editing

3 Types of editing: which do you need?

So, you’ve written your heart out and have a compelling essay, gripping short story, delicious recipe (with or without accompanying memoir), or dazzling web content to share with the world. Naturally, you want your words to shine and land with readers as you’d intended, without pesky details like spelling, punctuation, voice, grammar, orphans, or widow[er]s […]

3 Types of editing: which do you need?

6 Lessons from NaNoWriMo

Over the course of November, I wrote 50,012 words towards my novel, pieced together as:

  • scenes for the first 5 turning points and first step of the 6th turning point of my WIP
  • a prologue
  • off-shoot stories about some of the cast of characters who are part of my protagonist’s journey.

bar graph showing daily word count during NaNoWriMo 2016 for 10000hoursleft, finishing at 50012 words on November 30 2016
Source: screen grab from 10000hoursleft’s NaNoWriMo account

In addition to NaNoWriMo, I completed a writing course, applied for 5 jobs, and fulfilled family, work and personal responsibilities. The writing milestones are personal highlights of the past 12 months. Funnily, when I co-wrote my first post of 2016 (on maintaining goals), I hadn’t set out on this path, conceiving these goals in the final half of the year (and working on them in the last quarter), giving me a more tangible target than my previously vague goal of progressing my WIP over the year (it is never too late to start a ‘new year resolution’).

Here, I share lessons I learnt about myself, my writing, and the writing process. Continue reading →