The Mistakes of a First Time Novelist

Well, sort of...

Writing the first draft-- Check!

Editing your first draft-- Check!

Writing your second draft-- Check!

Sending to Betas-- Check!

Making Beta Edits-- Check!

Realizing you didn't edit your first draft that great and now your second draft back with Beta edits is a gleaming red mess of word soup?-- Uhm? Check :(

The moral of my checklist is, well, there isn't one. I thought when I started this crazy (stupid, emotional, erratic, stressful and oddly euphoric) ride of writing a novel that everything could be done in nice little steps and eventually I would make it to the top. I was wrong. Dead wrong. At least for the process as I know it. And it's not for lack of trying.

I started this all with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) thinking, 'writing a novel in a month with a bunch of awesome people? Sure, why the hell not!' Then I learned that I wouldn't be done once 50,000 words were hit. I learned that I couldn't just leave my characters in a jumble of sentences that more often than not didn't make any sense. So I did what any insane human would do. I decided I need to get the damn thing ready to be published. 

At this point I sought out advice, checklists, wisdom. Anything that could possibly make this process easier and you know what? That absolutely failed. Sure I heard a lot that made the wheels in my brain turn. I started looking at things that I never thought of before. I got to compile a few friends in the process that I could bounce my questions off of. In these senses it was a beautiful thing. But in the hope of finding the fastest, safest route to becoming a novelist, well, it didn't go as I would have hoped. 

See, everyone has a different path in writing. Everyone is going to contradict the others and give opinions that are both off-the-wall and sound. In other words, they can't help you. I've come to see that I am the only one that can help me find the best path and to do that I have to fail exuberant amounts of times. I have to question myself, doubt myself and ultimately trust myself to make the correct decisions because if I follow someone else's journey? There will never be any success. I truly believe that.

I guess the proof in the pudding is that I'm still editing because I did something that worked for a more seasoned author that honestly, isn't working for me. My first and second drafts were done so "willy nilly" that I know I need to hash them out a little more. I know that my writing needs to be improved line by line and only now that I am most familiar with my story am I capable of doing that. Only now that I've desecrated a few things can I rebuild. 

So, my advice? Take all the advice you can get. Try everything that people offer. Give an ear to people you trust and those you do not. But in the end choose what works for you. There is no universal check list. There is no easy path to success or a job well done for mediocrity. I know that I need to do another complete overhaul before I submit to an editor and that I probably need another round of beta's too. So despite the feeling I have to 'stick to the checklist' I know that I'll be the only one in the end who suffers. Well, me and my characters. 

Despite how green the other grass looks, trust that you'll be happier (and more proud) if you just water your own.

:)