The writing cycle is the ongoing journey every writer is on and what we’ve been looking at in this Steps To Success novel writing series.
Last month we talked about publishing our writing, which can seem like the “finish line” of sorts. Some may say we’ve reached the end of the writing journey.
But really it’s only the beginning.
That’s why I’m excited to be wrapping up this series as we begin a new year! Because it’s not really the end of our writing- it’s also just the next step of the writing adventure.
The writer’s life is a revolving door of ideas and projects, successes and failures. We send one story out to be published, we have another one in the works. Brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing- it never ends.
The writer’s life is a constant cycle on repeat.
Today we’re talking about the importance of continuing on through this cycle. To start with, we’ll review where we’ve been… because it’s where we’ll be heading back again.
Steps To Success: Writing Your Story
The Steps to Success series designed to walk us through the process of writing a novel from beginning to end. As always, personal preferences and experiences differ. This guide is based in part on my own experiences as well as from authors I have worked with and/or learned from along the way.
- Getting Started (where we look at our goals for writing and find our starting point)
- Developing Content (where we dig a bit deeper into what story we want to tell)
- Creating an Outline (where we brainstorm the basic structure of our story)
- The First Draft (where we get our writing plans in place and start our story)
- Rest (where we set our writing aside to breathe)
- Revising Our Writing (where we look at the revision process)
- Beta Reading (where we get feedback on our writing)
- Editing (where we look into editing our work)
- Publishing (where we check out options for publishing our writing)
Each of these steps is incredibly important, though all of our experiences with the process will be different. We may spend 3 weeks on our outline or 3 months.
There’s no “right” or “wrong” answer here.
Rather, this is a road map to provide guidance but still allow room for each of us to work as we will. These are simply core building blocks that are common among many writers and can be used to create and strengthen great stories.
The Writing Cycle
We may be completing this series but the fun doesn’t end yet!
Depending on your writing goals and motivations, you may have more stories to write.
For many writers, it can take years and multiple books before signing with a publisher or reaching seller list. If we want to support ourselves financially it can take time before that’s a reality. Maybe you just have so many ideas spilling throughout your mind that you couldn’t possibly stop writing now.
The writing life never comes to an end!
This isn’t to discourage you, rather it’s to encourage you to stay strong.
Writing is a process. A gloriously never ending process.
As we send drafts to beta readers we can begin brainstorming our goals for our next project. While we wait to hear back from agents we can start outlining the next story.
And that’s why I wanted to close this series off with a both a reminder of where we’ve been (we’ve covered a lot of ground!) but also a reminder of the mindset that will keep us stepping forward and lead to our success.
The cycle of writing continues on and we will not only carry on but we will thrive.
We will have different seasons where our writing changes but as we persist we will continue to grow, improve, and create marvelous stories.
I believe in you, dear writer! Best of luck.
What about you? Where are you in the writing process today?
Thanks for checking out the Steps To Success: Writing Your Novel series! Keep an eye out for the new series coming soon on how to set up an author website. 🙂
