It’s been about a month and a half since the release of my novel Mirrobius. The experience of writing it was so different from any other book that I’ve written, and the more I reflect on that process, the more I realize that I learned.
If you’re anything like I was before I started, I wondered whether or how I could bring a full-length novel into being. I had so many questions and doubts about its possibility. Now, looking back, I can identify the factors that allowed for it to happen. Here are a handful of lessons that I learned along the way. If you’re still debating whether you can write a novel of your own, maybe these will help.
Daily goals are critical. I’ve written and talked several times about my daily goal of writing at least 500 words. Sometimes I’d get into a flow state and write way more, and other days I really had to bite, scratch, and claw to get those 500. But without establishing this habit, the writing of the initial draft would have gone way longer than the six months or so that it took, and that’s already a long time! Set what seems reasonable, and stick to it. That’s how the work gets done.
Let the characters speak for themselves. As I recently shared on the podcast, one of my favorite things about writing this book was seeing how the characters would continue playing out, because I didn’t always know. I had some big story beats through which I wanted to progress, but the nitty-gritty of how I’d get to each one wasn’t always clear. Continuing to write the characters was how I figured it out…they ended up telling me. Make room for your creation to speak itself into existence.
Don’t skimp on editing. I wrote a separate list-clicky post a while back about the importance of taking editing seriously, but I wanted to reiterate how important it is. You may think that there’s no possible way that your first draft could be improved upon, but you are most likely mistaken. Not just for spelling and grammar reasons, either. When I went back through my draft, I discovered continuity errors and other issues that, when fixed, would make for a much better story. Take this part of the process as seriously (maybe more) as the writing phase.
Be true to your vision. There were many times as I wrote that I imagined different people reading and reacting to parts of the story. Family and friends came to mind first, but then I thought about people who know me primarily as a minister: how would they react, for instance, to the violence, or the language? But if I removed those things for fear of what certain groups of readers might think, I would have compromised what I wanted the book to be. Any form of art is bound to upset somebody, even people you know. But hedging your creativity out of fear won’t do you or the art any good.
Believe in yourself. Back when I only had an idea for a story, one of the things that kept me from putting anything to paper was my own self-doubt. I regularly asked myself if I was really up to the challenge of fleshing things out well enough to be coherent and entertaining. Given that a typical novel is over 100,000 words, I didn’t know if I could hit that mark. But of course, I wouldn’t know until I actually started. The more I wrote, the more I believed that I was capable of seeing this to the end. If you have a story in you, believe in yourself enough to commit to actually telling it.
Jeffrey A. Nelson 