This is what my checklist looked like two years ago when I decided to write a book for publication. Seems pretty simple, right? Not easy, but simple for sure. It has a wonderful “step one”, “step two” kind of feeling, like finishing one will lead right into the next.
Step one, in particular, seemed like an easy task. I wrote like a maniac in high school and when I decided to pick the craft back up after college I jumped head first into fan fiction writing (as many other writers I know have done…in my defense). I wrote two novel length stories. They would have been short novels (60k and 55k), but they were technically novel length! And they were good as far as I could tell from my readers. I ate up the compliments, bathed in the internet affection, and thought that writing a “real” novel would be a cake walk.
My ego was way too inflated.
Once I started meeting with my critique group I learned really fast that writing a novel is much harder than writing a fan fiction. I couldn’t just hammer something out and toss it on the internet any more. I had to write a chapter, pick it apart, put it back together, burn that copy, write a new one, pick THAT one apart and then set it aside to be adjusted again later. I had to remember every detail so later on I wouldn’t mess something up. I had to make sure my tenses were right and my POV was right. I learned that I have a huge problem with passive voice and -ly words. I wasn’t just doing this for fun any more and I realized that doing it for real mean doing work. REAL work.
Once I got all that under control I had to figure out how to find the time I needed to work seriously on my book. I had to adjust my priorities. I had to decide if I should keep my full time job that was slowing my writing to a crawl. In the end I chose to prioritize my book. I quit my job and fell back into the abyss of college-kid-poverty.
This is what my checklist looks like now. Once you get past the tears and all that, you see the important part. I’ve finished my draft.
I finished my draft!!
150,607 words worth of horrible first draft. It has so much more work to be done on it, but I can’t express how good it feels to know that I’ve completed the story for the first book–for MY first book. I had worked so long on this that I had a hard time imagining it being over. Of course, it’s not over, but it’s great to know that I can finally say that step on is done.
Now I’ll spend my editing time hoarding my tears so I will have plenty to cry during my querying experience!!
At Wit{t}'s End 