I have finished the rewrite of the three novels! or at least this rewrite

w00t!

Three things were key for me for this project:

1. Know thy process. By identifying what I was really afraid of, what had bogged me down before, I was able to figure out some strategies for overcoming them.

2. Come up with a plan. The outline of what I needed to do was daunting at first, but oh so necessary. I always knew what I needed to work on next. I was never lost, never searching. NOTE: I included some “mindless” tasks in the outline as well. For me, that’s a necessity. I get sick too often (I cannot brain, I haz the dumb). The mindless tasks enabled me to continue making forward progress even during those times.

3. Do it every day. I’ve never been as focused on a rewrite as I have been these last 100+ days. Because I worked on the novels every single day, I never lost the plot, never got disconnected from the world, and actually started sinking into the work and really enjoying the rewriting.

Tonight I’m going out to dinner with friends. Tomorrow, I send the books out to first readers, and start the next tasks, like finishing the copy on my new web site, writing up synopsis and outlines for my agent, finishing this short story I started while doing the rewrite, and other things that I can’t think of off the top of my head but I know I need to do. I will make another list, and I will work on my writing every day. The goal now is to write every day of this year. Not so much a goal, but a life style change that I’ve started and want to keep going.