How I wrote a novel: intro and master post

I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was in kindergarten. I don't really remember a time when I wasn't writing. I always wrote fiction and poetry; I also started posting fanfic online at the age of eight. But I was never one of those writer kids who completed several epic novels. In fact, I was twenty by the time I finished writing something longer than 30k.

I remember being seven, finishing Just As Long As We're Together by Judy Blume and The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danziger, then opening up a text doc, eager to write a heartrending teen novel. I titled it, horrifyingly, The Day I Got My Period. I did not get more than 500 words in because I had no idea what teenagers or periods were actually like. (I think I had to exorcise that particular demon by describing uterus-rams in Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez.)

I remember being eleven, and writing an extremely involved retelling of my then-favorite anime. I started at the beginning and made my OC the protagonist, as one does. (She was very cool and liked to fight, unlike the actual main character.) I wrote 20 chapters and more than 60,000 words over the course of a year, and then just kinda...lost steam.

In high school and college, short stories were the required form for workshops, contests, and most open calls for publication. It was also what my favorite fic authors at the time were writing. So I began focusing on short stories (and poetry! I was mostly a poet in college). Still, even as I started to publish short fiction, it remained my goal to write a book someday—because books were the thing. In bookstores, libraries, and my own bookshelves. A book could be made up of short stories, but the vast majority of books were novels.

In 2009 I attempted NaNoWriMo. I wrote 50,000 words into a story that had no shape. Just characters I loved, in settings that were easy to conjure, moving along a plot that was mostly vibes. It was around this time that I started to realize I maybe had a problem. Like: I was really, really not good at this writing long thing. This writing a book thing. Hmm. Even as I was improving as a writer, length seemed to be an issue for me.

From 2010-2013 I moved across the world and experienced a lot of personal loss and buried myself in school to cope, so let's just fast-forward that era. I was still writing. But with a lot of heaviness, and the belief that I'd probably stop once I started working full time.

In 2013 I went to Clarion and renewed my commitment to writing. I was filled with inspiration and passion and a desire to do the work. I had writing colleagues! I had mentors! I was going to keep at it! I started writing, revising, and sending short stories to professional markets.

I also started thinking about writing a novel, more seriously. A lot of the friends I made, as I entered the spec fic community (in the US, UK, and on Twitter), were writing novels. My short fiction career was progressing, but the desire to write a book had never left. Writing novels seemed to be a path to a more sustainable career in fiction. It paid better, and it was read more widely. And while everything in publishing is inherently unstable, a book contract did seem to lead to more longevity.

I was always attempting the novel, or at least "writing longer." And it was always such a bitch process. Like: I really sucked at it. I couldn't plot, I couldn't seem to sustain interest in a story, I couldn't figure out what to do. When I complained about this, some people reasonably asked, "Well, must you write a novel? You can just stick with short stories, right?"

And there was certainly truth to that. I love short fiction and hope to always write it. But I also did, desperately, want to write a novel. I was shy and self-conscious about it, but the goal was always there. It was just that, despite a lifetime of writing, for some reason, I could not figure out how.

This series is the story of how I figured out how.

The timeline

If you had told me in 2020 that it would take me five years to get this book to a point where I felt I could query it...I mean, I'd believe it (I don't see why you'd lie to make me depressed), but I'd also be, well, shocked. And bummed. Five years? Five years is longer than high school! It's longer than college! It's longer than any time I've spent at one job!

Alas. It took five years. And part of what made that five-year slog so difficult was that for much of it, I was extremely critical of myself. Because I've been writing for so long, I should know how to do this. Because so many other people I know have written novels so why can't I. Because I wanted it so searingly and still couldn't seem to figure out how.

If any of you have read Stephen King's On Writing (which I do highly recommend), you'll probably remember his advice to write a novel in three months. I thought three months was bananas...but surely a year was possible. Maybe two years max. I could write a novella in three months, and a novel was 2-3x that in wordcount, so a year seemed feasible. I knew there were writers who took five, seven, ten years to write their first book. But I kept hoping that it wouldn't be me.

It's interesting to go back and read my writing journal because for the first three years of drafting, I was constantly telling myself this will be done in the next few months. This will be done by the end of the year. At some point I crossed a threshold of despair and surrendered to the fact that this book is going to take the freaking time it will take, and there isn't much I can do except keep working. It wasn't continuous acceptance. It was more me grieving and being annoyed about that reality every so often, but plodding on, because what else could I do? There was nothing for it but to keep writing.

