Sometimes, your best-laid plans don’t go how you expect. An emergency interrupts. You’re thrown into a crisis.
What should you do with your novel?
Here’s how to edit—or take a break from editing—when disaster strikes.
Welcome back to Your Next Draft! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
For a year and a half, you got new episodes of Your Next Draft on a consistent schedule. I never missed a single episode, and that’s something I’m very proud of.
And then suddenly, in June, everything went dark. No warning, no explanation, just no new episodes in your feed for two months.
Well, it’s August now, and I’m back! I’m so excited to have another brand-new episode of Your Next Draft for you today.
And in this first episode back, I want to share a bit of behind-the-scenes about why the podcast disappeared for a while.
I want to share some tips I learned this summer about how to edit your novel when disaster strikes.
And I want to tell you what’s coming next for Your Next Draft and how you can make sure you don’t miss a thing.
So let’s get straight to it!
What Happened to the Podcast?
Starting with: where have I been for the past two months?
In early June, I was rocking and rolling. I had so much momentum in my editing and my business. I was putting out podcast episodes right on schedule, and behind the scenes I was building a lot of new things I was really excited about.
Then, in mid June, a crisis hit. Someone in my family suddenly got very very sick while on vacation in Canada.
I dropped everything, rush renewed my passport, flew to Canada, and moved into a hotel to support them.
For a long time, we had no idea how things were going to go. It was really scary. I had no idea when I left home how long I would be gone, and I ended up spending nearly two months in Canada. That whole time, we were in crisis mode, and my #1 priority was supporting my family.
I kept essential operations running in my business, but pretty much nothing more. I sent a handful of email newsletters, but I could not manage to create a podcast episode. I had big visions of doing so several times, and they never panned out.
It was a very, very scary time. I would not recommend spending your summer like this. There are so many more pleasant ways to go to Canada.
Thankfully, by early August, things started calming down. My family member’s health turned a corner for the better. We finally got to move out of that hotel room, leave Canada and come home.
My family and I have a long road of healing and recovery ahead. But I am so grateful that the emergency is over, the worst outcomes we feared were avoided, and we are now on that path of recovery.
And for me, part of that recovery includes regaining all that momentum I had in my editing way back in early June. It means creating new episodes to share with you here on the podcast. It means I’m back—back at my desk, back to my editing, back on this mic.
And I am SO excited to be back!
So that’s where I’ve been, and why you haven’t heard from me in a while. I wanted to take a moment to share that, because I think that part of the beauty of working with an editor, and of listening to podcasts, is that you build up relationships with other creative people.
And it just didn’t feel right to me to jump right back in with practical editing advice without acknowledging that you haven’t heard from me for a while, and that this was a really challenging summer for me.
That said, I do want to share some practical editing tips! So that’s what we’ll talk about next: what I learned this summer that you can apply to your own editing.
5 Tips for Editing When Disaster Strikes
Now, I learned a lot this summer! So much of it is not the topic of this podcast—you don’t need to know all the things I learned about emergency passport renewal or ventilators or coordinating international medical transportation.
But what I DO want to share is what I learned about editing during an emergency. Because I had to figure it out.
I hope you don’t need these tips right now. I hope you don’t need them for a long, long time.
But if a crisis hits, I hope these tips give you something helpful to work with as you figure out how your editing intersects with an emergency.
Here are my top five tips for editing your novel when disaster strikes.
1. Don’t.
The first tip is . . . don’t.
Don’t edit. Give yourself grace to pause your editing and take a break from it.
A crisis demands a lot from you. It is so, so draining—physically, mentally, emotionally. It is very possible, maybe even probable, that you just won’t have capacity to edit anymore.
And that is perfectly okay. Direct your creative energy towards addressing the disaster, your own immediate needs, and the needs of the people closest to you.
Give yourself permission to put your editing down.
2. Find the activities that restore you.
The next tip is, find the activities that feel restorative for you, and the activities that you have access to.
For me, consuming content was so much easier than creating content. I could read books and newsletters and I could listen to podcasts and audiobooks, but I found it really difficult to write newsletters or record podcast episodes.
So I downloaded some fluffy, lighthearted podcasts and audiobooks, and I listened to those.
Maybe you’ll also find that consuming content is easier than creating. Or maybe you’ll find you need a different activity altogether.
Whatever it is that you have access to, that feels easy and fun and restorative, do that.
3. Notice your experience.
The third tip is to notice your experience.
When you’re in crisis, you’re probably living through something you would never have chosen if you could have picked. And I wish no one ever had to go through it.
Your experience of crisis can increase your empathy for others who experience similar things—whether those people are characters in your stories or humans you know in real life.
I’m sure you’ve heard the writing advice to “write what you know.” When you’re in crisis, you’re likely expanding what you know and can write about. You’re learning about the literal external experience of that crisis. But more than that, you’re learning about the internal reality—what it feels like emotionally as a human being to experience this.
And that is really the heart of writing what you know: writing about the emotional truths you know and can speak to.
This summer, I found it helpful to simply pay attention and observe what I was experiencing. On the worst days, when I could barely stand through fear and grief, I remember thinking, “Oh, THIS is what people mean when they say their knees went weak.”
A bonus tip here is that journaling can be a great outlet for this, a way to both record and process what you’re experiencing.
4. Break editing down into tiny tasks.
The fourth tip is for you if you just really, really want to touch the pages of your manuscript, and you’ve decided to ignore tips one and two where I tell you that it’s okay to put your editing aside.
Here’s the tip: if you’re determined to edit, break the big project of editing down into its smallest, simplest parts.
What is the littlest, tiniest piece of editing that it’s possible for you to do?
