How to Tackle the Big Project

Climb the mountain, and other metaphors

Hi friends,

WELL, here we are! We’ve turned the corner on 2021 as well as TWO YEARS of Agents & Books! Two whole years! I am pretty proud of that, tbh, and I want to thank you for coming along with me on this journey of twice weekly posts about agents and writing and publishing and books and staying mostly sane through it all. Hearing from you and answering your questions has been a bright spot for me, throughout the last year especially, and your appreciative notes have buoyed me even more. Thank you for reading. Thank you for writing to me. Thank you for being here and sharing this newsletter with those who need it.

If you’re new here (and there are quite a few of you! If you saw this newsletter written up anywhere, especially in a UK blog/article/post/tweet/something, can you let me know where it was? You can reach me by just replying to this in your email or tweeting me at @kate_mckean), this post is a good place to start! But since most of you are not new here, I want to jump into the new year by tackling a big topic. That topic is BIG PROJECTS.

A reader wrote in to ask: “What can I do when the draft is a mess? Or, to be more specific, what can I do when I've struggled through a first draft and I realize that I need to take apart the story and re-outline it and now I'm terrified of starting because it's a big, chaotic mess and I know that's what writing's all about but I'm so scared to do it all over again?” It’s such a big topic that I knew it needed a whole post and not just a few paragraphs in my normal Q&A Thursdays. There are two parts to this answer, the practical and the emotional, and Capricorn that I am, I’ll start with the practical (but I bet most of us need the emotional part more.)

Practical Tips for Tackling a Big Project

The thing about writing advice is that there is a ton of it and most of it won’t likely apply to you. I mean, most of it is not mandatory, not the only way something can be done, and if you find another way that works for you, then just do it that way. If I was faced with dismantling a shitty first draft and feeling terrified of it, this is what I would, practically speaking, do. YMMV.

• Read it all the way through one more time.

  I really feel it necessary to have a good lay of the land before I start a big project, but admittedly this step takes a lot of time and you might not have that time. Still, a read-through will give you an idea of what the most pressing issues are (soggy middle? unconvincing ending? prologue you need to chop off?) so that you can prioritize. This is especially helpful if you haven’t read it through in a long while. If you did it recently, you might not need to do it again.

• Don’t do the small stuff first.

  It might be tempting to do your Find > Replace Joe to Joey, but tbh, do that last. You’ll likely just be editing stuff that will be cut after you do the big stuff, so don’t spin your wheels.

• Do do the big stuff first.

  Do the biggest thing first. I know that is daunting and you would rather ease into an edit, but you have to take all the furniture out of the room before you replace the floors. (That metaphor works, right? How many metaphors can we use today!!!!) If you know the ending isn’t working, go in and fix the ending, which may mean fixing the beginning. If you feel like the stakes aren’t high enough, go ratchet up those stakes! When you do the big thing first, the rest feels so easy you’ll glide right through it. Also, the big thing usually ripples throughout the whole manuscript, so there’s no point in going in and changing the tense on a section you may just have to cut anyway.

• Next do the medium stuff.

  Do you need to change the tense? First person to third? That’s what I consider medium stuff. It can still be pretty big! But after you have most things in the right places, then you can go in and make changes that affect the global template, so to speak. Again, do these after the big moves, even though it’s tempting to do them first because they’re easier to wrap your brain around.

• Then do the small stuff

  I know this seems obvious, or at least simplistic. But I also know that the overwhelm caused by an impeding huge edit can really cloud one’s judgement. Save the little things for last. Name changes. Checking timelines, weather, dates, consistency. These will feel like a piece of cake after the other two steps, so enjoy that relative ease!

Tips for Emotionally Weathering a Big Edit

Honestly, this is the more important part of my advice here. You can tackle the moving words around the page part any way that works for you and your project (the above is how I would do it, and might work for you, too) but really, you need to make peace with the part of your reptile brain that is telling you RUN RUN RUN RUN from doing all that hard work. I get it. I feel this way at the beginning (and middle and end) of every big project I do. It’s natural. It’s normal. Everyone feels this way in varying degrees! You are not broken or bad at writing just because your brain is screaming I DON’T WANNA when you open your big, messy, shitty, first draft. So, here’s how you handle a big edit emotionally speaking.

• Deep breaths.

  No, really. You have to calm the anxiety response your body is having to this. Maybe it’s pacing the room, or turning on nature sounds, or doing push ups—whatever it is you do to calm yourself down, do that. Anxiety is a physical response, but it’s also just a physical response. At this, non-clinical, everyday level, it’s something you can likely recognize and think oh, this is just my brain freaking out. Let me take a minute to calm down and then figure out what to do next. (Obvs, I am not a doctor etc, and it might not be this easy for you. But you know your brain and body best, and can address it the way that works for you.)

• Remember that everyone goes through this.

  No one writes a perfect first draft. Everyone has to edit. You are not a bad writer just because there are so many things to go back and fix. There is not a past you who could have seen this coming and fixed it in the first place. Do not regret the things you didn’t do the first time around. You don’t know what a book’s going to do until you write it. You can’t edit what’s not written. EVERYONE finds themselves in this position. You are not lacking as a writer because you have to edit.

• Start somewhere.

  Even if you have to ignore everything I wrote up top, just start somewhere. Do ONE thing to get started. I know the mountain is big. I know it feels like you’ll never get to the top. But the only way you actually get there is by taking one step. Anything. Just get in there and start.

• Know that you still may have to fix things again.

  There is no perfect edit. There is no one way to fix or change a book to make it perfect and right and done. You might get to the end of this big edit and have to go back and start over and do different things. I KNOW. I don’t want that to be true ever either. But it is. Books most often take several edits in your hands and then several MORE edits in your agent’s/editor’s hands. This is normal and ok. The goal here is not to produce a perfect book on the second draft but to make the book as good as you can before it goes to the next stage. And you can’t do a half-assed job yourself and hope someone else tells you how to fix it later (because agents sure as hell can’t do that at the query stage, which means you may not get to the editor stage). Editing your own work, on your own, improves your writing skills so that the next and the next and the next book improves overall, too. But yeah, you’re going to have to do several edits and that’s ok. Make peace with that now.

• Separate Your Feelings from Facts.

  Feelings are not reality. Or, the intensity of your feelings doesn’t always match the reality of the situation. Is writing and editing hard? YES. But will you turn to dust from it? No. It might feel like you will, but you won’t, in reality, turn to dust when faced with a big edit. Recognize what your reptile brain is making you feel and separate that from your reality. You go from I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO FINISH THIS IT’S HOPELESS to Oh yeah, this is a lot of work and it’s not going to be fun. But it’s what needs to be done if I want this book to work. Aim for the latter.

You will get better at this with practice. You will see that you can actually do it after you do it once, so when the next time this happens, and it will happen, you will think oh righhhhhhhht. This is the part that sucks a lot. And then you get on with it. You have to get on with it if you want to finish writing books. That doesn’t mean it will get easier each time, but it will feel more doable. Because you will have done it. Editing is as much a part of any writer’s talent and skill set as voice or ideas or knowing where commas really go. Writing IS editing, lots of people say. And I agree. You’ll never get it right the first time. And that’s ok.

Happy new year, my friends. PLEASE don’t stop wearing your masks. PLEASE get the vaccine when you can and talk to your friends and family to be sure they get it, too. One day we’re going to have a big meet up (in NYC probs, sorry) but we CAN’T if we don’t END THE PANDEMIC. Your actions matter.

XOXOXOXOX,

Kate