![]() But don't wait too long before you start your next project. Sure, there's launching the book and promoting it, maybe even traveling some to speak about it. What happens next? What do you do after you finish writing this book? Well, you go write another. But at some point you must decide to finish, anyway. ![]() Because chances are, after all this editing and critiquing, you've got something good. If you've done the work, this is the easy part. In some cases, it's only a matter of inches or hours between you and a breakthrough. ![]() Because by now, you're closer now than you think. However, there comes a point when you must decide to release an imperfect creation into the world - or not.Īnd this is where so many people stop, which is sad. Your work will never be done, not completely. It's the decision point at which you throw the manuscript in the trash (as Stephen King did with Carrie before his wife pulled it out) or swallow your fear and push on.Īs Leonardo da Vinci said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” This is also when you decide to push forward and ship your work. But this is the last chance to make major edits to your project. After this draft, it's wise to have a whole team of people review your work to catch simple errors. This is when you go through your work and try to tweak the parts that could be better, where you make sure there are no loose ends or dangling parts that don't make sense or resolve. Lesson: The simplest version of a book is the best. It's hard and painful but so important to making your message clear and good. You might even kill entire chapters and sections. Here, you must cut superfluous phrases and nonessential details. Be ready for the criticism to come and decide ahead of time to apply it.Īll feedback is a gift, if you choose to see it that way. Ask a friend, peer, or professional editor (if you can afford it) to do her worst. You're too close to the work now and need to have a someone review it. You've gone through enough edits that you've added things, beautiful things. Draft #4: The Surgery DraftĪt this point, you need to start slicing and dicing, cutting your content down to its most essential message. Lesson: Excellence takes longer than we want. Now that you've got a structure, it's time to make this thing sing. From idea to idea, chapter to chapter, and sentence to sentence. This is the point at which you have an actual manuscript, something you can legitimately call a “work-in-progress.”Īt this stage, you will review you work as a whole and see if what you've said makes sense. Lesson: Before you can make it pretty, you have to make it work. Draft #3: The Rough Draft Will you commit to this? Here is where you abandon your project, go back to the drawing board, or decide to forge ahead. Does the story flow? Is the argument cohesive and consistent? Will people look at it and see something that resembles some kind of order?Īt this point, you need to make a decision. This is where you look at the structure of your project. Lesson: Your dreams must be bigger than your doubts. Save your cynicism and self-doubt for later. It's where you dream big and swing for the fences. This is your first try, what my friend Marion calls the “vomit draft.” It's where you get all your ideas on paper or screen or whatever. Here are the five drafts I use in any project, product, or book I create (including my upcoming book, The Art of Work): Draft #1: The Junk Draft But in the end, you will be better for it. It might break you and cause you to scream. If you have a project you want to share with the world, chances are it's going to take more of you than you want to give. The truth is the most creative, successful people I know are also some of the most disciplined - in their own way. We have this idea that writing a book is a magical process involving only inspiration but nothing that looks like hard work. Photo Credit: “The Wanderer's Eye Photography” via Compfight cc After reading it, I explained how writing a book involves five different drafts. ![]() He'd written a rough draft and wasn't sure what to do after that. Not too long ago, a friend asked me to read his book.
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