8/18/11

Give It 100%

One hundred percent.

It looks different for everybody. For the first draft, it's about pouring out all your ideas - the good, the bad, the ugly - onto the paper. Spill it. Everything. Hold nothing back. Give it 100%.

For those of us editing, it means stopping when we see something wrong. It means sitting and pondering and crossing one's legs and taking a sip of water and you-can't-be-serious-am-I-still-on-that-sentence...without skipping ahead. Because this is when you give those words 100%. {Even if it means flipping through your mental thesaurus a dozen times over.}

For those of us critiquing/beta-ing, it means not ignoring. It means noticing a flaw and taking the time to word it in a way that no one ends up in tears. And it means time spent noticing good things and writing them down. Because encouragement gets books written. Give someone else's book the same 100% you would give your own.

For anyone querying, it means realizing how important the query is. Don't write it in a day. Don't write it in a week. Work that baby with just as much zeal and zest and gumption as you would the pages of your novel. Now is not the time to skimp or slide or chillax - give it 100%.

And if you keep that up...I foresee 100% success. :) So go, give it 100%.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aww, thanks for this. ^.^ I'm still in the first draft process, but I found this extremely encouraging.

Lydia Kang said...

That is such a great rallying cry for us! Thank you. :)