"Failing" your Writing Goals

I am blessed to know some other aspiring authors and be able to share this journey with them. I made a Facebook group for us, so we can share the disappointments, excitement, and everything in between that trying to become a published author causes, and all in the safety of a private group of people who understand the deeply personal nature of writing. When I started the group, I knew I wanted a place where I could share my journey without announcing it to the world in general. It is rare to get the first book you write published, and knowing that, I was unwilling to share my hope of doing just that with everyone.

This year, we have started telling each other what our writing goals are for each month. So far, we have only January finished, and out of the three of us who ventured forth our writing goals, I was the only one to complete them.

I could just feel the sighs from the other two ladies when they said that they had not completed their writing goals. One of them actually wrote that she had "failed" both of her goals.

Now I don't know exactly how driven they are to complete their goals right now. I know one of them is traveling, and the other is in the very early stages of resurrecting a book she started writing years ago.

But I do know that there are times when our writing goals don't get completed in the time allotted to them.

Writing is so different from anything else I have done in my life. With most things, when you set a goal, they are easily achievable. If I plan to exercise three days a week, I know exactly how to complete that goal. If I want to spend an hour cleaning a week, I know how to do that. If I don't succeed at those goals, it's because I didn't put the time in to finish them.

Writing isn't like that. Yes, you can certainly fail to put the time in. But there are times when writing comes slowly. There are times when you need to spend time mulling over the plot or the characters, and sitting down to write that day will come to nothing because you're not ready yet to put it down on paper. There are times when you sit down to write and it comes at a trickle. Each sentence seems difficult, and you may delete the entire scene when you return to it on a day when inspiration hits. Other times, the words come out in a torrent, and your fingers struggle to put keep up on the keyboard.

This month, I had an entire chapter that I wrote that didn't sit right with me. I was unable to keep writing until I figured out what was wrong with it. At that point, I deleted it and wrote an entirely different chapter in its place, which works much better. Now the story can continue, but it was unable to before because that chapter was wrong.

I think you can "fail" your writing goals if you don't attempt to achieve them. But I think that sometimes, even with putting in the time and the effort, our goals may remain unreached for the simple fact of how writing works.

Editing is Hard

When I wrote the first version of my novel, the main difficulty of getting the words on the page was being able to find the time to write. Once I had the time, it was always fairly easy to sit down and let the story flow out.

Editing that version was perfectly straightforward as well. I had a sheet of paper where I had each chapter written along with a short description, and as I wrote the story, I would jot down by a certain chapter something that needed to be added or changed as the story developed. I didn't have any major points that needed to be changed, and a good deal of my editing was noticing that I used the one word too frequently in such and such a paragraph and changing it so it was no longer repetitive.

Now I'm doing a major, enormous edit. Creating my novel 2.0 is a lot harder than making it the first time.

I'm changing it from being a dual perspective book to being only from the grown-up's point of view. It makes for a much better book.

I am still including a good chunk of the other perspective, at least that was my plan. Yet I just finished writing the first chapter incorporating that perspective and I've been mulling it over ever since.

I have an entire half a book's worth of writing from this other point of view, and I had been aware that I would of course have to cut out parts of it to make it work. But now that I've written this one chapter incorporating the previous story line, it just isn't going to work. I don't mean the entire notion, but how I had pictured it.

If I include as much from this point of view as I had planned to, it is going to be too much. There won't be enough time for the main character to figure things out without it weighing down the plot.

So I'm going to have to really sit down and figure out how to do this. I'm going to have to cut out a lot of things I had planned to include, and I'm going to have to find a way for it to flow well with this new change. A lot more is going to have to change than the half a story I had originally thought.

And I'm not sure where it'll end up. I don't know how this book is going to end, now. The last chapter was from the child's perspective, and I can't find a good way to wrap that up. Not that I'm anywhere near the end of the story.

Editing is a lot harder when it's a huge shift like this. I just need to remember that this will make my book so much better. It may be a struggle to work though it at times, but this new version will be a great improvement on the old.

It's just hard to throw out so much that I've put my heart into, even with the knowledge that I'm making it better.

Forced Writing

I've been making a point at trying to write my book, even at times when I'm not feeling it. I took my car in to get some button fixed so it wouldn't randomly start a fire, and I brought my laptop along. I sat in the waiting area, writing my book, only to come home and delete everything I had written. Once I was actually in the frame of mind where writing came easily, the writing I had tried to force wasn't what I wanted on the page.

