You did it! You wrote up 50,000 words during NaNo and you are not only exhausted but currently squinting at the living room wondering if a well lit holiday tree will distract the family from the five inches of dust on the backs of all the chairs. They will not notice. And you, you marvelous author, will take December off.
You’ve probably read, and forgotten countless writing articles suggesting that after an intense session with a novel or any work, an author must take a break. You think, but breaks are for sissies. Nope, breaks are for artists. And you are an artist.
Here is why;
All that wonderful work is still rattling around in your head. So much so that when you read your MS you automatically fill in spaces and sentences with what you think, missing that not all your thoughts made it down on the page.
After a month of intense writing you may hate all your characters and would happily kill them all in the end. Leave them alone.
Vacation. At home for the holidays or away to an exotic place that will distract you with blue sky, beaches and booze. The goal is to distance yourself from the work and think of anything and everything else. Read, cook, bake, indulge in creative work that is uncoupled from writing, this will renew you and improve your writing.
Take as many walks as the weather permits. Walking is a time honored way to ruminate about your work. Strike out to the streets and carry only a question about the book in your head. Just one question. Walk. Notice the trees, the change in seasons, the weather.
Spend a month doing nothing or working on another project. Give your novel a rest so when you return to take a look, it’s with refreshed eyes.
Read the messy first draft through, ouch! What were you thinking? You were thinking 50,000 words by Dec. 1st. Everyone does. What emerges? Is there a theme you hadn’t really noticed before that can be expanded?
What about characters? Sometimes our characters get away from us, and before you reach the end of the draft, the buddy character has emerged as the heroine. Who knew?
Has a subplot emerged? Can you expand on that and ideally link it into the central narrative?
Move scenes around to support the now obvious narrative arch.
Modify and fill in characters and dialogue. The second draft is a good place to improve and clear up dialogue, making sure what characters discuss actually advances the plot.
Be prepared to cringe over hastily scrawled cliches used as placeholders back in November.
Ignore the spelling. Spelling corrections often are tackled in the 3rd draft.
Resist the urge to re-write the first chapter, again and again.
Do not ask for feedback. At this point, the book isn’t even close to ready for other eyes, and you don’t want your own imagination short circuited by outside ideas.
Cautionary tale: I had a shared client who insisted on taking our suggestions, incorporating them into her first chapter, then sending that effort out to her friends for feedback. Unsurprisingly, the feedback was often contradictory to both our development suggestions as well as what she had just “finished”. For months she was caught in a loop of revisions and revisions, which is not creative, it’s just tedious. Do be that writer.
Instead, be the writer who knows how to manage the Muse and is working on the second draft. Later.