Now, I will preface this email with the following:
There is no one way to do anything in this world, and that is especially true of writing.
There are so many story structures one can mould their tale around, and so many ways from which to tell it (type, dictation, hell, even longhand is making a return!)…
Yet, despite the sheer abundance of pathways, there is also a metric tonne of dogmatic advice that, in my totally uncertified opinion, is Bollocks.
^ Like "never breaking grammar rules."
Or, my personal favourite, and the one that blighted me for so long:
Write fast, edit slow.
🤢🤢🤢
Oh, I cannot tell you how much this one irks me.
Yes, it's important to ensure your work is tidy and the best you can make it, blah, blah, blah…
But (you knew it was coming)…
There comes a time when those endless rounds of revisions become procrastination disguised as "work."
And as I like to say:
You cannot hide behind revisions forever.
At some point, you've got to let the damn bird fly.
(This applies to most things in life, too.)
Yet, there is no small number of cultists—I mean, well-meaning scribes—who lament the fast release of books as being equal to crap work, which is utter drivel.
Even if there was some smidge of truth to this myth (there isn't)…
At this stage of my life, I'd rather be a prolific "good" writer than a slow "great" one.
Perhaps that will change when I adopt the slow pace of life in Cyprus and don my tight, yellow budgie smugglers.
For now, though, I'd rather tell fast, fun, bingeable (and yes, tidy) stories that people can enjoy across a year rather than publishing something every 12 months or longer.
Noooooo danke.
And while I've certainly not been the Milky Bar Kid of prolific writing these past couple of years with my transition into parenthood and all…
THAT TIDE IS TURNING.
Book 6 of TDR is now with my editor, and Book 7's outline is on the cusp of completion, with words soon to spill onto a blank page.
So stay tuneth, Legionnaire.
Lots more is surely to cometh.
And if you're not yet a seasoned explorer of The Divided Region, what in the name of Speedos are you doing?
Go and grab all five books here:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/TDR-Bundle
Stay classy,
DJJW