Young Writers Society

So I'm scared that as I start revising my novel, reading books other than mine time and novel revising time will start conficting with each other. What's a good ratios for how mucime you should spend revising to how much time you should spend reading?

I don't think there's any established ratio for this, unfortunately. I'd say a lot depends on what your goals are for your novel and for your writing in general, and where you feel you're at in your writing, and your writing style.

For instance, if you want to publish the sucker and do it soon and feel you're ready, just need to revise, I'd say you probably want to invest most of your time in rewriting and not so much in reading. Reading is always important, but that won't get your novel rewritten. Sometimes you just have to buckle down and fix stuff even if you'd rather just go read.

But, if you're not that serious yet, then reading is even more important, especially if you're reading actively, and maybe 50/50 is good.

In general, I'd say the ideal ratio is whatever makes you feel like you're making steady rewriting process but still gives you time to read. I'd advise against doing something like, "Okay, it's 4 pm, I'll read until 6 and then rewrite until 8" because that would stress me out, at least (don't know about you), and make me dislike both reading and the rewriting.

And that's another important thing to remember--enjoy both as much as possible. Even if you are screaming and cursing your novel, you should still be enjoying the process deep down, and if you're not it might be time to take a break and eat a cookie. Or three.

Finally, I'd say to look at it on a weekly basis rather than a daily one. At the end of the week, look back. If you're happy (be realistic!) with how much you've rewritten, chances are you've struck a good balance. But if you think, "Wow, that was unproductive," you might want to buckle down more.

I hope this helps!

Rach

That really did help, thanks rachaelelg! Makes a lot of sense.