I know that even trying to get the scenes out when they don't want to come is a good thing, and that sometimes I can get where I need to go, even if I need to go back though it completely redo scenes when I'm editing it. It just makes it hard to feel like trying to write if the words are struggling to come.

Still, I think trying to find the words and think about the story, even if it ends up being redone later, is a good thing because it's making me continue to think about my book. I have weeks when I don't sit down to write because my mind is busy on other things, and at least when I'm writing sub par things, I'm still writing and thinking about the story.

So I'm going to consider it a success, and accept that some things will need to be thrown out when my mind is in proper writing mode.

A New Year

I haven't blogged for quite some time. My eldest started school, I've been sick with a constant cycle of colds, and I've been watching two of my nephews during the week. So my life has become very busy with non-writing things.

However, writing things are happening as well.

So back in October, I read what little response I got from the people who agreed to read through my book (I gave them a month and one hadn't even looked at it and the other two had read only a small portion). In the future, I may try to find less busy people to give me feedback, although the feedback I did get was greatly appreciated.

Anyway, in October I finished my edits, wrote my query, and emailed a bunch of agents. A week after sending them all out, I had an epiphany about how to make my book a thousand times better.

Which is good, since I've received lots of polite rejections as the months have gone by.

I'm drastically changing my novel. It used to be a two perspective story, and now it is only from one point of view. I think it will work a lot better, and hopefully agents will think so too when I'm ready to query them all once more.

I now have three solid book ideas outside of what I'm working on, so that's exciting. And frustrating, since I'll be doing some mundane task like taking a shower or folding laundry, and I'll picture an entire, wonderful scene in my head for one of these books that I'm not currently working on. But I'm forcing myself to simply outline the ideas, and stay on task with writing the one I've started.

I got stuck at the beginning of December. I knew I wanted this chapter from the previous version, and I had added it into the book and it just wasn't sitting right. I finally figured out what was wrong and have added two chapters before it, and now all is well again. I'm about to begin the chapters that are incorporating the point of view I've eliminated from this version, so that will be fun. Although I expect it will be difficult to eliminate so much of what I had written, but I recognize that I need to cut it down significantly for it to work from the other character's point of view.

I wrote the first version of this book from October 2013 until October 2014. So I'm hoping to complete this version at the same rate, and hopefully have the first draft and perhaps some other drafts finished by the time 2015 ends.

I'm looking forward to another year of writing!

Waiting

I completed my fourth draft on Saturday. I actually left the house and spent a good eight hours reading through it from start to finish and polishing it up.

Now it is off in the hands of the wonderful people who have agreed to critique it for me. I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say, but it is so very scary!

This is the first time anyone will have read my book. I have spent almost a year of my life working on it, and while I think it's a wonderful book, I am aware that others may not agree.

So now I'm just anxiously waiting. I don't know how long the critiquing will last. I haven't really given them a time when I'd like it back, although I am hoping by the end of September. I started the book in October of last year, and it seems kind of nice to polish it up all wonderfully and start looking for an agent in October of this year. Of course, I may have a lot more editing to do after I hear their feedback, so there's a decent chance it will be later than then. Still, that's my hope.

I don't really know what to do with myself. I've spent so much of this last month reading and editing and reading and editing some more.

The obvious thing would be to start my next book, but that will vary a great deal depending on if this one gets published or not. If it does, it is the first book in a trilogy, and I would begin book two. I have that book outlined and ready to begin, but I am hesitant to do so. This first book may not be good enough to get me an agent and get published, and even if it does, there may be great changes that need to be made to it that would impact the content of the second book.

If it isn't publishable, I have a couple books pretty well planned out to start writing, but again, I don't really want to start writing one and then have to stop if my book does get published. It seems jarring to stop writing a book in the middle, and it also makes it harder to really consider starting.

So I'm working on my query letter to help me find an agent. I'm doing some research for the two books I will choose between writing if this book doesn't get published. I think I will start planning out some of the prophecies that will have a big impact on the rest of the trilogy if this book does get published.

It's kind of strange to be aimless and very anxious at the same time!

Although, I expect this is nothing compared to the nerves I will feel when I'm actively trying to find an agent.

Editing Motivation

I finished my first draft of my first novel maybe three weeks ago. I expected to promptly begin editing and finish my second draft in lightning speed.

Yeah, not so much.

