All Along the Road

This long slow slog can get disheartening. Revision sucks. Rejections sting. Feeling like it's impossible to get to the next level—no matter how hard you try—is horribly frustrating.

But in the end, it's got to be about the writing. It's got to be about the stories inside you bursting to get out. It's got to be about your passion for the craft, your love for language and characters and story.

It's so easy to get discouraged, to want to give up. But don't you dare.

Keep fighting.

Keep dreaming.

Keep writing.

Drawer Novels

So I've been pondering "drawer novels" lately. You know, those books people write before The Book that gets them an agent/gets them published, etc, the books people shove into drawers that will never see the light of day.

You have to write lots to get better at writing. You just do. Which kind of means those drawer novels are like practice novels, except I don't really like to think of them that way. If you go into writing your first (or second or third or fourth) novel with the mindset that it's going to be crap and just practice/filler until that elusive Book that will really be Something, I think you're kind of missing the point.

I write because I love stories and characters, and I have tons of them in me that need to come out. But if I didn't believe wholeheartedly in every single one of my novels, I wouldn't have written them in the first place.

Since 2005, I've written six complete novels and three other incomplete ones, and it is absolutely true that I've improved as a writer since then. But even now, when I'm able to step back and look at those earlier novels and see their many flaws, I don't think they're completely worthless, or that their only purpose was in honing my skills. I still believe that those novels' hearts are sound, and that if I was compelled to revise/rewrite/reshape them, I could do something with them.

Granted, I have so many other stories to tell I don't know if I'll ever get around to doing that, but the point is (I do have a point!) that I am proud of every single one of my books, regardless if no one ever sees those earlier ones but me.

Those books have made me the writer I am, and I keep them proudly in binders on my bookshelf!

Nothing you write is ever a waste. If you don't believe your current project is something special—whether it be your first or your twentieth—why even write it at all?

Believe in your writing, in your characters, in your stories. Believe in those drawer novels. Own up to them proudly.

All the Novels I've Written Thus Far
From left to right: On Journeys Bound, The Rose Queen, The Whale and the Tree,
The Fire in the Glass, The Silver Crane, The Blind King (unfinished), Seer's Song
Not pictured: The Last Garden (unfinished), Reader (unfinished)

From the Mind of a Budding Novelist with Rather Strange Ideas

I don't know about you, but I had a lot of strange ideas when I was a kid. Stuff where I had questions about the workings of life and the world and everyday things, but instead of asking a qualified adult, I made up the answers in my head, and went with that.

Like, I thought that people actually died when they were killed on-screen in movies. And therefore I concluded that the people weren't actors so much as they were criminals on death row and that's how they were executed. You guys, I literally thought this.

We went on a lot of road trips when I was a kid. I always stared at the double yellow lines dividing the highways, and concluded that when the double lines morphed into dashed lines, the stripe-painters had obviously run out of paint.

I'm pretty sure I thought my parents were related. Not in a brother-sister kind of way, really. More like a Mom-and-Dad-have-always-been-Mom-and-Dad-and-are-therefore-related kind of way (I dunno. Made sense to me at the time).

And I was super confused when my grandmother came to visit from Michigan when I was little and my mom called her 'mom', and that didn't compute, because how could my mom have a mom?????

So anyway, now you know. A frightening glimpse inside my strange little mind…

Once Upon Draft Five

So I'm gearing up for Draft #5 now, and I'm actually SUPER EXCITED about it! Mostly because I'm fairly certain the grueling start-from-scratch stuff is OVER, and I just can't wait to make this book what it was meant to be in the first place!

Stuff I'm working on in this draft:

1. Stream-lining the novel. I want to cut AT LEAST 10,000 words
2. Make character motivations clear.
3. Work on pacing.
4. MAKE THE BEGINNING AWESOME
5. Condense/simplify my myths
6. Delete one of the character's POVs.
7. MAKE THE WHOLE NOVEL AS AWESOME AS I CAN.

So. We'll see how long this takes.

And GO!

I FINISHED!!!! Ahhhhhhhh!

One week ago today, I woke up early and wrote for five hours, determined to at least try to finish my draft before the end of the month. And you guys?

TODAY I FINISHED.

I am so deliriously happy. :-D :-D :-D

There's definitely another draft to go—I am determined to make this novel the absolute best it can be—but for tonight at least I'm resting on my laurels!

And now some word count stats, because I always find that interesting:

Rough Draft: 104,000 words

Third Draft: 118,000 words

Fourth Draft: 106,000 words


I'm hoping to get my final draft at least down to 100K, but I'm dreaming big (small?) and shooting for somewhere between 90 and 95K. We shall see!

Anyways, basically…

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Writing by Writing

You know what? You sure do learn a lot about writing by… writing.

Kind of an obvious thing to say, I suppose, but it's true. I've been rewriting a novel I first drafted back in 2006, and I have learned and grown as a writer SO MUCH since then. Why? Because I keep writing books. You get such a feel for plot and pacing and character development when you keep doing it, over and over and over again.

I'm not saying I can pop out a completely perfect first draft these days (hahaha), but I'm learning from my mistakes. I'm getting better. And I'm also not saying that every word I wrote in earlier novels was crap—I'm reusing a healthy amount of prose in my current rewrite from the previous draft, plus the main plot and most of the original ideas. I just feel better equipped to properly bring this story to life now, as I've written three full books and parts of another three since 2006.

I'm still learning how to revise, but you know what? I think I'm getting better at that, too. Because I keep doing it.

I guess that's the main point of this post. Like anything—music, sports, cooking, paying your bills on time—you only get better at something by doing it over and over again.

And that means I'd better stop blogging and go write.

Rewrite Update

It's been a long road since I started the Most Massive Rewrite Ever in April 2013. I'm not done yet, but I'm slowly getting there—the end of this draft is finally in sight. Eight and a half chapters left to get through, some rewriting of old material, some brand new scenes, including a completely different ending (unless I change my mind!).

Trying not to despair that I've been at this for over a year, because 1) It's so vastly different from the original it's like writing a new book, 2) I took time off to write 50K of something else in November for NaNoWriMo, and 3) I spent March and April revising an entirely different novel. It's not been QUITE as long as it seems, but it's still pretty grueling.

I'd love to finish this draft by July so I can start the next draft, which will hopefully go much faster because I'll have existing material to work with. We shall see!

Also, this novel is kind of having an identity crisis. It's definitely fantasy, but I'm not sure it's as Young Adult as I originally thought. I don't know what it is. But I'll figure it out. Probably. :-)