Thoughts After Completing a Novel
Formerly Called the Work-In-Progress, Now an Unpublished Book
Months of drafting, redrafting and editing are behind me, for now. What next?
- querying to literary agents (which has begun)
- starting the next novel (which has also begun)
But before life moves on too fast (oh, how I wish) I’d like to pause and think about the two human characteristics I’ve strengthened along the way.
Tenacity and Resilience
This may sound a tad pretentious but saying, “I will write a novel” before moving on to, “I will write this novel“, then being able to think or say, “I am writing my novel“, takes time, sitting down and thumping out tens of thousands of words rather than doing all the other activities that used to occupy my time.
When the first draft was done, I still had many months of rewriting, structural editing, copyediting and proofreading to go. After that, another readthrough by my alpha reader (the one I’m married to) before my beta readers could help me with their thoughts, insights and advice (they’re the ones who I cannot thank enough…although I have thanked my husband too, of course).
I went through every emotion – elation, self-doubt, despair, exhaustion but most of all I really enjoyed writing my novel because I knew I’d never be able to abandon it. This was my dream and the the best ones do come true. Printed on 313 pages is my 86,601-word manuscript sitting in a jumbo lever-arch file. It’s not published but it is tangible proof I’ve achieved what I wanted.
One thing I won’t be doing again – having forgotten to set my printer to single-sided, I hope never to find it churning out multiple double-sided pages. It is far easier to edit your work on one side of each page, and much easier to read through a manuscript if you don’t have to move from one side of the lever-arch file to the other. Oh for a real book one day!
Live and learn…
The Novel Writing Process Teaches the Author Many Skills
Up until this point I’ve written stories, articles, newsletters, book reviews, blurbs, community projects, poetry, haikus – lots of short pieces that I could conclude within a timeframe that made sense. Embarking on a full-size novel is like deciding to climb Snowdonia after a lifetime of only hanging the washing on the line – a trip up the garden path does not a hillwalker make.
Okay, honesty compels – I also have two partly-written novels and others planned and that, my friends, is why I am so pleased to have at last completed a full piece of long fiction.
It’s the finishing that counts…
I learned that editing is not tinkering around making everything look pretty. Yes, glaring spelling errors and grammatical mishaps had to be fixed. But a novel has a timeline – from beginning to end or back and forth along a dual timeline? And a setting – imagined or factual. Characters – convincing or boring?
Readers will know exactly what constitutes a novel. I’m just patting myself on the back a little too much.
Now What?
Apart from the query agent process – I’ll tell you more when there is some kind of conclusion – I’ve been getting out. Authors are busy launching new titles in bookshops or at festivals, and I’ve attended a couple of events where I met with encouragement, support, heard great discussions, and had gorgeous books signed by those real live authors. And I have much more time to read! Hooray to that.
Plus I’ve begun to plan my new WIP – those three letters never go away! This one will be less pantser, more plotter – less discovering what happens along the way, more planning. I did create characters, plot points and set the setting, and researched many aspects before writing the first novel, BUT this time I intend to plan scenes and chapters more fully and try to stick to those plans.
What’s the odds on finding out I’m really a discovery writer at heart? We shall see. I’m not saying anything more than this for now. The proof of my ability to complete another full-length fiction will be at THE END.
