The 5 Worst Mistakes I Made (So Far)

Hi fronds! How y'all doin?

[GIF: Bertie from "Tuca & Bertie" watering a sad cactus with water, coffee, and soda, asking "You thirsty? Is this helping?"]

Now that you've got all the deets of my Draft Zero to Writing Hero Journey, I thought I'd summarize my biggest mistakes. Because I'M an ADULT and I can LEARN from my MISTAKES.

Or, you know, at least you can. I already made the mistakes and it's kinda too late for me.

1) Thinking I was ready to query before I was actually ready.

This one is the big one. I figured as soon as I was done writing, it was Time. (Narrator: "It was not time.") Yeah, I was very, very wrong about this one. I mean, look at how many times I had to revise GIRLS BREAK THINGS - at least seven! Writing a perfect first draft is a fallacy.

If I had spent more time revising my YA fantasy before I began querying, I might have had some success with it. Instead, I wasted a lot of time trying to query something that wasn't query-ready.

Lesson Learned: Revise, get feedback, revise some more. Basically, revise until the word makes you want to puke.

[GIF: Tired penguin flipping pages of a book.]

2) Revising without a plan.

Before I started working with CPs and beta readers on my YA fantasy, I did some revisions on my own. I mostly went through and did line edits, or lightly revised the phrasing of various paragraphs. While this did make my manuscript easier to read, it didn't make it a better story.

My flaw was that I didn't create a goal for each round of revision. I didn't know what I was working toward other than "making the manuscript better." As a result, I wasted a lot of time and effort on revisions that were cosmetic rather than structural. It would have been fine to make those edits along the way, but they should have been secondary to the larger revisions that the manuscript desperately needed.

Lesson Learned: Set one or more goals for each round of revision, such as "improve the story arc between characters A and B," or "increase the tension throughout Act 2." 

[GIF: Conan O'Brien saying "Some say a waste of time, others say an incredible waste of time"]

3) Querying my "dream agents" first.

This is another one that seemed like a good idea at the time. When I first started querying my YA fantasy, I went straight to the agents I really wanted to work with. See Mistake #1 for why this was a bad idea.

The problem this caused was that I had already sent my worst version of my manuscript to these agents. By the time I'd gone through eight rounds of revision and had a far better version, I couldn't send it to them because I'd already done so. I should have started with my "middle-of-the-pack agents" to give myself a chance to find my query footing.

Lesson Learned: The learning curve is steep, and this is normal. It's okay to send some "practice" queries, as long as the people you send them to are people you're willing to work with.

[GIF: Man saying "At the time it sounded like a good idea"]

4) Trying to do too much at once.

I've said it time and time again: I'm a people-pleaser. I want to work with as many people as possible, and I want people to think of me as someone dependable and level-headed. So, I was really excited to become a critique partner for fellow writers. I love picking apart plot and character and setting, and I thought it would be just great to get some notes in return for my critique. 

However, because I like doing this kind of thing so much, I agreed to take on way too many other manuscripts. I was working with eight to ten other writers, which left me completely stressed out and with no time to work on my manuscript. 

Lesson Learned: Only take on as much as you can handle while saving time for yourself. Try to max out CP and beta reading at three to five.

[GIF: Audrey Hepburn saying "It's too much"]

5) Putting too much stock in what my CPs and beta readers said.

I know, this seems like the opposite of what you should do. CPs and beta readers are there to help; why would it be a bad thing to listen to them? Well, I kinda got myself into trouble by trying to take everyone's notes, even when two CPs were totally at odds - like if one loved a particular scene, the other hated it; if one thought a side character was totally necessary, the other thought they should be cut from the manuscript entirely.

In the same vein, I spent way too long giving notes to a CP who was a bad match for me. They didn't understand what I was trying to accomplish with my manuscript, they only gave criticism without constructive notes, and they even got the gender of one of the main characters completely wrong. I wasted far too many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to make them happy.

It took forever for me to remember that, at the end of the day, this is MY manuscript. The final decision is mine.

Lesson Learned: CPs and beta readers are there to help, but they're not the be-all and end-all. Ultimately, it's up to the writer to decide who to listen to and what notes to take.

[GIF: Gwen Stefani singing "It's my life"]