"What's it Like Writing a Novel?"

There are many things I would never contemplate doing, such as skydiving or cooking (kidding, sort of). Likewise, a lot of people can't imagine writing a whole novel. Some think it's a kind of magical talent; either you have it or you don't. That's insane. First of all, writing a book doesn't prove you "have it". If it did, every published work would be a best seller. Of course, there are those folks who truly believe they have it, but that's disproven by the sheer number of awful books populating Amazon's pages.

What someone who does write a novel has is stick-to-itiveness. Contrary to popular opinion, one can't sit down at their keyboard and whip out a complete manuscript effortlessly. At least I can't. It's like the old movie where a man rips the last sheet of paper out of his typewriter, bolts out of his chair and proclaims, "Done!" while wafting the page above his head in victory. 

In fact, I don't know that I've ever shouted or whispered or acted out the word "done", like a guy at a wedding dance when the DJ starts spinning "YMCA". The best I could ever do was, "I guess it's done". Except it never truly is. There's always something nagging at me, even after slogging through the editing ritual.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm not an outliner, so I'm just going to talk about how I do it. I start with a (very) loose premise, most often a female who is working some type of job that she really doesn't like. Or she likes her job, but either it's going nowhere or something happens that forces her to search out a new path. I'm big on impulsivity, and that means that my main character often makes a spur-of-the-moment decision that leads to negative consequences. That's my hook. That's where conflict arises. (Gotta have conflict folks.)

 And really, that's it. 

That's when I have to let my imagination kick in. I have absolutely no idea where the story is heading at that point.

When I was a beginner trying to write a novel, I made the mistake (for me) of deciding what the story would be about. I'm a builder, not an architect. Knowing in advance where the story would end up created so many issues, namely filler, and lots of it. I was so driven to get to that very precise conclusion that I was driving at 50 mph straight toward a concrete wall. Yet I knew that no literary agent would even cast a glance at a novel that was less than 80,000 words. So, what to do? Pad the manuscript!

Thus, here's the second thing an author needs: study. Especially a newborn baby author. I was so cocksure of my writing ability that I figured anyone who was at least semi-literate could whip out a novel; no sweat. Strangely, there's more to writing than knowing how to string a sentence together, than knowing how to conjugate verbs.

I studied a lot, not "studied" in its formal sense; I didn't enroll in a writing class, but I read a bunch of advice, varied advice; advice on topics I didn't necessarily even care about. But taken together, all those bits eventually congealed. I studied for years. I tend to denigrate a certain writer's forum, which I never visit anymore due to unrelated aggravations, but man, I used to read the threads a couple of times a day to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Not all of the advice was helpful. A big cliche in that world is that if you find yourself "writing short", you need to create a subplot. I wasn't totally on board with that, because once I create a main character, it's her journey I'm invested in; not some peripheral supporting player's. I write in first person limited point of view, meaning I only know what the MC sees and feels. Back then, I was writing in third person limited; same perspective, just different pronouns. Was I suddenly supposed to get inside someone else's head? That's great and all; a lot of good novels have been written that way. It just wasn't good for me. My brain doesn't go there. 

In my third novel, frustrated by my word deficit, I did include a subplot of sorts, but it involved the main character; just a different aspect of her life aside from the primary conflict. Looking back, I can't say I like the result. 

What was missing in all three of those novels was a story that was enticing enough to flow naturally. Ideas. And lots of them. 

A person who thinks they might want to dabble in novel writing will generally write one (short) chapter and...well, that's it. "I had this great idea in my head, but I've now written it." That's not even a short story, dude.

This leads me to the fourth attribute a writer needs: discipline. My writing sessions were limited out of necessity. When I was writing Running From Herself, I wrote three days a week for three hours each session. Occasionally I'd slip in a sentence or two on off days, just so I wouldn't forget a new brainstorm, but if I was going to write, I needed time to write; not some half-thought every couple of days with no time to develop it. 

However, sometimes my brain balked at working when it was scheduled to; kind of like it is at a real job. "But I don't wanna go to work!" Plus, some days I had absolutely nothing. Generally that was because I'd written myself into a dead end in the previous session. I had to tell myself, this is your writing day. You have to do it. And so I did. Sometimes those three hours amounted to me doodling around with an idea, trying to take it somewhere good, then suddenly sparking on an offshoot idea that turned out to be pretty fantastic. No, it didn't always work that way, but had I not forced myself, kicking and screaming, to sit down at my keyboard, those fantastic ideas would never have happened.

Dedication also ties into that. If you've latched onto a concept you like, you have to be dedicated enough to see it through. Unlike the guy who writes one chapter and gives up, if the story grabs you, it deserves to be written to its conclusion. If you really, really like it, it demands to be written, if only for you to "find out" how it ends. (In my case, literally find out, because as I noted, none of my stories are planned.)

