Novel Progress Update: Let the Drafting Begin!

Lately I’ve been writing.

Like, not writing shorter pieces or book reviews or essays, but working on the actual new novel I blogged about researching but not yet starting a few months ago.  I’ve been working in larger chunks of 2-4 hours one or two days a week, which is a pretty good rate for me with all the things I have going on.  So far in 2021 I’ve set aside six of these writing sessions where I sat down at the computer completely free of distractions and just wrote, which also feels really good.

Now let’s get one thing straight: I’m not the kind of person who usually brags (or blogs) about his writing progress, especially in terms of word count—which is why I’m not posting my word count here.  I don’t post my word count because all too often it can come across as bragging—like the number of words someone puts down on the page are an indicator of their self-worth even if all those words suck hard.  Other writers can read that and feel discouraged and inferior that they aren’t producing the same number of words—I know because I’ve been there.

I once read an interview with the writer John Banville where he talked about sometimes spending an entire day getting a single sentence exactly the way he wanted it.  John Banville writes some pretty beautiful sentences, but the point is that some writers need more time to produce a smaller number of words—and that’s OK.

All that being said, I’m perfectly OK with writers who like posting their word counts as a way of holding themselves accountable and giving themselves motivation.  As long as it’s not some passive-aggressive humble-brag, I fully support other writers who post their word counts, even if I choose not to do it myself.

In any case, while I’m not ready to talk about what the new novel’s actually about, I do want to talk more about the process…

 

Starting Was Really Hard…Kind Of

I’ve had the idea for this novel bouncing around in my head since I finished grad school five-plus years ago.  At the time, though, I wanted to start MFA Thesis Novel first because that idea felt more pressing.  In contrast, I knew this current novel would be far more difficult and wasn’t as clearly defined in my head, so I put it on the shelf for a while.

Flash forward to last spring when I finally found a publisher for MFA Thesis Novel.  Up until then I’d been devoting a lot of time to sending out queries, and didn’t want to divide my work time by working on a new novel while trying to pitch the old one.  Once I’d signed the publishing contract, though, I felt ready to move on to new frontiers.

…except I didn’t.  It was the middle of the pandemic, I was really busy with work, and I was slipping into a rough patch that took me months to fully understand.  I knew I should be starting the novel, but I just…couldn’t.

Instead I tried to set smaller goals for myself by researching and outlining, since the specifics of the new novel’s plot and characters still felt fuzzy in my head.  I also needed to get a handle on specific background info before I even felt comfortable starting, and that research has been an ongoing process.

But when it came right down to it, I still wasn’t doing any real writing.

 

Planning a Start Date in Advance Helped a LOT

In late November I passed a major milestone by sketching out a full outline of the novel.  It was rough for sure, but it had a beginning, middle, and ending, and all the major conflicts were defined.  I’d made a similar (though more detailed) outline when I started MFA Thesis Novel that guided me through the first draft, and it was really helpful for knowing where the story was going.

The problem was that I was still REALLY busy.  Luckily, I was taking more concrete steps to finish some projects and get others off my plate.  I also took the Japanese Language Placement Test in December (which I passed, btw!), so this was another major thing I no longer had to worry about.

I’d already made plans to take a three-and-a-half-week break around New Year’s, and I realized that the cards were lining up for me to finally, at long last, start a rough draft.

I made my Start the Novel in 2021 resolution back in early December, and it was amazing how well that goal guided me through the last few weeks of 2020.  I found myself feeling more clearheaded about other projects because I knew that finishing them would leave me more time for the novel.

I blogged a few months ago about the difference between having trouble starting projects versus having trouble finishing them.  In my case, setting a firm date for starting the novel weeks in advance raised it up a few notches on my priority scale.  I was making a promise to myself, and organizing my worktime around making sure that I kept it.

Of course, it also didn’t hurt that I had two weeks off from my Day Job to start 2021, which left my mornings free and made it a million times easier to focus ;-)

 

Appointment-Based Writing

When I sit down to work on a difficult project, I like to have a longer span of time where I won’t be interrupted.  This is partly because it clears my head, but also because I spend a lot of time at the beginning of a writing session just thinking—so if I only have an hour of writing time, I might spend forty-five of those minutes just staring into space while my mind wanders.

This mind-wandering is vital to my process, and it tends to pay off better in that second hour, where I might spend forty-five minutes pounding out words and only fifteen minutes thinking.  Same for the third hour, and maybe even the fourth—it takes me a while to get warmed up.

That’s why it’s been easier for me to make writing appointments for myself—I might decide on Friday that I’m going to spend the following Tuesday afternoon after my Day Job working on the novel, and make sure my schedule’s completely free for those three hours before dinner.  Not only does this keep my time free, but it also builds up the expectation of writing in my mind so I can settle other commitments in the days beforehand.

That’s why I only managed six novel-writing sessions in January but feel really satisfied with my progress.  Every last one of those sessions was productive and left me feeling good.

 

Onwards and Upwards!

I’m feeling optimistic that I’ll be able to keep up the pace of at least one novel-writing session a week, eventually bumping it up to two or three as I get further along.  Each time I sit down at the computer it’s been a little easier than the time before, and I’m feeling the thrill and excitement of working on a new project again for the first time in four years (!).

I plan on blogging occasionally about my progress here, partly to keep myself accountable, but partly because I might not have anything else to write about that week ;-)  I plan on playing it by ear, though, so even if you don’t hear from me, you can assume I’m still at work—one carefully planned session at a time.