapter ten.
- Research for chapter four.
- Brainstorm ideas for images in the book.
- Identify passages that need to be fleshed out.
Your punch list will likely be long. Don’t despair. It’s good to have an objective list of things you can work on. The draft will still be messy, but now you have marching orders of what to improve. This kind of list serves as a project manager.
Once you’ve made the list, you can organize items into categories. My recent punch list includes:
- to write
- to do
- weave throughout
- to consider
- plan of action
For each writing session, go to the list and do some of the tasks. Check them off the list to feel a sense of progress. Address as many items on your punch list as you can in each sitting, but know your limits. Notice when you feel “done” writing—you might be getting impatient, rushing and lowering your standards to make progress. The list can also keep you from feeling ambushed by emotions that may arise when you sit down to write. You are just working your way through the list. You might go through this process many times, at least once for each draft. It’s okay—it helps you to know what to do and when.
Excerpted from The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book.
Here’s a punch list I made in Notion for my novel-in-progress. I have whited out the details to avoid spoilers.
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