How to Write a Novel in 37 Easy Steps- Part Two

When we last left our hero (that's me!), he had done lots of research, outlining, and development of his characters. Having put off the writing for as long as he can, he reaches the fun part.

I fall back on words of wisdom from legendary American crime writer, Mickey Spillane, who said, "The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book." I take that to mean I should have a good hook that grabs a reader's attention. I deliberately target a short first chapter, with some rich imagery of whatever the impending issue may be. 

Great. Now for the next 80,000 words.

There are writers who say "I'm going to write 1,000 words a day if it kills me." It's good to have goals and all, but that's not me. I do try to write every day, in the morning if possible. If I get through a whole chapter, great, but sometimes it's just not flowing. Or things like work or mowing the lawn get in the way. Since I have an outline sitting next to my keyboard, I can follow along and at least get some words out of my head. 

The biggest single thing I know at this point is that you can't edit a blank page. The first draft is the skeleton of the work. Sometimes I write and it's terrible. No, that's not being self-deprecating, it's a real assessment. The thing is, at this point, I don't care! I know that once I get through the entire book, I'm going to go back through several times and edit the heck out of everything. 

For example. In the draft, I may say, "His eyes were blue." Wow, that's great, huh? When I go back through, hopefully, that becomes something like, "Up close, his eyes were the color of bluebonnets in Texas. The right one was more open than the left, but both eyes were sharp and clear. They seemed to bore right through me."  It's adding some flesh to the skeleton.

I write each chapter as a separate document. They will all get glued together at some point, but it's less intimidating to me to do them as individual pieces. Again, since I have an outline, I can see for myself how they relate to one another, and that's enough for now. 

Most important thing here? You can never save/back-up too much! Anyone who has ever done any type of serious writing has, at some point, lost vast amounts of work. I'm smart enough to know that's a gut-wrenching feeling that nobody wants. In addition to saving often, I e-mail the documents to myself. At least if my laptop dies, I have some of the work in a recent format. Some folks use a flash drive or burn it to a disk or save it on the cloud. Whatever works for you.

How long does it take to draft a book? Dear God, that's a good question, to which, I don't have an answer. My targeted length is about 85,000 words (it's the industry/genre standard). If I actually write 500 words per day, that comes out to about 175 days or close enough to six months. If the juices are flowing, it may take less time. If they're not ... 

I know two things towards the end. I knew long ago how the story was going to end, so the last couple of chapters tend to get written pretty fast. I also know that this part will be (back to Mickey Spillane) something that makes the reader want to get my next book.

The magical day comes when I type the last chapter or epilogue and hit "save" for the last time. I'll confess, the first time I did this, I cried. I still get really excited about this part! Because I have to, I then sit down and very carefully cut-and-paste all of the individual chapters together into one long document. And then SAVE. And then e-mail it to myself.

Now I can see how long this first draft is, which is geekily exciting. I know there's a ton of work yet to be done, but that's for another day. Stay tuned for more on the joy of editing!