I had so much fun taking over my publisher’s (Little, Brown’s) Instagram page last Thursday, two days after my book, The Wedding Thief, came out. It was great connecting with readers and with other authors about the book and about writing in general.
The post that got the most views was a photo of a manuscript page from an early draft. There were notes in the margin (through the comments function in Word), notes in pen, and notes on yellow stickies. As I explained in the post, that page didn’t even make it into the finished book. Between that version and the final, the manuscript went on a diet and lost 90 pages! A lot of weight to lose, but definitely better for the book’s overall health.
It was really interesting to hear from other writers about their writing process and to get their reactions to mine. No two writers go about it the same way. And we all have tips and tricks that we can learn from one another. A good friend of mine writes all the dialog for her scenes first, then fills in the action, observation, internal narrative, etc. After she passed that idea onto me, I started using it here and there as a way to vary my own process.
In case you’re wondering, the post that got the second highest number of views was the one of our Tonkinese cat, Cinnamon (who doubles as my assistant), curled up and asleep next to a little outline I build as I add each chapter. And he didn’t even know he was being featured!
