Oh, thank you so much for sharing your journey! So glad you kept going and can now see how to improve Book 1 – that’s wonderful!!

If you keep moving and keep improving, you’re on the right track. It takes as long as it takes sometimes…

Yes! The tools you provide at One Stop for Writers do such a great job of lighting that path for writers, too!

Starting out as anti-plotting and editing-as-I-go, I wrote the first book of a series during Covid – then went right on and wrote four more. Then, I went back and read the first book and found it a mess.

Had they all been messes, I would have stopped right there – but they weren’t. Books Two, Three and Four (and, by then, a good bit of Book Five) were engaging and interesting stories. Even though they needed editing, I could see that, from one book to the next, my characters developed, grew and changed, my settings came to life and my plots became stronger. They weren’t perfect but I could see the potential in each one. Except Book One. The book I needed to set up an entire series was even worse than I feared and I didn’t know how to fix it.

Flash forward another year and many, many, many webinars, classes, books and bits of advice – not to mention the creation of a kinda, sorta plotting system that fits my needs – and I was able to revise and rewrite The Mess into something solid.

So yes: Book One did take forever and Book Two (and Three and Four and Five) did go much faster, but I think it was at least partially due to the plotting system I built and continue to adapt – that now includes revisions and editing work. I may never be a true plotter – but having a map does keep me from wandering in the wilderness too much.

Now, I’m going to hang your Next Steps on my board as a reminder that I need to rely on the objectivity and expertise of others to finish each journey.

So glad it helped. Keep Going!