The Hick Chic Guide to Writing a Novel, Part ONE

When I tell people that I’m writing a book, they generally seem astonished. It doesn’t seem to be something that people actually do. Well, I’ve done it. Four times. They’re not all very good, of course. But I’ve done it.

I am going to tell you right here, right now, how to write a novel.

First, some background on how and what I’ve done. Keep in mind, none of this has been published and has only been read by about six people who aren't me.

The first one was a seven year process, started it in 1995, and finally, very reluctantly put aside about five years ago. I just couldn’t go on. I needed space from it. I loved it too much. After all the years it took to finish it, in between babies and moving four times and not being on anti-depressants when I maybe should have, then rewriting it twice...and still finding huge discrepancies in it... I had to walk away from it. Some day I will dust it off and make it into what it should be. It deserves it, and I know that I’m a better writer than I was five years ago.

The second one has just been recently set aside. I queried it to agents for a year but nobody bit. The good news is that two agents told me they thought it sounded like a good story but couldn’t take it on because it was too similar to something they already had, or they just weren’t taking on new clients. I plan to do a nice little (fourth) rewrite and send it out again, probably early next year.

The third one was a NaNoWriMo experiment in November 2005. I wrote the whole thing, about 51,000 words, in thirty days. It’s a mess! At that time, I’d just started my blog and gotten a two month old puppy. I was all smacked up on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds and couldn’t quite get my dosage right and was not really functioning on a steady basis. I was kinda unstable. This book sure is interesting! Boy, it’s really...interesting...

The fourth one is what I’m working on right now. It has been going on for a few years also. I don’t remember when I started it. I finished it at the very end of 2006 and have spent the last six months rewriting it. It’s not a mess. It still has a couple of things to fix but it’s generally pretty okay. Last night my husband the BS Filter finished reading it and pointed out some mistakes in it, which is awesome, because now I’m in the homestretch. I know exactly what to do now to make it into something worth taking the time to read. I feel good about this book. There are no pirates or cowboys or horses in it and no Johnny Depp...but there is lots of Axl Rose and Robert Plant. And other stuff. Lots of good and bad other stuff.

So, how did I do it? Mostly the wrong way. I wrote in fits and starts. I’d quit when it got difficult. So far all of my novels have been written in pieces and needed major work to make a coherent story.

For the last year or so I’ve berated myself for doing it wrong. As it turns out there really isn’t a right or wrong way to do it. I’ve been researching this, and there are as many ways to actually write a book as there are genres of books. Some writers do outlines, research, notes, character sketches, charts, timelines. Some start the story not really sure how it’ll end. Some write the first chapter, the last, and then everything in between! Some, like me, have to go back and fill in all the holes. My current one has three characters who’ve changed names, and I’ve changed the focus of it slightly, as well as changing the title.

But all of that is totally irrelevant to most writers because there’s only one thing that can make you a writer.

You have to write.

I attended another workshop on the weekend. Twice in a row now I’ve had to sit through question time and suppress the painful groans when someone asks how to remember where you were at in your story when you quit four months ago and now you’re back at it because you have time, or how to get the self discipline to start writing, or how to write a novel faster because you can only work on it for an hour every two months.

I hate to tell you this, but the only way to write a novel is to write it.

I love writing- love it, love the story becoming real, the dialogue between characters, the characters themselves, I love it. But you know what? There are days when I just don’t want to do it. At all. It’s work. It’s work that doesn’t even look like work. It’s lonely, it’s mentally taxing, and it’s physically much more demanding than you’d think.

I’ve taught myself some valuable lessons over the years though.

If I don’t write for a couple of months, I am impossible to live with. The fake people in my head drive me nuts and I make even less sense than on a good day.

If I keep at it steadily, even just little drips of words at a time, regularly, it gets easier.

And the easier it gets, the more enjoyable it is to sit down and let those words happen.

That’s when the real happiness comes in. That’s what will make me excited to sit down later today, after the dreaded grocery run, and go through the binder full of my book, fixing circled and underlined things in the document.

So, how do you write a novel????

Sit your ass down in that desk chair and WRITE. Use a computer, use a notebook and a pen, I don’t care. Just write. Write as much as little as you want. And then do the same thing tomorrow. Turn off the TV, ignore the internet, let the dust sit, and write. Do it again the next day. Take a weekend off if you must but get back to it. One sentence a day is enough if that’s all you can do. But write. Even if it’s total crap and you know it’s crap, write it anyways. It can only improve. Keep at it.

If this is what I really want to do- and it is- I must keep writing. I know I can’t give up. So I keep going.

That novel ain’t gonna write itself you know.