I made the decision at the start of last week to commit to finishing off my non-fiction project without trying to force myself to write fiction at the same time…the additional focus paid off, as I was able to finish the project a day early and make a start on my third draft after all.
It’s not a coincidence that my tips posts right now are to do with procrastination. It’s a psychological quirk with me that if I have more than one thing on the cards, and I’m not doing as well as I should be with one of them (fiction), the other things (non-fiction) suffer because of guilt over not doing the first thing. By voluntarily putting the fiction aside, I removed the pressure to do it that was deflecting my attempts on the non-fiction. Which in turn let me get the non-fiction wrapped up so I could turn my attention back to fiction.
When I say I started my third draft, what I actually did was write up the conversations that have been running through my head for two weeks; they’re important conversations that need to happen about a third of the way through the book. I got the dialogue down, without any scene-setting or character attributions (that’ll happen later, when I work them into the story-proper). But it’s good to have it written down, so the characters can stop repeating themselves in my ear to make sure I don’t forget what they need to say.
This week, I start the third draft properly. The aim of this draft is to get the story down in final form. My character relationships are set; my beginning and middle are set; the end may still change, but it looks pretty set. I know what scenes are needed and how they need to run; other scenes can be deleted now. I’m still not worried about making it pretty.
What I am worried about is, as ever, the Lily POV chapters. What I said above applies to the Simon POV which is and always has been stronger than the Lily POV. As I begin the third draft, I am having to wonder about whether I need to scrap every last word of the Lily POV and start over.
