My journey to learning how to take the pressure out of writing began six years ago. I was a freshman in college with a dream of becoming an author. There was just one problem. I had no idea how to actually write a book.
Sure, I had written stories before (mostly novellas, short stories, and fanfiction), but I wanted to write a “real” book, one I could submit to agents and eventually publish. I knew nothing I had written before would work for that goal.
So, I decided to start a new project, one that I was excited about but also one that I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to publish. I decided this book, Project Pan, would be my “practice book”—a book I could write to learn how to write a book.
I was prepared to make mistakes and go through tons of drafts (both of which I did). But writing Project Pan turned out to be the best thing I had ever done for my writing.
So, what exactly is a practice book, how did it take the pressure out of writing and improve my writing, and how can it improve yours? Let’s dive in and find out.
What Is a Practice Book?
I’ve never heard anyone else use this term the way I am, so let me tell you what I mean by “practice book”. As the name suggests, this book is all about practicing writing.
Just like a violinist practices their scales or a quarterback practices their throws, writers need to practice too.
I think we forget that sometimes. We have writing prompts and exercises, but those often focus on one aspect of writing. However, a practice book ties together all the aspects of writing required to produce a full-length manuscript.
If a violinist only ever practiced sections of their concerto but never ran through the whole thing with the orchestra, it wouldn’t come out right. The transitions would be clunky. The piece wouldn’t build the right way. And the violinist and the orchestra would get out of sync. That’s why the violinist and the orchestra rehearse.
And that’s the purpose of a practice book: to rehearse and take the pressure out of writing.
How Does a Practice Book Take the Pressure Out of Writing?
As with a rehearsal, a practice book can take the pressure out of writing by creating a space where it is okay to make mistakes, a space where writers can learn without the burden of being perfect.
It’s similar to how many writers talk about zero drafts or first drafts.
Neil Gaiman has said, “Write down everything that happens in the story, and then in your second draft make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.”
And Shannon Hale has said, “When writing a first draft, I have to remind myself constantly that I’m only shoveling sand into a box so later I can build castles.”
These reminders take the pressure away from the first draft, which is so important. But I’ve found myself putting pressure on the second draft, the third draft, the fourth, and so on.
If you’ve already written a book (or more than one), a practice book might not help you in the same way that it will help someone who has never written a book but wants to. But I do think the mindset of practicing can help you.
To all you new writers who feel pressure about writing your first draft, second, third, or however many it takes, I would recommend writing a practice book.
Not only does it take the pressure off the first draft, but it also takes the pressure off the entire process. Because you’re just practicing.
And if, in practicing, you learn how to write a full-length book, great! You can proceed to publish it, or you can take the skills you’ve learned and write another book.
What Are the Benefits of Writing a Practice Book?
Besides relieving the pressure of writing a perfect book, what else can you learn from writing a practice book? Here are the 6 lessons I learned from writing a practice book.
My Writing Routine
Before I wrote Project Pan, I had no writing routine. I wrote when I felt like it and when I had time. This worked for me while I was in high school. But when I got to college I had little time and even less desire to write. I was an English major, which meant that my brain was already filled with the books I was reading and the papers I was writing for my classes.
Somehow, I managed to get a first draft of Project Pan. This was partly because of a goal I set for myself during the summer after my sophomore year. The goal was to write at least 100 words a day. This might seem like a small goal, but at the time, I had a full-time summer job that didn’t leave me with a lot of energy, so it was a huge stepping stone.
And though I think I missed a couple of days here and there, I did it. When school started again, I was much further into my first draft, and it made it easier to write during the semester.
Through this, I learned that I could write during the summers and sometimes on the weekends during school. But more importantly, I learned how to make time to write even when I was busy.
What Kind of Writer I am
Through writing Project Pan, I also learned that I am a pantser or discovery writer, meaning I don’t like to plan or outline too much of the story beforehand.
Back when I started this project, I don’t think I outlined anything. Whenever I tried to, I could only get myself to outline a couple of chapters or some of the major points of the story, and I didn’t usually stick to whatever I had planned.
I outline a bit more than I used to back then, but to this day, I don’t think I’ve ever outlined a whole book with all of the beats or major points of the story before I’ve written it. I see the value of outlining, but it just hasn’t worked for me.
Through writing a practice book, you can learn if you lean more toward outlining or pantsing, or if you’re somewhere in between. Knowing what kind of writer you are will help you to work with the natural way that you write. Your stories will flow more easily.
Consistency
Along with learning about my process, my practice book taught me to write consistently, which may be the thing that has improved my writing the most over the years.
The summer after my sophomore year taught me that it was possible to write consistently, so the next summer, I decided to take it up a notch.
