Hope you're well and had a chance to witness the eclipse this week, live or online.
I only caught a sliver of the partially eclipsed sun through the Oakland fog and it was marvelous.
This brings me to my topic for today on the essential ingredients for writing and editing your novel.
The first ingredient for me is awe -- finding the joy and wonder in everyday occurrences and in rare ones -- like an eclipse that the whole country gets to experience over the course of 90 minutes.
Moments like these and ones more mundane, like being wowed by the bright orange nasturtiums in the neighbor's yard, make me pause, and feel, and appreciate being alive.
I want to bring that beating pulse of aliveness into my stories. I want to make my characters come alive and breathe inside my readers.
The second essential element is a sense of spaciousness.
I need to feel like I have all the time in the world when I sit down to write or edit.
If I feel the clocking ticking or my other tasks crowding my attention, I feel cramped and have a hard time focusing.
I create a sense of spaciousness by doing a few things: deciding to work on my book for a set amount of time or pages, estimating how much time that will take at a regular pace, and then adding in an extra hour, if I can.
A third essential ingredient is planning. If I don't have a plan, I feel stressed, irritated, and avoid working on my book.
I need to know what I'm doing each day, whether it's focusing on a read-through, or a deep edit of 2 pages, or drafting brainstorming notes on a heroine's character arc.
What are your essential ingredients for writing and editing your novel?
Join in the conversation here. Or hit reply and let me know.
♥ Happy Writing! And have a great week!
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