Writing resource - Holly Lisle
As always when I start something new, I do a ton of learning and research (sounds boring but it’s not). I found some really great articles on writing at Holly Lisle’s site. I bought a couple of her e-book courses and found them really helpful and she has a blog and free newsletter as well. Well worth checking out if you’re interested in writing.
For one thing, it confirmed something I’d finally realized. Don’t edit until you get to the end. The first 16,000 words of my story took me five years or so to write, off and on as I got discouraged and re-enthused.
The problem was, every time I had a good idea or realized I needed to change something, I’d start at the beginning and edit through again until I got back to where I thought of the new idea. And of course by that time, I’d have thought of something else. So, I’d start all over…
Obviously, I didn’t make much progress.
So as I figured out, and Holly reiterated, I made much better progress by simply making a note of that new idea or change, and simply writing on as though I’d already made the change in the earlier pages. After all, I’ve done the last 30,000 words in the last few months. Still not prolific by most writers standards but quite a bit better than I had been doing.