Maybe the littlest task is to edit one scene.
Maybe that task is still too big. Maybe a smaller task is to think about what the scene is really about. Or to list some things that change in the scene. Or to look for a place where your character makes a decision in that scene.
Break the editing down into teeny, tiny parts, because little tasks are so much easier and more accessible to do than a big, overwhelming project.
I’ll note here that you might find that it’s actually really helpful for you to edit while in crisis. Your story, and the act of working on a project that has nothing to do with the problems in your life, can be an escape, a sort of mental vacation.
When I was in crisis, at first I couldn’t figure out how to do any work at all. I had to break my work down into the tiniest possible tasks, and then aim to do just one task a day.
But a few weeks in, I was really grateful to have something normal and fun and comparatively low-stakes to work on. Work felt like a vacation from reality.
And that’s something I hear consistently from the writers I work with, too: your story can be a refreshing escape from the chaos in your life and in the world.
So if you need something to focus on that is not the emergency you’re facing, give yourself the gift of time spent working on your story.
5. Don’t edit.
And after all that, my fifth tip is the same as my first:
Don’t edit.
Really, truly, it is okay not to edit.
While you are in crisis, focus on your needs and the needs of the people around you.
Know that your story is important. It matters. It is a meaningful project that’s worthy of your time and attention.
And sometimes, worthy interruptions will delay it for a while.
Other aspects of your life are also important. And it is okay to set your story aside for a while so that another meaningful project can take priority.
Nothing will break in the world if you pause your editing, I promise.
So consider this your permission slip to set your story down when you need to. Your novel will be waiting patiently, ready to welcome you back whenever you’re able to return to it.
Your Story Will Wait for You
And there you have it: my five tips for how to edit your novel when a crisis hits. Here they are again:
- Don’t edit. It’s okay. Focus on the crisis and your most immediate needs.
- Find the activities that restore you and do those. You might find it easier to consume content rather than create content, so find the content you can enjoy and engage with it.
- Notice your experience, both for the sake of writing what you know, and for the sake of your own processing.
- If you really want to edit, break your editing down into the tiniest tasks possible, and enjoy the project as an escape from your regular life.
- Don’t edit. Really and truly, give yourself permission to step away from your book for as long as you need. It will be waiting for you when you’re ready to come back.
I hope that you are a long way off from any circumstance that would lead you to need these tips.
But the reality is that emergencies come to all of us, sooner or later. It’s the price of being human, the price of being alive.
So when you need to, it is okay to set your editing aside and focus on another worthy project for a while.
And your story will be waiting for you whenever you’re ready to return.
What’s Next on Your Next Draft
And on that note, let’s talk about the return of the Your Next Draft podcast and what I’ve got coming for you in the next few months!
1. Your Next Draft is coming back (but slowly)
First up, I want to give you a heads up: new episodes on Your Next Draft might be on an inconsistent schedule through the end of 2024.
I’m back in building mode, busy creating new editing resources and ways to work with me. And while I’m putting a lot of energy towards that future-building, I might not have an episode out every other week through the end of the year.
I do plan to be back on that consistent biweekly schedule by 2025, though. So think of this episode as a soft launch of restarting the podcast, ramping up for all the editing goodness coming down the line.
2. My email newsletter comes out weekly
Now, what is back on its regular schedule is my email newsletter. I send out an email newsletter every Tuesday. In it, I share the latest podcast episodes, but I also share editing tips that you won’t hear on the podcast.
Plus, when the crisis hit in June, I didn’t have the capacity to publish a podcast episode and let you know where the podcast was going. But I did send an email to my newsletter subscribers to let them know what was going on.
If you are not currently subscribed to my email newsletter, I would LOVE to invite you to join. You can subscribe by filling out the form below:
As an extra bonus, you’ll get my favorite scene editing resource when you subscribe. It’s the Scene Revision Worksheet, and it’s my favorite tool to edit scenes.
Also, if you’re reading this the week that I published it, I have even more for you.
3. For a limited time, get my new scene editing mini-course
I’ve created a brand-new mini-course called How to Edit Stellar Scenes.
It’s three lessons, all via email, and in it you’ll learn my top strategies for editing excellent scenes. And it’s completely free!
If you enter your email in the form above and sign up for my newsletter, you’ll also get that free mini-course. Here’s the form again, just to make it super simple:
Like I said, the podcast might not be on a consistent schedule again yet, but I have so much great editing content coming your way this fall!
4. Coming soon: get my feedback on your scenes this fall!
And my last big announcement, for now at least, is that very soon, I’ll be opening up a way to work with me and get my feedback on your scenes this fall. It’s going to be really helpful, really creative, really inspiring, and also a ton of fun. And I’m super excited about it.
If you want to be the first to know all about it, be sure to subscribe to the newsletter, because I’ll be sharing all the details there first.
The bottom line is: if you enjoy the podcast, if you missed it when it went dark this summer, and if you want more editing resources from me, subscribe to my email newsletter!
One more time, just to make it super easy to find, here’s that form:
Thank You
The last thing I want to say is . . .
. . . thank you.
To those of you who are subscribed to my email newsletter, and who received the email I sent at the start of July explaining why there wouldn’t be a new episode for a while, and who sent me so many kind replies, thank you. I read every word and appreciated every message so much.
To those of you who have been checking the feed for Your Next Draft and watching to catch a new episode as soon as it drops, thank you. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I know how easy it is for a podcast to slip out of mind when it stops producing episodes.
And to those of you who have been thinking of me and my family this summer as we weathered a really, really difficult time, thank you. I am so grateful for your support.
And I am so excited to be back to this podcast, and to the work of crafting excellent stories!
Until next time, happy editing!