A Tale of Two Novels

Are you stuck in the middle of writing your first novel and can’t imagine ever writing “the end?”

Maybe writing doesn’t “fit” with your life right now. Or you can’t find the time. Or the confidence.

I understand.

It took me nearly a decade to write my first novel. My second novel took six months.

Why the difference? Did I take a course that taught me how to write faster? Is there a tip, trick, or 10-step method I can share?

Nope.

I know. You’re not surprised. Those were dumb suggestions. And you’re not dumb. You know as well as anyone what it takes to finish a writing project. You plant your backside in a chair and do the work. Writers write. Right?

Yep.

So, I don’t have a formula or any sure-fire novel writing tips, but I’d like to share my experience with you. So much of what I have learned and continue to learn as a writer is gleaned from authors who take the time to share their knowledge.  Maybe my story will help you.

Context Matters 

During the decade that I  started, stopped, dreamed about, and restarted my first novel, I had five kids, moved three times, and began homeschooling our children. I didn’t have much spare time. (Or sleep.) Any free time I had was usually interrupted so many times it wasn’t truly free. I longed to write that first novel, but for many years it seemed impossible. In the end, it took me a full year to write the first draft, and that was after years of planning, plotting,  outlining, starting, stopping, and beginning again. Did I lose all the distractions when I was writing my second novel? Were there fewer demands on my time?

Yes and no. My children were all older when I began the second novel. They were all out of diapers, able to dress and feed themselves and play alone or together for extended periods of time. For the first time in over a decade, I could work at least a half hour without interruption. If I stayed up late it was usually by choice, and I could sleep later in the morning to make up for it. However, I was still a full-time homeschooling mom of five kids. There were plenty of demands on my time. But, I had learned something about writing and time when I wrote my first novel.

What did I learn?

Every Minute Counts

I had to ditch some fantasies in order to write faster. Dreams like eight hour writing days, or week-long retreats. I will never, in this season of my life, have long stretches of time in which to write. Not consistently anyway. In fact, the only consistent feature of my writing time is that it’s inconsistent. The time I have available changes from week to week, sometimes from day to day. You know what is consistent?

I have time. It may be five minutes. It may be an hour while my kids play in the backyard. It may be five minutes five times throughout the day.  It may be two hours in the morning before everyone else wakes up. It may be thirty minutes at the library while a kid finds books. It may be four hours on a weekend night when I decide to stay up late because I can sleep in the next morning. I have time. I can write a sentence or two in five minutes. And every sentence moves me closer to typing “The End.”

Yes, you’re right. It is often hard to write in erratic spurts. It’s frustrating.

But here’s the truth. I’ve chosen this life, with these priorities. If I want to write, I either do it within the constraints of my personal circumstances or, like I did for many years, I use the constraints of my personal circumstances as an excuse not to write.

I chose to write. I wrote a few minutes one day. I wrote a few hours the next night. I mined my life for precious nuggets of time that I exchanged for words on a page. At the end of six months, all of those minutes added up to the first draft of a new novel. 

I learned another valuable lesson from writing my first novel.

What I Can See Determines Where I Will Go

When I began my first novel I just wanted to write a book. My ideas about what happened after the first draft were a little vague. Oh, I knew it would need editing, an agent, and a publisher, but in the end, I just wanted to finish the novel. And in the end, that’s all I did.

It’s true that I had other priorities and plenty of distractions during the ten years it took to write my first novel. It’s also true that elongating the early planning stages and meandering toward the finish line were natural consequences of limited vision.

In contrast, when I committed to writing my second novel, I started with the furthest end goal I could imagine. I wanted to be a published novelist and publish regularly for as long as I am able. I imagined myself fifteen years in the future with ten to fifteen published books to my credit. Then I worked backward from that point to the present day. I noted the goals I would need to achieve along the way. By the time I  began writing, I had a far different mindset than when I started my first novel. Completing my manuscript was just one step toward a long-term goal. That final destination inspired me to make the most of spare moments and write quickly.

Finally, writing my first novel gave me something I couldn’t get any other way.

Experience Boosts Confidence

Doubt poked and prodded me while I wrote my first novel. Will I really finish? Who do I think I am, a real writer? Other people write novels, not someone like me. Can I do this?

I had never written a novel before. Some days I got stuck and feared I would never get unstuck. Other days I couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with my brain. Some days I struggled to type one sentence. Many days I thought writing was a miserable waste of time. I slogged through to the end for two reasons. I didn’t want to turn forty with this dream unfulfilled, and I wanted to finish telling the story I had started.

Thanks to that experience, when I started my second novel there were several things I knew to be true. First, I can write a novel. Second, some writing days are brilliant, others are miserable, most are somewhere in between. Third, since my work needs revision no matter how well I write, it’s better to write quickly than to write like I can get it perfect the first time.

As for those questions I had while writing my first novel? When I wrote my second novel I had answers. Yes. I will finish. Yes. I am a real writer. (Exhibit A: Me, sitting here writing.) Yes. People like me write novels. People who are older, busier, less educated, better educated, less likely to do so for a variety of reasons have written novels. Yes. I can do this. (Exhibit B: Completed first novel.) Yes. Yes. Yes.

It never once crossed my mind that I wouldn’t finish my second novel. When I take my son to the playground across the street from our house, I don’t doubt that we’ll cross the street. We can’t reach our destination if we don’t cross the street. Similarly, I can’t be a published author if I don’t write a book. There was never any doubt. But I had to slog through the first book to earn that confidence.

If you’re struggling to finish your first novel, bear in mind that it might just be a warm-up for everything that comes afterward.

• If you haven’t yet done so, clarify your goal. Are you just trying to finish a book, or do you have aspirations beyond writing “the end?”
• Be honest with yourself about the limitations of your current context so that you can figure out how to work with them.
• Look for untapped pockets of time to devote to your project.

While there’s no guarantee that subsequent books will be easier to write (sorry!), finishing your first novel will teach you valuable lessons about how you work best and give you the confidence that you have the ability to finish.

What comes after might just be a different story altogether.