Goodreads asked Nicola Sinclair:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Nicola Sinclair Don't edit! At least not straight away. Editing your work will just wastes time and makes you put off what you should be doing - writing. It can also be very demoralising as you realise that what you've written isn't perfect and, ultimately, it can make you doubt your abilities until you stop writing altogether.

Here's a news flash... NO author writes a perfect manuscript in their first draft. The purpose of the first draft is to get the story out of your head and onto the page. The ONLY thing you should be worried about with your first draft is making sure the plot works and the characters work, if you've achieved this by the end, then it's mission accomplished.

When you've completed the first draft... then you can edit. You can go back and fix plot holes, you can flesh out your characters and re-work your dialogue, you can add more descriptions or change something that doesn't fit properly, you can even re-write the entire story if you want. The point is that the first draft gives you something tangible to work on, something to improve upon. So don't worry about writing the perfect manuscript the first time around, concentrate instead on finishing your manuscript so you can perfect it afterwards.

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