Picture Post: What It Feels Like To Finish Writing a 700 Page Novel

I did it!!!! I just typed the last word of the Epic World War II Saga I have been toiling on for about a year now!!! It's 700 pages! 230,000 words! Oh my God, I can't believe it! 

This is the most insane, amazing feeling! I want to quote Titanic. 

Screw it, I'm GOING to quote Titanic! 

I'm the King of the Woooooooooooooorld!

Okay, Heather, time for some long giddy breaths in and out. Whew. Wow. That was intense. *looks at calender* Dang, I wrote that last 50,000 words in two and a half weeks! If this was YA, that'd be like a first draft a book! 

Sheesh, this historical fiction stuff is crazy! I'm not sure I ever want to do that again. It's so many pages!

...

Wait a second...

That's really a LOT of pages...

Quite a lot of pages, actually.

That I now have to edit and do rewrites on.

Umm... why did I think this whole epic war saga 

historical fiction thing was a good idea again? 

Oh right. The art. The emotion. The characters. Blood and chaos and kingdoms rising and falling within the span of just a couple of years and a love story and my two main characters just trying to survive and it's all so deep and meaningful. And all that.

Yeah. I think I'm going to go take a nap now.

Write Through Anything

I’ve heard people say writing saved their life, and while I can’t go that far, I can say that writing has provided stability and sanity in a very unstable world.

Writing helps me feel grounded, even in a strange week like this one where everything else feels all strange and weird. My husband and son are out of town and it’s just me up in this thirteenth story apartment, too ill to really go anywhere, feeling like Rupunzel locked in her tower—though maybe without the glorious golden locks, or does mid-shoulder black and pink hair count? Nevertheless, I feel very locked-away-in-a-tower-ish.

But then, when I write, even on days like today where I’m distracted by All The Internet Things, if I manage to hit my word count, I feel this nice calm settle over me. I did the work that needed to be done today, even if everything else seems out of sync and off schedule.

It’s kind of the magic of developing a discipline of writing. Like any muscle, it’ll get flimsy and out of shape if you don’t exercise it. I’ve mostly gotten to the place where writing isn’t something I get up and decide to do everyday. It’s something I take for granted that I WILL do, come hell or high-water or, you know, Twitter and Facebook addiction and my normal internal whining about I-don’t-wanna! ;)

So tonight, all alone in this empty apartment up in the sky, I’ve got a smile on my face because I did my second writing session and hit the 2k word count I try to do every day. Officially my required word count each day is 1k. It’s one of the tricks I use on myself, so that if I only get 1k or only do one writing session instead of two, I still get to count the day as a win. When you’ve got this weird amorphous job of being a writer, it’s the little things that count to make you feel productive.

The trick is to write through anything. Write through depression. Write through success. Write through heart break. Especially write through failure. Write through sickness, at least as much as able. Write through books being sold. Write through waiting on submission to see if more books will sell. Write through failed books that didn’t end up going anywhere and sit as half-done hundred page documents that will lay forgotten in some random folder on my computer.

It’s when I stop writing that I get into trouble. I feel like I can be happy and contented through anything life throws at me, as long as I can hit that daily word count. Now, none of this is to say that the writing will be particularly good, especially if there’s something bad or stressful going on in my life. The idea of the tortured or depressed artist putting out masterpieces might be all good well in theory, but it certainly never worked for me. I write best when I’m stable and happy and my family is in a good place. But you still gotta write, because that way lies sanity and mental health. Come to think of it, I bet it’s how Rapunzel stayed sane too. She was probably stuck up there with thousands of sheets of paper and a magical unending inkpot ;)

You Don't Always Have to Love It

Sometimes being a writer, you will be super in the groove, excited about every scene that comes next, wake up the in morning and can't wait to get to your computer. You can't stop thinking about your characters so much that you can't sleep at night and you keep getting out of bed to write another scene. The book I wrote last December was like that.

And then there are books like the one I'm writing now... where I know the idea and characters are solid, and interesting-ish things are happening, but my passion for the story is only at a low simmer. I sit down each afternoon to write... and then go check twitter again. And Facebook. And maybe watch yet another John Green vlogbrothers video because that guy is so entertaining and compulsively watchable! And then, oh yeah, I'll click back to my Word document and type maybe another hundred words.

