By:
Nat Russo
I
know what you're doing. You're sitting there staring at your laptop screen.
Your're probably making this face:
And
you're getting nowhere. If this is you, keep reading. There are three things
you can do right now to fix your manuscript problems.
Step
1: Quantify the Problem
Those
of you who have followed me for a while know that in addition to being a
writer, I'm also a software engineer. Software engineers—the good ones at
least—are big on process. Software engineering, on the other hand,
is big on bugs. It's inevitable. We put a bunch of smart people in a room
together and have them develop elaborate computer program designs. What could
go wrong?
For
starters, those "smart people" all have the same trait in
common. They're human. Humans make mistakes. More so,
it seems, when a computer is involved.
There's
a truism in software development: we cannot fix a bug unless we can
reproduce it. It's just that simple. Anything else is a guess. An educated guess,
perhaps, but a guess nonetheless.
In
other words, we must first know what is wrong. I'm not
talking about the effect. I'm talking about the root
cause. What you may not realize is that this also holds true for
writing. You can't fix it if you don't know what's wrong.
You
may not be able to determine this yourself. If you're beating your head against
the monitor and you just can't figure it out, don't be afraid to share it with
a trusted reader. An objective person may be able to shed some light on it for
you. But know this: until you know specifically what is wrong,
you won't be able to fix it. So ask for help if you need it. The sooner the
better.
Step
2: Develop a Plan of Attack
Read the full article HERE!
~*~
If
you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they
are again:
- One Scissor? http://ow.ly/uCyOt Daily Writing Tips
- Three Important Steps to Building a Killer Tribe | Goins, Writer http://ow.ly/uCQBS
- Lessons Publishers Can Learn From Harlequin’s Annual Results | The Passive Voice http://ow.ly/uD0tu
- Writability: Discussion: Do Short Chapters Make You Read More? http://ow.ly/uD18d
- The Handwritten Note http://ow.ly/uDnIr Daily Writing Tips "The Handwritten note stands out like a raven in the snow."
- Writer Unboxed » Seasonal Writing Disorder http://ow.ly/uDpIH
- Publishers Weekly Ignores The Real Scandal At LA Times Festival of Books | David Gaughran http://ow.ly/uDpTx
- BookMarketingBuzzBlog: Book Marketing Twitter Toolkit http://ow.ly/uDq1o
- Amazon looks to pump up Kindle sales with monthly payments | The Passive Voice | http://ow.ly/uDqcA
- Building a Wordpress Author Website in 6 simple steps http://ow.ly/uDqml
- 10 Powerful Tips to Increase Fan Engagement on Facebook http://ow.ly/uDqCR
- A Writer's Journey: 3 Easy Steps to Fix Your Manuscript http://ow.ly/uDqTR
- Online Content Generation: Minute By Minute - Heidi Cohen http://ow.ly/uDr0s
- Alexandra Sokoloff: Groundhog Day: Full Story Structure Breakdown http://ow.ly/uDtMS
- What I Learned About Networking at AWP « WriterlandWriterland http://ow.ly/uDtUr
- The New Publishing Platform on LinkedIn: Why You Should Care and How to Contribute | Authority Publishing | http://ow.ly/uDtYM
- Anne R. Allen's Blog: Are You Ignoring This Simple Platform-Building Tool? How to Comment on a Blog http://ow.ly/uDub2
- Smashwords: Indie Ebook Author Community to Earn More than Traditional Ebook Authors http://ow.ly/uDud7
- The Varied Emotional Stages Of Writing A Book « terribleminds: chuck wendig http://ow.ly/uDNKm
- Fiction University (The Other Side of the Story): Testing...Testing...is This Query On? Diagnosing Problem Stories http://ow.ly/uDOTW
- The Changing Role of Literary Agents and New Submission Guidelines: Read Before You Query (or Self-Publish) http://ow.ly/uDUGL
No comments:
Post a Comment