I pretty much did nothing with it for about a week, and I have sporadically edited since then. Granted, I'm on vacation seeing extended family I haven't seen in five years, but it's not that I'm just so incredibly busy that I can't get around to it.

It's that it's kind of boring. Writing the book, getting the story out and figuring out what should happen in which order and how I can connect event a with event q, that's incredibly fun. Editing is slowly rereading and deciding what changes ought to be made to make it flow better. And honestly, I'm not even at that point yet. I'm going through my list of changes or additions that I created while writing the first draft. After I'm done with those, I plan to ignore it for a week and then reread it and see what I think needs to change.

Writing the first draft is play. Editing is work.

Not terrible work, perfectly enjoyable work. But not the carefree joy of playing.

However, I have gotten a burst of motivation recently. I figured out an entire scene of the second book of this trilogy I'm writing. I jotted it down and put it in my book two folder I have, since I'm not going to do any writing of that anytime remotely soon, but I have found it very motivational. I'm wanting to start writing that second book.

And to do that, I have to finish the first. I have to do this cleaning up bit, then come back with a fresh mind and see what needs polishing. Then hand it off to the fabulous people who have agreed to give me constructive criticism. Then I'll need to take that constructive criticism bravely and look at their thoughts and decide if they're right or not and see what needs to be changed then.

Then I will start the scary business of trying to find an agent and get published. And perhaps then I can begin to entertain thoughts of actually starting book two.

I have edited seven out of thirty-three chapters. Just twenty-six to go!

First Draft Finished!

Last night I completed the first draft of my book. It was very exciting to finish it. Of course, my family was all asleep, so I had to celebrate with my cat (who did not approve of my picking him up and jumping around happily with him).

My book is thirty-three chapters long. It is 85,584 words long. I have spent over eight months writing this draft, and I am extremely proud of it.

That being said, I am aware that it is nowhere near done.

It's been an interesting process, writing a novel. I've had bits and pieces planned out since the beginning, including most of the last two chapters. I have made lists of what should happen when in the story, and then made different and newer versions as the book has progressed.

I have never been a person to write multiple drafts of something. Throughout high school and college, when I had a paper to write, I found it impossible to write more than one draft. I could never understand the need. As I was writing it, if something needed to be added earlier in the paper, I would simply stop and add it in. (Like this paragraph here, which I only thought of while starting the next one). I have never had a problem with writing informally. I'm fairly certain that is due to having British parents, so my way of speaking leans toward posh at time.

I started writing this book the same way as I wrote all those papers. I would write a scene and then pause (since it's remarkably difficult to move on immediately to a different scene after you've invested your mind and emotions in the first one). Next time I would write, I would reread the previous parts and edit them as needed. I did this for the first three chapters before I realized how impossible that was going to be.

When I first started writing my book, I made a list of the chapters in order to keep track of how long my chapters were and make sure they were all fairly similar in length. After that third chapter, I started making notes next to the page length of edits that occurred to me as I wrote further along.

Some of these edits are minor things. Make sure this person hands this item to so and so. Stuff that will take just a few minutes to complete. Others are more intensive. In this first draft, I had the eight year old character worrying about her father's health and thinking that perhaps he might be about to die. Now that I've completed the book, I am going to take that part out. It's not remotely important to the story, and adds worry that simply does not need to be there. That edit may take more time.

I also have plot changes that has happened as the story has progressed. Situation A that was to lead to situation B is now more smoothly reached by situation C. So that first situation needs to be written out.

I also need to add some more of the personal interaction between the adult characters than I have in my first draft. I have a couple of notes as to where to add them, and I'll see if it fits to bump that up in other spots as well.

So my current plan is to go through my book and make the changes I have thought to make while writing as well as others that spring up as I'm rereading it. Then I shall ignore it for a week or so. I may start writing a stand alone novel I've been thinking about while writing this book (which is meant to be the first in a trilogy) or perhaps I'll just read a lot of other people's books. Anyway, then I shall reread it and see what I think needs to be changed then and make those changes. At that point, I will hand off copies to my three fabulous readers who are going to give me some brilliant constructive criticism, see what they think, adjust the book as needed, and then try to find an agent who would want to represent me. Which will be very scary, but it's all part of the process. Luckily, I have enough to do before then that I'm not worrying about that at the moment.

I have no idea how long the revisions will last. But I hope it will be as rewarding as writing the first draft has been!