Well, that was very fun. And kind of hectic, and stressful, but in the end, looking back on it, this built up good habits for me. Habits that I hope I won’t lose.

But hey! What’s next after NaNoWriMo?

• I’m going to let my manuscript rest for a while. This is so that I can come back to it cold, and be able to *shudder* look at it as a reader rather than as a writer still too close to the text. It’s advice I hear from all over, and it makes sense.

  And I’ve cringed enough during NaNoWriMo, gods know.

• I’m going to read a few books on writing. I’ll also blog about the experience to keep myself honest about, well, actually reading these rather than skimming them.

  Planned books are:

  • Plot & Structure, by James Scott Bell, currently in progress.
  • Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and David King.
  • Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, by Lawrence Block.

  I think I can do roughly a book a week, not necessarily a chapter a day, and the last book I’ll likely read into my revision days.

• Developing the world. Believe me, I didn’t start out with a built world. Or character designs. Or even a list of gods—I cribbed from real gods for a while, but relied on memory and, as a result, well, it’s rather OOC fan fiction. I’ve already written up in my spreadsheet a list of concepts that need to be fleshed out, and definitely I need to both develop and build up my god roster.

• Print out the manuscript, killing a tree. Sit down with the manuscript and start to make notes, and also revise the plot grid—which is a spreadsheet, with time for rows and characters for columns, and sections for each act, and not something I actually found from any writing advice.

• Write up the second draft, using the print manuscript for reference.

• Anyone up for beta reading in February?