Post-revisions, I snoopy-dance and obsessively check for agent email and drive my family crazy I take a short break to read/study writing craft books. This productive period is after a MAJOR reading binge of non-craft books…the TBR pile is demolished as a reward. And chocolate, of course.

AFTER the book and chocolate binge, I get all zen-ish, looking for enlightenment. Just as each book has a theme, the writing of the book also has a theme (when you look back on the process…hard to recognize while you’re in the midst!) We each can take away something different from a craft book depending on skill level. For me, after a book is finished, my mind’s ready for a little retrospective before diving into the next project. Picking the subject of a writing craft book is easy after thinking back on the writing of THIS book.

(Little tangent….in the SW world, Agile teams do the same, the focus is always improving and becoming more efficient…same thing goals, I’d say!)

The questions to ask yourself are, for the writing and revising of this book:

• What worked?
• What didn’t work?
• What do I need to start doing?

The first two questions are related…you may have made your weekly word count goals but found the content wasn’t always usable post-first-draft. Or you may have tried a new structure for developing your story and realized a major weakness was characters.

The what-craft-book-topic usually comes out of these first two questions

The third question is more focused on your writing process. Did the morning writing/editing sessions work better than the evenings? Does a hard weekly word count goal keep you on track? Did you go into this book plotter or pantster style?