About two years ago, I sold my first novel, For Worse. Now, finally, it’s just a matter of weeks until my “pub date,” as we in the industry nonchalantly refer to a day on which I fully expect my head to explode. It was a seven year journey from the time I first thought of writing a book about a women’s dark web chatroom and the emergence of an actual book that actual people–some of them, strangers, even–will be able to read or listen to.
Though those years of work seem like a blur to me now, I discovered a few unexpected takeaways about the process that I’m bringing with me to novel number two. If you’re in the fragile, thrilling throes of writing your first novel, maybe some of these things will resonate with you.
1. Get A Dog. By this I mean, walk. I had a dog when I wrote my book–sadly, he is no longer with us–so I was walking early every morning, when I was my most alert and creative, traits that, for me, steadily decline as the day wears on. Walking with Chap was my favorite time for creating new characters, polishing a turn of phrase, and “what if”-ing my way through the story. I don’t know if it was the fresh air, the early hour, or, as I suspect, the flow of oxygen to the brain from exercise, but I did some of my best thinking, walking. So now my m.o. for kick-starting my writing brain is, get outside and take a walk–and I try to remember to take my phone, so I can put all my new ideas in a voice memo. Now I just need another dog.
2. Listen To Your Characters. I was working on a scene with my heroine and her friends, who were in an online chatroom. One of the women had disappeared, and there was to be a vigil in her home state of Kentucky. I had the rest of the chapter all planned out, and it did NOT include one character saying, “What if we went to Susie’s vigil?” I remember staring at that line in dismay. That couldn’t happen. It would throw my next chapters all out of whack. Then another character spoke up. She thought it was a good idea, too. Next thing I know, they’re all making plans to go to Kentucky. I stood up and backed slowly away from the computer. Clearly, there was a mutiny among the characters in my own head. When I told my therapist about this, she said, “Are you kidding me? This is a gift from God! Go get those women to the vigil!” She was right, and so were my characters. They all went to the vigil and it turned out to be a real turning point in the narrative. So when the voices in your head—assuming they’re the characters in your novel—start telling you things you weren’t expecting, listen to them.
3. A Little Procrastination Won’t Kill You. I can’t sit down and write with a clear head unless the bills are paid and the house is clean, or at least, neat (I don’t clean; I straighten). If you intend to sit down at your desk at 9 am but the floor is crunchy and last night’s dishes are in the sink–I’m just making this up, this isn’t my house–go ahead and do what you have to so you can sit down with nothing left to do except focus, dream, and write. This is not procrastination; it’s preparation. My yoga teacher says, “When you are stable, you are free.” She means when all the crap we have to do in our daily lives is done, then we can free our mind and soul to do our best work.
4. And Speaking Of Chores. I will never forget this moment. I had two-thirds of the book nearly done and the last three chapters written. My problem was, I couldn’t figure out how to connect them. I didn’t know the plot point that would get my antagonist angry enough to want to really damage my protagonist. I wasn’t even particularly thinking hard about this one night as I was doing the dishes when, like the burning bush in the desert, I suddenly saw the answer. It was simple, It was logical. It was perfect. I left the rest of the dishes in the sink and ran to my computer. I don’t think I ever felt more like a writer. And all I’d been doing was rinsing a glass.
5. You Are Mortal. Leave A Legacy. I had been drifting along, taking literally years to write my novel, when the pandemic struck in March of 2020. By Thanksgiving of 2020, I had completed my first draft. I by God wasn’t going to die without finishing my book and leaving something of my true self behind. We’re all gonna die. Finish your novel.
6. Get Yourself A Good Simile. I have a friend who’s a novelist I greatly respect, and he always outlines his entire book before he starts. I’ve tried to outline, but it’s just not the way I work. I can outline about three chapters ahead, but thinking about doing an overview of the entire book makes me anxious. I do better when I’m deep inside the story rather than flying above it, looking down. While I was writing my novel, I imagined climbing a rock wall (I have never climbed a rock wall), and seeing that next rock just up above and to the right, but not knowing how to get there. That’s how I viewed my process: how do I get to the next rock/story point? Here’s another way to look at it: E.L. Doctorow, who wrote Ragtime, among a lot of other wonderful books, said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” That’s me; I’m in the car, in the dark, in the fog, but I know I’ll get there.
So, the message I took away from my first book was, sometimes we do our best work away from our desk. It can be figuring out a plot problem, creating a new character or building the story structure. Like a computer that runs a program in the background, your story is untangling itself somewhere in the back of your mind, and you have to trust that it’s there, waiting to make its way through your brain (and sometimes, the fog) to the page. I had a teacher once who said, regarding the creative process, “Don’t think about it. Let it think about you.”
I’m gonna go take a walk and then do some dishes. And then re-write this article.