learning Archives - Jeff Haws

While my next novel faces my editor’s red pen, I’ve been thinking about how to make this next book release better than my first one. Not that it was a disaster or anything, but I figure I should always try to improve. When you’re a self-published author, it’s all on you. So if you don’t find ways to improve, nobody’s gonna do it for you, and there’s plenty of competition ready to lap you if you’re moving slow.

So, I was looking back at what I did for that first book release, and I picked out three mistakes I want to make sure I don’t replicate. And, hey, if you’re an author, maybe you can learn from my stupid mistakes so that you don’t make the same ones. Because I’m a helper. [Read more…] about Three mistakes I made with my first book

I went into this book with the assumption that it’ll end up being between 80,000 and 100,000 words, which is pretty standard for a novel. In fact, 80,000-90,000 is even more in the sweet spot. Of course, I have no idea if things will work out like I planned, but it’s a pretty decent bet that’ll be my range.

As such, I’m halfway-ish there. On Monday night, I hit 40,000 words on my 25th day of writing, then 50,000 on the 28th day. Looking at what I’ve written and thinking about what’s left, I could see this being about a halfway point. But the characters could surprise the hell out of me and decide to do something I’m totally not anticipating. And, while that’d be kind of fun, I might have to take one of them aside and have a little conversation if they try to lead me too far astray at this point.

This is easily the furthest into a story I’ve ever been, and I’ve learned a lot during the process — particularly since I went into this not knowing hardly a damn thing. Here’s the 5 biggest lessons I’ve gotten so far: [Read more…] about 5 Lessons from Writing Half a Book

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