How to Edit Your Novel When Disaster Strikes

Your book is important. But sometimes, worthy interruptions will delay it for a while.

For the last few months, this podcast feed has been quiet. It went dark with no notice in mid-June.

I didn’t mean to disappear on you. In fact, I didn’t plan to pause the podcast at all.

But a family emergency struck, and all my best-laid plans for summer 2024 changed in a matter of hours.

This summer, I learned what it takes to edit when your world is in crisis.

Happily, for me and my family, the crisis is over. But emergencies are bound to happen to everyone at some point.

And so in today’s episode, I’m sharing my best advice for you and your editing should a crisis come to you.

In it, you’ll hear:

• What in the world happened to the podcast (and me) this summer,
• 5 tips for editing when you’re in crisis mode,
• And what you’ll hear on Your Next Draft this fall.

I hope you don’t need these tips for a long time. But if you do find your world falling apart around you, I hope these tips help you find a way forward for your story and yourself.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• When the crisis hit, I couldn’t keep up with the podcast, but I did share updates with my email newsletter subscribers. Want to get all the episodes of Your Next Draft, plus editing tips that you won’t hear on the podcast? Subscribe to my newsletter: alicesudlow.com/sceneworksheet

Transcript

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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 that you're facing. Give yourself the gift of time spent working on your story. Welcome back to your next draft. It has 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 is something that I am 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 is August now and I am back. I am 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 that 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 that you don't miss a thing. So let's get straight to it. Starting with. Where have I been for the last 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 that 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 number one 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 at several points 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, and 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. But the emergency is over the worst outcomes that we feared were avoided. And we are now on that path of recovery. And for me. Part of that recovery includes regaining all of that momentum that 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 that I am back back at my desk, back to my editing back on this mic. And I am so excited to be back. I still love editing you guys. So that's where I've been and why you haven't heard from me in awhile. I wanted to take a moment to share that because I think the 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 really 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 this was a really challenging summer for me. That said, I do want to share some practical editing tips here in this episode. So that's what we'll talk about next. What I learned this summer that you can apply to your own editing now. I learned a lot this summer. So much of it is not the topic of this podcast. You do not need to know all of the things that I learned about emergency passport, renewal or ventilators or coordinating international medical transportation. I learned. A lot of things. But what I do want to share is what I learned about editing during an emergency, Because I had to figure it out. I was in the middle of a crisis and I had to figure out what am I going to do in my editing? And it, my job for the duration of this crisis, however long, this lasts. I hope that you do not need these tips right now. I hope you don't need them for a long, long time. I hope you never need them. But if a crisis hits, I hope that these tips give you something helpful to work with. As you figure out how you're editing intersects within emergency. And how to keep moving during a crisis. So. Here are my top five tips for editing your novel when disaster strikes. The first tip is. Don't. Truly. Don't edit. Give yourself grace to pause your editing and take a break from it. Uh, crisis demands a lot from you. It is so, so draining physically, mentally, emotionally, It is exhausting. 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 towards your own immediate needs and towards the needs of the people closest to you. Give yourself permission. To put your editing down. 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 audio books, but I found it really difficult to write newsletters or to record podcast episodes. So I downloaded some fluffy lighthearted podcasts and audio books, and I listened to those. Maybe you'll also find that consuming content is easier than creating, or maybe you'll find that you need a different activity altogether. Whatever it is that you have access to, that feels easy and fun and restorative. Do that. The third tip is to notice your experience. When you're in crisis, you're probably living through something that you would never have chosen. If you could've picked from every option in the world. And I wish that no one ever had to go through it. That said, and I want to be super clear here. This is not like the bright side of crisis or anything. This is not trying to say the, the good, the positive that comes out of crisis. This is just acknowledging. Another thing that is also true about crisis. Your experience of crisis can increase your empathy for other people who experienced similar things. Whether those people are characters in your stories or humans that you know, in real life. I'm sure that you've heard that writing advice that says 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. Like I said, I know a lot about ventilators now, 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 that you know, and can speak to. This summer, I found it helpful to simply pay attention. And the deserve 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. Okay. So this fourth tip is for you. If you just really, really want to touch the pages of your manuscript and you have decided to ignore tips one and two, where I tell you that it is okay to put your editing aside. Here's the tip. If you are determined to edit. Break the big project of editing down into its simplest smallest parts. What is the littlest tiniest piece of editing than it is possible for you to do? Maybe the littlest task is to edit when seen. 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 will note here that you might find that it's actually really helpful it's for you to edit while you're 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. Uh, 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 and my editing 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 thin started to feel like a vacation from reality. And that's something that I hear consistently from the writers that 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 that you're facing. Give yourself the gift of time spent working on your story. And after all that, my fifth editing tip. Is the same as my first. Don't edit. Really. Truly. It is. Okay. Not to edit. While you were in crisis. Focus on your needs and the needs of the people around you. No, that your story is important. It matters. It is a meaningful project that is worthy of your time and attention. And sometimes we're, the 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 awhile 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. And there you have it. My five tips for how to edit your novel. When a crisis hits. Here they are again. One don't edit. It's okay. Focus on the crisis and your most immediate needs. Too. 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. Three. Notice your experience, both for the sake of writing, what you know, and for the sake of your own processing. For, 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. Five. 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 awhile. And your story will be waiting for you whenever you're ready to return. And on that note, let's talk about the return of the Euronext draft podcast and what I've got coming for you in the next few months. 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 my 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 throughout 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 of the editing. Goodness. Coming down the line. 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 from your next draft, but I also share editing tips that you won't hear here on the podcast. Plus when the crisis hit in June, I did not 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's going on. If you are not currently subscribed to my email newsletter, I would love to invite you to join. You can subscribe by going to Alice subtler.com/scene worksheet and entering your email. 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. So go to Alice solo.com/scene worksheet. Or find the link in the show notes. Also, if you're listening to this episode the week that it airs, I have even more for you. I have 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 go to Alice suburb. dot com slash scene worksheet and sign up for my newsletter. You'll also get that free mini course. 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. And my last big announcement for now, at least is that very soon I will 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 will be sharing all the details there first. The bottom line is. If you enjoy this podcast, if you missed it, when it went dark this summer, and if you want more editing resources for me. Subscribe to my email newsletter. Again, that link is Alice said, though.com/scene worksheet. I always feel a little bit like I'm running a telethon. When I share a link like this here on the podcast. Like, I'm just repeating myself a ton of times, but I want to make sure that it's super easy for you to find. And if you ever forget that link, you can absolutely go find it in the show notes as well. Okay. The last thing I want to say before I wrap this episode up is. Thank you. To those of you who are subscribed to my email newsletter and who received the email that I sent at the start of July explaining why there wouldn't be a new episode for awhile and who sent me so many kind replies. Thank you. I read every word and I appreciated every message so much. To those who have been checking on the podcast feed for your next draft and watching to catch a new episode, as soon as it drops. Thank you. I listened to a lot of podcasts and I know how easy it is for a podcast to slip out of mind when it stops producing new 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 the work of crafting excellent stories. Until next time. Happy editing.