In a seemingly perfect storm—or whatever the opposite of a perfect storm is since this all worked out in my favor—I finished the first draft of Project Pan in December 2019 and the second draft at the beginning of March 2020 (though I wouldn’t count this second draft as a second draft now; it was more of a read-through where I edited some things).
After the pandemic hit that year, I wasn’t able to do the full-time summer job I had been planning on. So when the school semester finished at the end of April, I found myself working a part-time job for my university’s library that required almost no brain power—freeing up my mind to think about writing and my time to do the writing.
I set another goal to write every day that summer, this time without a word count goal. The writing went so much faster once I got into the groove. This was technically the third draft, but I was making some major changes to the story and writing a lot of it from scratch.
I finished that draft about halfway through the summer with a word count twice as long as the last draft (which had been barely 50k). And—most excitingly—it was the first time I felt like my writing actually read like a book. Still not a good book, mind you, but a book, nonetheless.
This solidified my ability to write consistently. I knew how to get into the habit. It felt so good to be working on my book nearly every day. I was truly in the story, thinking about it constantly and always planning when I could work on it next.
Feedback
It was about this time that I attended my first writing conference (online). The conference put together a writing group meet-up, where attendees could talk to different writers and set up writing groups.
I’d never been in a writing group like this, but I’d heard authors, particularly Brandon Sanderson, say how helpful they are. So I joined one.
While I’d gotten feedback and been critiqued in an academic setting before (kind of hard to avoid it as an English major), this was the first time I’d put my personal writing out there specifically for others to critique.
And let me tell you, it wasn’t always easy, but it improved my writing drastically. It was so useful to have people to discuss different aspects of the story with and point out when something wasn’t working. These people endured my cringy early draft and made it a whole lot less cringy (thank you).
The Importance of Taking Breaks
Remember when I mentioned mistakes earlier? Yeah, this was one of them.
During this time, I was so excited about writing. I never wanted to take breaks. I would finish a draft and wait perhaps a week before diving into the next draft.
This was not enough time to let the story sit or gain the perspective I needed to make the most of the next draft. I think it caused the story to take more drafts than it actually needed. It’s probably also the cause of the crazy word count—at one point the story got up to 140k!
After a couple of drafts like this, I got sick of the story. That’s normal, but I think this was on another level. I was burnt out. I hadn’t really worked on any other personal project for a couple of years (save for one I worked on for a class, but it was for school so it only sort of counted as a personal project).
By this time, I started thinking about publishing Project Pan, which put pressure on it again. However, by this point, I had learned so much from this practice book that I figured I might as well learn about the querying process and how to get it ready for publication.
But I knew I couldn’t query it at 140,000 words. And I also knew I couldn’t do another revision—just the thought of reading the book filled me with dread.
So I took my first real longer break from this story. I didn’t touch it for five months, a glorious five months where I researched querying and agents and worked on another project.
When it was finally time to work on Project Pan again, that feeling was gone. I was excited to work on it again, and I had ideas for how to lower the word count. It’s amazing what breaks can do.
How to Let Go
Though some pressure had built as the number of drafts had grown, I still didn’t feel the pressure I knew I would feel if I hadn’t gone into this project thinking of it as a practice book. But going into this draft, I felt more pressure to make this the last draft. It was draft 8 after all, and I thought, “Shouldn’t the book be done by now?”
At the end of that draft, I had cut 18,000 words—quite a feat—but not really enough to query the book. I would need a much longer break before doing another draft to cut more words. So I decided to query it anyway.
For practice. That’s right. This was still my practice book. I’d never queried before, so I figured I might as well try it out. I knew it was extremely unlikely that any agent would be interested in a 122k debut novel, but I didn’t feel any pressure.
Sure, I was a little nervous, but I was also back to how I felt at the beginning of this whole process. I was excited about the book—I thought it would be great if it got picked up by an agent—but if it didn’t happen, I was okay with that too.
Though there were times when I felt like I needed to keep working on the book to make it perfect, I realized it would never be perfect. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect book—at least not to the person who wrote it.
So, I submitted it to agents. And I was right; no agents were interested in a book that long. But now, I know how to query. And, I think more importantly, I know I can let go of this book.
Some might say that nothing came of Project Pan, that I wasted five years on this project. But I disagree with that wholeheartedly. So it might never get published. That’s okay. I learned what I needed to from this practice book—I learned how to write a book!
If you’ve never written a book and you want to or if you feel a lot of pressure to make your writing perfect, I highly recommend writing a practice book. Take the pressure out of writing. Write to practice. Write to learn.
Happy writing!
2 responses to “How to Take the Pressure Out of Writing—Why You Should Write a Practice Book”
It’s amazing in support of me to have a website, which is valuable in support
of my experience. thanks admin
You’re welcome. I’m glad you find value in it!