Here's how long it actually took me:

• Research, pre-drafting, noodling: April to October 2020. 6 months. I also graduated from my MBA, job hunted, started a new job, and revised my collection then. (This was also 2020. So.)
• First draft: October 2020 to February 2024. 40 months. Honestly the most excruciating writing I've ever forced myself to do. Wordcount: 186k.
• Second draft: March to October 2024. 8 months.
  • I did a reread, trimming bloated sentences as I went along. Wordcount: 141k.
  • Then I reverse outlined and restructured (cut two chapters entirely). Wordcount: 137k.
  • I count this as the same draft because they overlapped in terms of finished product.
• Third draft: January to May 2025. 5 months. Full retype edit. Wordcount: 122.9k. 💡 It was only after this draft that the manuscript started to feel like an actual book.
• Fourth draft/Line edit 1: June 2025. 1 month. A standard computer edit. Wordcount: 120.4k.
• Fifth draft/Line edit 2: June 25 to July 19. 23 days. Read aloud edit.
• Sixth draft/Line edit 3: July 22 to August 1. 10 days, but I was also stuck on an airplane for basically two days with nothing else to do. Paper edit.
• Seventh draft/Line edit 4: August 10-12. 3 (delirious) days. Made sure I got all the paper notes in, and reread top to bottom. Wordcount: 119k.

Was it grueling? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes.

I wouldn't wish the desire to write a novel on my worst enemy, but also, if you feel you have to, there is likely nothing I can say to convince you otherwise. It's too difficult a project to pursue unless you really, really want it. You're either going to figure out everything you have to...or not.

Writing this book was definitely one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's also been incredibly fulfilling. Regardless of what happens to this manuscript, I'm relieved, grateful, and proud that I proved to myself I could finish a longer thing. I'll have more to say on this in future, but a core takeaway for me is that writing a book really requires no special skill except persistence, and a willingness to constantly learn.

What we'll cover the next few months

I'm going to deep dive into the writing and editing process I did on my own, working through the above timeline. I won't talk about the publishing journey because that's, uh, currently in progress. So my series will conclude mid-August 2025, which is when I finally queried the novel.

In discussing the writing process, I'm not going to talk about the content of the book too much, though sometimes I will to contextualize things. My hope is I can eventually release additional posts (maybe a paid tier?) that more directly show the process for this particular book.

1. Part 1: The first draft
   1. Deciding on the project (or, overcoming shiny new object syndrome)
   2. Setting up the process (what worked/didn't work for me)
   3. How to make the time to write (or, writing with a day job)
   4. What to do when you get stuck (or, what is this bloated fucking mess)
   5. Dialogue and difficult characters (or, omg why do you suck so much)
   6. Crawling your way to an ending
   7. A few specific things that saved my ass
2. Part 2: Revision (Drafts two through seven)
   1. I cut 60k words out of my first draft: what it means to actually write badly
   2. Reverse outline
   3. The retype
   4. The line edits
3. Part 3: Special topics
   1. My experience at a residency
   2. Writer models
   3. The book no one knows about
   4. What teaching writing taught me about writing
   5. What I'd tell myself if I was starting over

When I have a new post, I'll link here for easy future access. This is just an outline in the email, but the web version will eventually have links to each post.

Also: this isn't the only thing I plan to email about. I'm hoping to do some posts on media I love (short stories, authors, etc—similar to this one on Sofia Samatar). I also reserve the right to add/remove topics as I feel like it. 🙂

Two writing classes that helped me immensely

I took several writing classes during this period. I like studying writing. (I also like studying in general. 🤓 Once an honor student, always an honor student?) There are two I want to call out because they helped me come unstuck in major ways.

1. The Novelist's Toolkit with Rebecca Makkai

I took this live online in 2023, watching one class weekly. About 30 minutes into the first session I realized oh, shit, Rebecca knows what she's talking about. It was when she mentioned the walls you slam into while drafting (at 10k, first 30%, murky middle, etc). I realized that had happened to me almost exactly as described.

It gave me comfort that someone actually had clear, concrete advice about this esoteric process, and was confident enough to teach it. The advice is sound and I've gone back to it a few times. Rebecca talked about working on her first novel for 10 years; but also, now that she's several books in, she understands the process much better, and can do it much more reliably.

I will say: I think I got more out of the class since I took it 3 years into my novel-writing journey, and was deep into my manuscript. By that time, I had extensive experience struggling with my draft. It felt like going into an MBA program with five years of work experience: the advice was contextualized by my own progress and difficulties. I'd recommend taking the class once you've been drafting on your own for a while and need concrete advice.

2. Roadmap to Revising a Novel with Laura van den Berg

This was taught through The Shipman Agency, and I can't find a URL for it anymore. But you could email them and see if they still have the recordings. I took this in 2024, over two consecutive weekends, after I'd finished the first draft and was struggling through revision. I didn't think all the advice would work for me, but my attempt to revise on my own wasn't progressing the way I wanted. I ultimately ended up following most of her suggested revision process to the letter, and a year later was in a position to query.

Note: paid classes are an investment. I know not everyone can afford them—though I do love supporting writing teachers. I'll share free resources where I can, too.

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Next email the series officially starts! I will be talking about how I decided which idea to pursue. Until then, wishing you a good start to the year of the Fire Horse. 🏇