7. With Rest Comes Rejuvenation

The break I had between finishing the first draft, finding my first few jobs, and settling into a new rhythm was extremely helpful. No only for my mental health, but also for the health of the book.

Yes, the book continued to gnaw at me. Yes, I still wanted to get back into writing. But I just didn't feel the thrill. I didn't feel the passion. I was super excited to write it - don't get me wrong - but when I got home after a day's work, I just wanted to rest.

So that's what I did. But that doesn't mean that I stopped thinking about the book altogether. This period of rest and rejuvenation gave me many things.

First, it let my brain rest and reset. For all you out there who are hoping to write your own book, or create your amazing projects, or do the thing, I want to tell you just one piece of advice: don't do it unless you are enjoying yourself. If you're not in a good head space, take a break. If you don't feel excited to work on something you love, then you need to put the pencil down, step back, and give yourself the space you need away from your project.

As someone who plays a fair amount of video games with long grinding goals, it is so much better to just take a week, month, or even a year, to step back and take a break. It's better to take a pause than to force yourself to do something and end up hating it. Allow yourself that rest.

Second, it gave me ideas... LOTS of ideas. Just a change in perspective, setting, walk of life did me a world of good when it came to the creative process. I came up with off the cuff ideas that ended up making it into my final draft. Thoughts, concepts, world building, character relationships, and other inner workings of the world began trickling in as I sought my rest. I was in such a rush to write my first draft that I ended up neglecting or even skipping important story building steps that the world desperately needed.

The time I took away from this project let my mind find new angles to approach the narrative. It gave me new insights into how the world could work, but also why it worked that way. So I just jotted tons of notes down as they came to me and I just started saving them up. I knew I would thank myself later for giving me a pool of ideas and perspectives to draw from when I knew I would eventually return.

Third, it gave me my motivation back! After taking so many notes over months and months, it slowly started to draw me back in. That itch began to fester and it needed scratching. It all culminated in about a two week motivation jump start that put me right back into the swing of things.

I re-read large portions of the book. I took notes of things that needed fixing. I looked to see how my new ideas could fit in.

I was taking inventory, "Do I have the time to pick this up again?" "Will this part of the magic system work?" "What are my next steps?" "Am I ready and how far will this go?"

I started picking away at it, one piece at a time.

Another few months passed and I was feeling confident. I had added about 30% more book to the original draft! It wasn't like extra scenes or added chapters. Rather it was a more thorough building up of the world. Filling in plot holes, adjusting the characters to be clearer and sharp, fixing inconsistencies and explaining myself better.

It was time. I needed some outside eyes to look at this. I needed unbias perspectives to tell me how I can improve.

I asked for $200 to get ten print copies of Aether Guardian. For those of you reading who got those copies - you know who you are ;)

I desperately needed feedback. So I cleaned everything up, wrapped it in a physical copy and reached out to a handful of friends and family who I trusted would tear into this story and help refine it so it could be the best it could be!