THE TRIALS OF AN INIDE AUTHOR: WHEN YOU'RE NOT DRAFTING
In the past year or so, I've stopped drafting as a main project. I've now drafted 48 books, and while I do plan to go back to doing that, and currently have two ideas burning a hole in my mind, I've switched to doing revisions on older projects because I feel like my time is better spent doing that. I have a lot of books in my backlog. At the moment my twenty-fourth book is due to come out in October (pre-order here) so I have the same in books that need a lot of revising and editing to get to the point where they could be published.
I think a lot of the time, writers who work on one project at a time, will do it all in a row. They'll draft it, then maybe take a break, and then revise and go onto edits. My issue was, I draft fast, I work on at least two drafting projects, I also had a lot of time between writing my first book to my debut, and then from my debut to my second book coming out, and I kept writing. Due to that, I got myself a very big backlog. To give you some idea of the time frame, I am 43, and wrote my 40th draft in the year I turned 40, and I've not been drafting for a good year.
I know sometimes the pressure is on to keep writing, to keep churning out stories, and had I not gotten to the point of being able to stop at the end of both the series I was writing, I may have kept writing new drafts. There's nothing wrong with doing it that way, not at all, but I did know I was getting to the point where I would bring myself more anxiety and stress because a lot of those first drafts needed extensive work, and outside input that I wouldn't have time for if I left them until I would normally come to revise. So I took a step back from drafting, and I focused on revision.
Right now I have four revision projects, one is a main one, as in about to go to the dev editor in November. Two are ones that I'm just focusing on but have no real deadline for, and one is one that will go to the editor in April 2026. It's a lot to balance, especially with line and proof edits for that pre-order book also needing to be done. But it's something I know I thrive at, and it works for me.
But what if you're someone who can't do multiple projects? My advice would be to focus on whatever stage you're at, and maybe take some time from drafting something, to focusing on the revisions that need to be done. The push is always on for us authors to be constantly writing and releasing, and while a lot of readers have some kind of what goes on behind the scenes, others just don't. They think that because x author can release at x speed, that everyone else should do as well, and it does not work like that.
While I do have two projects that are itching to be written, I also plan to draft them, and then jump into more revisions. It was nerve-wracking when I first started doing revisions mainly, because I didn't have a clue how it was going to work, but once I got into a routine, it became easier, and allowed me to get future projects into a better position, and from that, allowed them to be ready for sensitivity readers or the like long before I have to worry about them going to the dev editor.
If it works for you, don't worry about it. The author life is not just drafting and releasing, there are so many steps in between, and you can only do what works for you.
Good luck!
Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!
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