My Experience Writing My First Novel

I have been asked many times at book signings, and just around by my friends and family on how my first experience was writing and how long it took. I have answered many times on this, so I decided to write it out.

Writing the book.

I found that writing the book was the easiest part of the whole process, I just didn’t realize it at the time. It was definitely the longest part, but not the hardest.

I started with an idea, a thought that had come into play about a year before I started it. A bounty hunter set in a medieval, fantasy setting. I created the world, writing down everything that I could think of. Created portals to travel between realms. Had a good handle on the characters. I knew exactly what was going to happen with each character, and why.

Then I started writing. Other than the names, pretty much everything went out the window. Characters that were supposed to die gave me the bird and survived their impending doom. Characters that were to live, died in a tragic but needed way to propel certain characters. I always read articles about characters writing themselves, but I never believed it until they did it to me.

Their personalities came out early on. I was trying to make it more of a teen novel, but one character changed the course of the book. I tried rewriting his scenes but he just wouldn’t allow it to happen. He was the first character to drop the ‘F’ bomb, the first to have more of a graphic love scene (not too graphic I suppose, but still, it was there), and became my favorite character to write.

I was surprised on how my characters reacted and how the story unfolded. It felt like I was floating above them the entire time, just writing down what I saw.  This whole process went on for about three months. Three months of writing just about every day for ten to twelve hours on some days. I’d even get home from my full-time job and write for three or four hours. It was long and intense, and drove my fiancée crazy, but the results were amazing.

Self-Editing, oh the dreaded editing.

Self-Editing, how I loathe thee. I even wrote a post on my blog about how much I truly hate self-editing. It’s long and takes almost as long as writing the damn story. I mean come on now, who really wants to search for their own mistakes all the time?

During the writing process, I thought I was nailing the grammar and punctuation of it all. Oh, how wrong I was. I read it and was like, “What the hell was I thinking here?” After I was done, I handed it over to my fiancée. This was the first time I had ever let someone read it.

I was nervous to say the least, she was annoyed. She read it, with me looking over her shoulder almost the entire way (like now). I put so much work into this that I couldn’t bear what she was going to tell me, or find. After a few days of me harping she finished it.

I got it back littered with the red markings of Track Changes. I was mortified, I thought I did an amazing job editing just to find out I suck at it. Good news, everyone is terrible at self-editing, so don’t worry about it. I went through it, made some changes, rejected some suggestions and in the end, there were still issues.

So I went through it again. Changing, fixing, rewriting, and then she hits me with a bomb. I have a plot hole. I have failed as a writer. “I’m just going to scrap the whole fucking thing,” this is truly what I said. At first, I was mad at her for pointing it out. How dare she do this to me? I’ve spent months writing this, and now I have this major hole in the entire plot.

Then, after realizing it’s not her fault, I got through my angry panic and I sat down to figure out how to fix this major road block. After all, this is why I had her read it first. I relaxed when I was able to fix it with three sentences. I couldn’t believe it, three sentences to fix it all. Whew, crisis averted! Next was my BETA readers.

BETA Readers, a must.   

I had many people ask me, what are you working on? When can I read it? How much longer is it going to be? Shut the fuck up or I’m going to smack you in your fucking face, uh, I mean soon and it’s a book.

BETA Readers are one of the most vital steps an author can take. They help you determine if all the time you’ve spent writing was worth it. I had ten people lined up, that’s friends and family of course. I sent it out to them, with a disclaimer stating to have it back to me within one month with what you thought of it in detail and you’ll get a free autographed copy of my book once it’s published.

Now, BETA Readers need to stay focused. I had to stay on top of them a bit and the ones I lined up no longer had the time to put in it. I stopped harping on them and turned my focus to the ones still reading it.

I asked them many questions throughout the process, getting responses like “Leave me alone, I’ll email you when I’m done.”

“Who are you again, just kidding, like I could forget.” Regular comedians they were. In the end, only about four of them sent back a response, which, from my understanding, is typical. I got a lot of positive feedback. Some negative, but that’s how we grow as writers. If you can’t accept the bad and learn from it, then you’re in the wrong line of work.

I thank all of my BETA Readers. They were extremely important in the process and I couldn’t have done it without them.

Cover design, my bad.

I found the cover design to be a tricky situation. I can’t color, let alone draw, to save my life. I needed help but I was broke. “My brother is a talented artist, I’ll ask him.” He was more than happy to do it but told me he’s super busy with work. He runs his own construction business if you were wondering, if not, whatever you know now.

Anyway, I gave him the details on what I wanted and he went to work on it, kind of. He got really busy. I started hassling…months went by and still no cover. He was doing it for free so I can’t complain about this, to him anyway (if he reads this it’s going to be “Look here fuck stick,” or something along those lines.) He finally found some time to work on it. His art work was great but there was something wrong with it. Something was missing. The portal looked weird, it needed a stand instead of being free floating. “Told you so,” is what he basically said and he didn’t have the time to help change it or start over, which was fine. He did more than I could ask for. To be honest he did exactly what I asked for. I just apparently didn’t know what I wanted.

“A new artist, oh no, I don’t have money. This is going to cost me, what do I do?” Then a friend came up to me, “Hey, I have an artist for you. They owe me money so I’ll have them do it for free.” I was taken back by his generosity. I didn’t know what to say. He put us in contact. I ended up giving her full artist discretion, which I didn’t give my brother at all, my bad. Sorry, kind of set him up for disaster on that one. You live and learn.

So, my artist comes in and makes this amazing painting, but it won’t fit on a cover. It won’t upload or anything. “Dammit, what am I going to do?” Same friend swoops in (he was my savior with the cover so yes he swooped.) and does some cool things with Photoshop. He wouldn’t accept a single payment for it either. Next go around he won’t have a choice in the matter.

Cover done, I’m ready to publish…wrong. What do I have left? My fiancée suggests I follow through with a professional editor.

Editing, of the professional kind.

How was I going to afford a professional editor? I mean hell, they can cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars and I was sitting there with like fifty bucks. I know…Kickstarter. Let me tell you, if you don’t have a following or money for advertising, you’re not going to have a successful Kickstarter campaign. At least, that was my experience anyway.

All of a sudden I got a message from someone who donated to my cause. She was an editor and didn’t charge an arm and a leg, which is great because I like having two of each. I talk it over with my banker (that’s another thing I call my fiancée) and I send off my manuscript to some unknown person.

She was professional and made a ton of corrections, I was thankful. At this point I also had a lot of experience understanding that I may not be the best self-editor, I might possibly be the worst, so I wasn’t as mortified seeing all the red. It was like looking at a slasher movie. I made changes then sent a payment and the manuscript, again.

In a timely manner, she sent it back to me, and I sent my final payment. She allowed me to make payments. This was super helpful and allowed me to get a professional edit on my book. A huge life saver for myself and my book. Finally, I was done with it all.

How long and what did I learn?

So how long did this take me? From start to finish it took me about a year and half to two years to get to publishing. For my next novel, I don’t think it’ll take me as long, fingers crossed.

Everything I learned in this process was necessary. I didn’t realize how much went into it all. The big thing I learned is that if you give someone a deadline and they don’t make it, find someone else. It’s probably better for both of you anyway. No reason to keep harping on them to finish something they don’t have time to do.

I want to thank everyone again on how much they truly helped me.

I guess the work is never really done. My next step, marketing, but that’s another article down the road.