What I learned writing my first novel.

Hello friends. This week I’m sharing ten lessons I learned while writing my first novel. I have a lifelong passion for learning things the hard way, so hopefully you can learn from (or be entertained by) my mistakes.

The earliest and most freeing lesson I had to learn is that no one cares. Not really. People will ask about it to be polite and occasionally someone will be curious, but for the most part people in your everyday life aren’t going to care about your novel. This is normal.

If you want support, you’ve got to build it yourself. Join or start a writing group, join online groups, coaching or courses. Even having one friend (perhaps a critique partner?) who you can share your work with makes a world of difference. Focus on quality support instead of quantity. If you have a handful of people you can talk to that is enough.

Since I started this newsletter, I get emails every week from readers who want to write a novel. You ask me what books and courses I recommend. You’re looking for the same shortcuts I was looking for when I started (I get it!). I send a small list, but in my heart, I know they may not be what you need.

Writing advice is so tricky because everyone is passionately sharing what worked for them. Unfortunately, we’re all wildly different and advice that unlocks something incredible for me might be useless to you. Advice that doesn’t fit can set you back when you apply it with force. This is why I think it’s important to try a lot of routines and advice before becoming attached to anything. Maybe your favorite writer writes all their novels at 2 am. That’s great and it probably looks so romantic in your imagination, but if you’re a mom with a toddler it might be advice you should run from.

Think of writing advice like a toddler trying new foods (and spitting most of them out). Sometimes it will be amazing, and it will change your life and other times you’ll say, “it’s not for me” and you won’t return. Fill your plate with different flavors and just try things!

Bottom line, always approach writing advice with curiosity but know that most of it won’t be a perfect fit for you. Focus on collecting routines that work, that spark your excitement and curiosity and get comfortable with leaving behind a lot of advice.

My second-grade teacher said this and I’ve never forgotten it. Reading helps develop your writing almost as much as writing does. It has a huge influence on you even if you believe you’re only reading for pleasure and the two are separate. There’s an element of the old-school saying “you are what you eat.” For this reason, I think it’s good heavily lean toward writing you admire, but I also believe having variety makes you smarter and sharper.

Read! Read! Read!

My husband comes from a songwriting background, which leans closer to poetry than storytelling. Still, I talk to him about writing constantly because he’s my husband and that’s what you do. He has a strong aversion to revision. In his mind there’s something magical about a first draft that revision can sand down and too much polishing can erase. I feared this at first. What if too much tinkering mutes the magic?

Four years later, I no longer worry about this, not for writing novels. I understand the magic of the moment. I’ve seen in work in his music, and it applies to painting and to so many other art and craft forms. But writing stories is revision and avoiding revision is missing a chance to level up. Sometime in the last few years I realized that revision is my favorite part of writing. Now, I cherish it and I spend as much time as I can revising with no fear of losing the magic.

Your taste is what gets you through the early months or years of writing material you’re not satisfied with. It’s the inner voice that lets you know it’s not where you want it to or need it to be, even before you can fix it. Taste is like one of those little kid height charts at Disney World. You come back year after year hoping this time, you’ll be tall enough, and eventually you are.

Your taste will be honest with you before anyone else will, gently tell you to keep practicing and growing.

It will also frustrate you (and twist the knife!) in the early phases, when you know what you want your book to be, but you can’t quite achieve it. If you’re anything like me, there will be tears and it will feel ugly for a while. For the first few years it felt like a curse. I knew what I was trying to do, and I couldn’t quite get there. But in the end, it was a gift. Always trust your taste.

Try writing with a pen and paper instead of typing. Try reading your work aloud or (if you are brave!) letting a friend read it to you. Try importing your novel to your kindle to read it. Try printing it out (double spaced!) to make notes. Try typing in a different font or color.

These little experiments have made a big impact when I was stuck or had read my work too many times. When you start to skim, change up the format. It’s easy to become blind to your own book.

Before I started learning to write I was in a career where I received a lot of praise and also bullying. So, when I started writing I didn’t want to share it for a long time. I didn’t want empty praise and I didn’t want to be shamed (I didn’t realize this, my therapist had to tell me!).

Once I realized I needed to rewrite my mindset, I started to share my writing with a coach. It was a soft, pillowy start but it helped me learn to invite critique and get comfortable.

If you aren’t used to it, it will feel strange at first and possibly bad. But once you get comfortable with critique it makes sharing your writing fun and exciting. Now, I love to receive a critique and invite it as much as possible. It takes some practice, so start putting your work out there earlier. It takes practice, but it’s so important to learn to accept criticism with an open heart.

No matter what you write (journaling, poetry, fan fiction, emails to a friend…) creative work is never wasted. Follow little creative urges. Write things in your journals that embarrass you. Tell your stories to yourself. Write things inspired by people you admire. Whatever you do, just keep making stuff.

Yes, writing a novel opens you up to tremendous risk. You might pour your heart and soul into something for years only to learn it still isn’t good enough (that was me and I lived to tell about it). Risk is scary. Failure hurts. I get it.

But there is something so powerful about being willing to fail. You must be willing to fail big to be successful. It is a rite of passage. You have to choose whether its easier to live with failure or regret. I would choose failure every day. It’s humiliating, but it usually makes a good story.

Failure is a great teacher. Make friends with her. Hold her hand. Learn to be comfortable with her presence and you’ve unlocked a secret door to success.

You will never be ready. I’ll speak for myself here, but no matter how many craft books I read, how many courses I took or how many outlines I wrote I was never going to be ready because the biggest thing that taught me to write a novel was writing a terrible first novel. Maybe it will be different for you. (I hope it is, but I fear it’s not.)

I wish I would have known this when I started. I agonized so much on my first novel trying to make it “good” but it was always going to be the first pancake. If you can accept this, you’re a better person than I am.

The silver lining? If you make that bad pancake and throw it in the trash, you can get to the real work faster than I did. Please just write your trash first novel. Get it over with! Nothing will ever teach you more, I promise.

If you’re still reading, thank you for being here. You can email me anytime. I love my newsletter readers and I consider you my pen pals, so don’t be a stranger. And if you do write a novel I hope you can hear me cheering from the sidelines. You can do it!

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