I've started a few stories that went nowhere, and I realized it pretty quickly, fortuitously. I'd rather know before I get too far into it that my idea sucks, rather than write ten chapters, then recognize I have nowhere to go with it. 

Then there's practice. I know; I'm impatient, too. It's a fault I've never been able to overcome. Impatience has led me into many negative situations, particularly financial ones, which I've documented ad nauseam on this blog. With my first three novels, once I'd exhausted my extensive lists of literary agents to query, I wanted those novels out there, dammit! I'd had it! I'd spent, I don't know, three years total on them (one interrupted by COVID when I had to box up my computer to make room for the work-from-home model) and those novels weren't awful! 

As it turns out, they kind of were. Maybe not awful, except for one of them, but they weren't any worse than the majority of indie books I've sampled. Faint praise, I know. No, they didn't sell (thank God!) Between the three of them, they sold 18 copies total. Sorry, paying customers; truly. Innocently, I didn't know that one could buy book ads, or I might have sold more. So I dodged a bullet. Now, when I look back on them, I consider them practice. If you don't write, you can't become a good writer. There are probably a couple of freaks of nature out there who can write a great novel on their first try, but I (and probably you) are not those people.

Lemme tell ya, writing an entire novel, or three, is really good practice, especially in figuring out what not to do. Don't write a quarter of a novel or even half a novel, but a whole novel. Yep, finish the thing. Write the ending and the mushy middle and the lame opening; all of it. You'll think it's fantastic until you gain a bit of distance from it. I thought my third novel was really good (it wasn't). It was at best a JV effort. 

After my querying failures, I stumbled into writing novellas. And speaking of practice, writing those was the best practice ever (for me). I'd done the whole novel thing, and I had begun to recognize where I'd gone wrong, but I still wasn't sure how to do it right until those novellas. I didn't have to burn out on a so-so premise, because it could be 20,000 words long or 40,000, and that wasn't daunting. Plus, the format forced me to tighten my storylines.

Don't get me wrong; I didn't deliberately set out to practice my writing skills. These were real stories, and I'm proud of most of them. But improvement is sneaky. You don't even notice it creeping in. "Hey! How'd you get in here?" Any form of writing is practicing one's skill set: novellas, short stories, blogging; beginner novels, of course. When Reddit posters ask, how do I start a novel? I'm silently screaming, "Just start!" How the hell else do you start? If you're waiting for perfection to grab hold, well, I'll be sure to visit your tombstone.

What's it like writing a novel? It's both excruciating and exhilarating. The quote, "I hate writing, but I love having written" is widely attributed to Dorothy Parker, and there's truth in that. But personally, I love writing. In fact, I love writing more than I love having written. "Having written" often leads to disappointment, whereas writing is exciting. There's potential still. But even knowing that my books were, well...failures, I still love it. I love playing with words; I love dialogue--I'm good at writing it. I also love creating my supporting cast, each quirky in their own way. Please don't do it unless you love it.

The average time it takes to write a novel is between six and eighteen months, which is mostly a wild guess (sorry, Google), because a lot depends on what else is going on in a writer's life. Running From Herself took about a year. Unlike the anal retentives, I don't keep track of starting and ending dates or the number of words I write per day. (It's not the number that counts, by the way.) But given that the novel started out as a novella, which usually takes me about two months to write; then it blossomed into a full-blown novel, a year sounds about right.

No one is going to devote that much time to a pursuit unless it brings them some modicum of joy. I'm not here to discourage anyone from trying. Who knows? You might love it. Or you might hate it. I've tried a lot of things that I didn't necessarily hate, but that bored me to death. If you think you might like to give a novel a go, do it. 

Or maybe you want to write your memoir. But I'll let you in on a little secret about writing a memoir--it still needs to flow, just like a novel does, if you want strangers to read it. Unless you're solely writing it for your children or grandchildren, a memoir needs a hook. What's your hook? It can't consist of, "When I was seven, I walked to school by myself," unless something jarring or scary happened on the way. Yes, I also wrote a memoir. It was, in fact, the first piece of long form writing I did. It was still short, though; maybe 40,000 words. I even sold a few copies until it hit me that I had told other people's stories (family) that I had no right to tell, at which point I abruptly unpublished it. My memoir did have a hook, though--how my dad's alcoholism affected my life. If you're contemplating writing and publishing a memoir, first decide what your theme, or hook is.

Be aware of the demands inherent in writing. Maybe start small; turn your great idea into a short story. As I noted, Running From Herself began its life as a novella. You can always try expanding it later if it works out.

If all this sounds awful to you, I can't say I blame you. One has to be kind of cuckoo to even attempt doing it. Me? I always enjoy a good challenge.