I’m Writing a Book: Here’s What I’ve Learned so Far
I started writing a book in early September. It was something that I’ve always dreamed about doing but made excuses / just thought it was going to happen someday when I was older and wiser and had more free time on my hands. Then I got more free time on my hands, no longer confined to travel and train schedules, I would waste away my days after work watching television and scrolling through Twitter. I then read through an email newsletter that I signed up for months ago from GrubStreet. They offered classes on writing, something that I had been missing since my undergrad days, and there was a workshop on ‘Jumpstarting your novel.’ Over the course of 6 weeks, I would meet and workshop my novel with strangers, learn more about the craft, and actually meet people who had written books in the past. I would share writing that no one had seen before, not even my friends, and open it to constructive criticism and questions from people I was getting to know on Zoom. It was the perfect opportunity.
During the class, I learned a lot about myself, my book, and the process of writing. I no longer felt like the story I had been crafted was stupid; it felt like the story I wanted to tell shaping up with characters who thought on their own and acted on their own. I was inspired by reading my peers' work, the characters they created, and the worlds they lived in spanning across genres, time-periods, and galaxies. When the class had ended in late October, I was inspired to keep going and learned a few things along the way. Here’s how its been going since then:
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” — Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
Writing one word is better than none.
this is how I am keeping track of my word count and progress
To write is to write. It’s as simple as that. Although I set a goal of writing about 300 words per day and tracked them in my excel spreadsheet, some days were better than others. Needless to say, I didn’t always write 300 words per day. Some days would be spent thinking about the outline and pulling that together; others spent on in-line edits. Some days I didn’t write a single word or think about my characters and took time off. Taking time away from the piece itself is helpful because I can grant myself a break. If I wanted to feel accomplished, I would go in and write a word or two, knowing that I would balance it out with other days of longer writing.
“Tears are words that need to be written.” — Paulo Coelho
2. Keep going
Every day that I work on my piece is another day closer to being done. I have resolved to keep coming back to the project so that I don’t lose momentum. Much of this drive to return to the piece comes from internal motivation — this is a story I would like to tell, and characters that I care about, about a time in life that is confusing, exhilarating, fun, and challenging. This is the story I feel like I have to write, so ,I try to come back to it every day and continue to chip away at it. I have to find this drive to keep going and keep pushing it forward. This is something that I want to do and enjoy doing, so another day that I write it or think about it is a good day.
3. Not everything will be inspired
Being someone who usually writes poetry has made writing a long-form novel hard for me. As a poet, every word and line feels inspired, serving a purpose and driving itself towards the piece's goal. Much time is spent deliberating on the placement, the sound that the words make, how they make the words around them sound and feel. This can’t happen when writing a longer-form piece. Characters need to talk to each other in sentences. My characters text and often don’t say what they mean or what they feel. I can’t describe everything in the world and the setting because that would bore the reader. Not every word that I write will be inspired, which means that when I make an opportunity to write about the setting or describe a character, I can be more intentional and artistic.
“A word after a word after a word is power.”
— Margaret Atwood
Writing has been a lot of fun, but it’s also been a challenge. Every day I feel as if I am slowly chipping away at a slab of marble and unveiling the sculpture inside, no matter how long that process takes. Does my book have a happy ending? That’s something that you’ll have to get the book to find out.