Here is the thing: there is this myth out there that a book will be no good if you don't just loooooove it while you're writing it. That somehow your lack of passion will translate into lack of reader passion because you just can't capture the magic mojo. But this is not true. I know this first hand, since the book that was THE HARDEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN has gotten the best reviews. I'm referring of course, to Override, which long-time blog followers will know was the bane of my existence for over a year. I wrote it once. And then wrote it over from scratch again. And then AGAIN. I did not love that book when I was writing that last draft. I'm pretty sure that the word 'hate' even got tossed around for awhile there. But I knew that I did have a deadline in a month so the dang thing had better get written.

And the thing was (and believe me it shocked me more than anyone!), all of the time and attention that book had gotten both plot-wise and character wise had turned it into a really good book.

Maybe some people in magical candy author land love every single part of every single book they write. But then there's the rest of us, slogging through unending middles, muddling through murky characterization, spending a whole week trying to get one friggin' scene right and then skipping it in the end to figure out later so I can at least avoid stalling completely on the whole project... oh, ahem, that might have veered into describing my own past week a little bit ;)

Suffice it to say, I may not love this book I'm in the middle of drafting. I think there's lots of work ahead reshaping and crafting it, but like I said, sometimes that can make it an even better book than ones that have slipped out easily the first time around. That's what I'm holding on to as I muddle through the middle! What are you guys working on? What's your process like? Do you give up and move on to another project when the passion dries up, or keep barreling on through?

Writing Process: First Drafts

Writing a brand new novel (my first after finishing the Glitch trilogy) is a totally weird experience. I started and stopped three other books as I tried to settle on the one I want to write. Fourth idea was the winner! I really believe it can be a great book, the book I’ve been wanting to write for years.

For me, drafting is always fraught with equal parts anxiety and excitement. On one hand, when I get in a crazy groove like I’m in now, I’m a totally happy person – cheery with my husband, laughing with my son. And on the other hand, I’m a neurotic mess because of this weighty pressure or anxiety—the best metaphor for how it makes me feel is like I can’t take a deep breath till I’ve gotten the story in my head all out on paper. Like if I don’t get it down NOW it will all evaporate. It’s so intangible just sitting up there in my brain. I’m jittery and restless until I can get it solid on paper, something I can hold in my hand. So all throughout the day I feel this nagging desire tugging at the back of my brain to get back to the book, like worrying about whether you turned the coffeemaker off or something else important you’ve left undone but can’t quite put your finger on. I'm almost constantly thinking about the book, scheming for when I can next steal some time and energy to work on it.

A lot of the time, when I’m not actually writing, I’m still just lost in the world of it. Planning out my next scene, thinking about the character arc of my MC. But also now I hear other voices in my head—wondering if it’s good enough, if we’ll be able to sell it, if my agent will like it. If I let myself think about those things, they can totally derail the creative process.

Part of the issue is I’m an ugly first drafter. My characters are too reactive, the melodrama goes way over the edge from captivating to schlocky, and I generally figure out how the plot should be told as I’m in the latter 3/4 of the book. I listen to the fabulous Writing Excuses podcast on a regular basis and one writer on there keeps talking about how he’s a one drafter. As in, his first draft is his last draft. I cannot wrap my brain around that. It’s how I so WISH I could write. All the saved words and pages and time! I’ve tried outlining, revising as I go, and a number of other trick but I think it’s time I accept the fact that it’s not how I work.

Second drafts are where the magic happens for me. I need the clay lump of the book and then I can see it all at once and see where I need to shave and where I need to plump. Doing this long enough, I’ve started to learn about myself through my writing process—see the unique and strange ways my mind works. I’ve learned I’m almost a better editor than writer, or that for me, the two tasks are equally at work in producing a book. I write a bad first draft, then the editor in me takes over and sees how it needs to be shaped for character, story, and themes to really be clear. Then I rewrite half the book (or the whole book) and go back in with editor-self again, wash, rinse, repeat until I have a book I’m satisfied with. I wish there was another way that didn’t involve so much work! But alas. This brain is all I’ve got, and I hope I’m learning to embrace my process rather than fight against it.