I finally did it. I decided to write full-time
Actually, it’s more complicated than me deciding, but for the sake of brevity in this post, we’ll leave it there. I know, it sounds crazy, but it was time. My wife and I were talking about this for years. She has been so supportive, otherwise, this dream would never have become a reality.
April of this year I finished a six-month class with 11 other aspiring writers. Despite the challenges, at the end I felt really good about the quality of my WIP. Although, I had edited out 25,000 words, I felt better about the story in the end. So much so that I decided to leave it at 35,000 words.
“…edited 25,000 words from a 60,000 thousand word novel…”
I sent the completed manuscript out to five people of various ages and backgrounds whom I thought would give an honest evaluation of my work. I received great feedback overall, but one common complaint was the lack of description. In truth, I had bought into the process of self editing and minimalistic writing to the point that I hardly had any details about the environment. However, I was committed to the process and determined to leave as it was. After all, only a few details can engage the theater of the readers mind and allow their imagination to form the scenes.
After, I turned in my two week notice, I committed myself to working around 6-8 hours a day. I schedule blocks of time for writing, editing, blogging, Bible study, lunch, and various other tasks. I’ve found that I do really well when I have some sort of list with items I can visibly check off.
- 9-12 write / edit
- 12-1220/30 lunch
- 1230 – 1 Blog
- 1 – 130 or 2 Bible Study
- 2 – 230 Mandatory reading time
I started my new job by addressing a few scenes in my “complete novel” that needed polishing. I had left them for later while I sent out Query letters and Proposals. However, instead of word by word editing as I had planned, I ended up getting sucked into the story again. I realized there were a couple plot holes, which no one had seen.
During my efforts to correct the plot holes I began to see exactly what my wife and others had said about the scenes needing more details. In fact, I had certainly went too far into the minimalist direction. Contrary to what I had wanted to do, I started working on my novel again and I’m thankful I did. I’ve added about 1000 words back into the story. I’ve corrected the plot holes and I’m only through 16 of the 50 chapters. I don’t have a word count in mind, but I hope by the time I’m finished I’ll be happy with every word.