Keeping it Real: Crisis of Overcommitment

One of the discoveries you will make as you grow in your writing is learning the way you work best. It's much like those tests they give you in school to determine the career path that best suits your personality and strengths. Some can't handle stress and don't muli-task well, these are the writers who should target writing one or two manuscripts a year. Others focus best and find themselves fresher when they have two or three books going at one time.

There are myriad little details seasoned writers and new authors often don't consider before contractually over-committing themselves. Let's take two little known necessities--edits and galleys--and get a glimpse of how these things can add to the stress level of an overcommitted author.

Edits are the second stage of a contracted manuscript's life. Let's say you have met your deadline for book number one and turned it in. While you are working on your second manuscript, the publisher has copy-editors, and sometimes content-editors, going over your first manuscript and writing a letter for you of proposed changes they want to see. These letters can be two pages, or ten. Oy! To top it off, you have a week to turn them in.

Galleys are the same way. This term refers to the last stage a manuscript goes through before it is printed. These, too, have a tendency to show up out of nowhere and often a short turn-around time is requested of you by the editor. And since it is your last chance to correct errors or typos, it is not the time to get sloppy with your proofing. No pressure.

Add to all this the trials of life and love and you could have more on your plate than you can handle. The key to keeping yourself at peak efficiency is discovering how you work best and knowing what you can handle, then planning accordingly. You want to set a writing schedule that helps you achieve your goals with minimal stress.

Have you ever had a moment when you didn't plan ahead and your creativity was stifled as a result? What kind of writer are you—one book a year or two or three at a time?