Started banging out my 3rd novel last Friday:
“Demon Crossfire”
It’s the third part of the “Enoch Wars” series (7 books planned), and so far it’s going exactly as “chaotically planned” as I’d expected. By that I mean, whenever I write a novel, the first draft is a confusing mess of half completed ideas, clumsy sentences, plot contradictions, and editorial lapses (i.e. forgetting character names, street names, etc).
I used to worry about this stuff.
But, not no more.
Why?
Because of a little trick I learned while writing the first two novels — that also happens to work if you are writing a long form sales pitch.
(Especially long video scripts).
And that thing is:
When I finish a chapter (I write one chapter per day), I loosely bullet point what will be in the next chapter before finishing for that day. That way, I don’t sit there all night wondering and obsessing about it. I can let go of the story from my conscious mind which (according to the late copywriter Gene Schwartz) only holds 7 memory “bytes.” Great for solving problems, syllogisms, etc, but terrible for getting actual ideas. The idea part is what your subconscious brain is for. When I let go of the story the rest of the day and night, and will myself not to think about it, all kinds of ideas start pouring into my brain the next day, making it a super easy and fast process.
And, making the story a helluva lot better, to boot.
Anyway, important writer safety tip.
That is, if you value your sanity.
To check out the other books in the series, go to:
Ben Settle
