Revising your book: it's not so scary

Ever since I started writing, I've been plagued by the thoughts that at the end, it'll need months of revision and hard work and the story will end up being totally different from what I wrote in the first place. Most of that is probably true but if you truly love the idea, it won't be so hard.

I recently finished the first go at revising a book I wrote in the summer of 2011, which seems so long ago now. I left the book for so long because I had fun writing it for the remarkably short two weeks it took - not something I've replicated yet! - and because I had no hope of anything professional for it - it was just something for me. Then I noticed it the other day and thought, hmm, why not start revising it? I took a hard copy and a couple of highlighters and spent a few days pawing through the pages, often highlighting whole sections that made no sense or where the "find and replace" function had gone horribly wrong, or I'd made stupid spelling/grammar mistakes. But because I'd left it so long - which I recommend highly - there were some really great bits I'd forgotten about. Any faith I'd lost from the stupid bits was made up for by the odd gem I stumbled across amongst those newly colourful pages. It's worth it.

Now that I've changed all the glaring errors and a few tiny mistakes, I'm a lot more confident in my writing. I fixed the odd plot hole and tied up loose ends. There's still a long way to go before it's a beautiful, polished book but I've made the first few steps and those are the ones that count the most. Had I not made the effort to revise it, I wouldn't have been inspired to write a sequel. I had forgotten how much I loved that set of characters and through the revision period, I was enlightened and desperate to continue their story. I encourage you to do the same.

Lydia

Don't hold back for the first draft!

You may want to get everything perfect the first time round but this won't happen. Don't worry about it like I did - it's easy to go back and change things once you've got the first draft down because then you've got the bulk of the story and you're just tweaking it, rather than coming up with the new words to move the story along.

I spent years being too scared to write the stories I wanted to write and use the names I wanted to use in case they weren't "right" in the end, even if it was just for stories I was writing for fun, for only me (and a few friends, perhaps) to see. I was scared to use lyrics from songs, or film titles or brand names in case I'd have to get rid of them at the end. Then I realised, why not just use them for now? There's no point spending days worrying about using a real town's name when a) it'll end up being changed in the end anyway and b) you should be getting on with the actual writing rather than fussing over little details. That comes with revision, another thing I've always been terrified but it's not as scary as I thought. That'll come in another post.

The gist of this post is: get the words down, whatever they are, and worry about the changes later. Especially if it's an idea you're only writing for yourself. I recently finished revising a book I wrote about eighteen months ago and it was one I didn't hold back on at all - I just wrote what I wanted because I had no want for it to ever be published, and I finished writing it in two weeks. It has ended up being the favourite of the books I've written, mostly because I had such fun writing it. Writing shouldn't be a chore, it should be a release, an escape. So don't hold back.

Lydia