Old Skills and New Skills

We’ve reached the middle of January and the new year has yet to shed all of it’s glitter and shine. It’s a great time to pursue goals and think about trying new things…like new writing skills? This week we’re asking if we try new skills each year or with each book. 

To date, I’ve written four complete novels and roughly a dozen intros with synopses. Over the years I’ve found my writing groove: best time of day, chapter structure, outlining, and word count expectations. All of this was determined by use of a spreadsheet. I don’t sit down to work on any novel without first pulling up its spreadsheet. 

Yes, I’m a Virgo. I’ve got spreadsheet skills.

I’m not going to say I won’t learn new tricks or processes, because I fully expect to. I want to grow as an author, I don’t know how you can write multiple novels without growth, though I expect it to be a gradual thing. For now, I do feel comfortable with my writing skills and how I go about turning thought into book. At this time I’m not looking for new skills, I’m looking to strengthen the ones I’ve got. 

My spreadsheets—they’ll continue to be tweaked as I determine which parameters need to be tracked more closely. My plotting graph—that’ll stay the same handy form that it is. And Scrivener—it’s capable of gobs of options I don’t use, but the ones I do are irreplaceable. 

That’s the rundown on my writing skills. How about yours, do you try out anything new when you start a new manuscript?