Last night I finished the first draft of my novel. I’m excited about completing all that hard work. I followed my outline for the most part, with some flexibility for changes that came up as I wrote. I think I did a good job with plot, dialogue, and action. I could work on describing the action a little bit more.
Now I wonder what my next step should be. Do I dive right into editing or do I take a little break to let the novel settle a bit? I’d like to take a short break of maybe a day or so but I worry about momentum. When you’re a writer with ADHD, you do things when you’re thinking of them and as you’ve created a habit. When you stop doing something you lose sight of the goal. So I guess a break of one day wouldn’t hurt but much more than that and I’d lose track of my story line.
I think at the end - the last ten scenes or so - I was rushing to get done. A lot will need to be fleshed out there. A big fight scene happens and I kind of got stuck. I wrote my way through it but I didn’t like what the end result was, so that will need to be edited pretty heavily.
I will also need to work on descriptions. I have this picture in my head of what certain scenes look like and now I need to get them out onto the page a little better. A tip I have for other writers is to keep on writing when you notice things that you need to improve or you’ve forgotten. Just make notes of things you want to go back and change or add and maybe make a note of where you’d like to make the change.
Thank you all for your support in 2021 and happy reading or writing!
