Writing a Debut Novel—Expectation Vs. Reality

Like so many others, I’ve always loved the idea of writing a book. There was—and to a certain extent, still is—an impossible romanticism to the notion of novel writing. I pictured sitting down at a neat desk, perhaps in a twee café or in some lonely cottage looking out over windswept moors (trust me, I know), and the sentences flowing out of me, fully formed and expertly constructed.

(Tips for Overcoming the Blank-Page Blues.)

The reality was somewhat different, more painful, and altogether more chaotic. Here are some of the biggest reality checks I experienced when I sat down to write my debut novel.

This one should have been obvious, but when I signed myself up for the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course, I was fully convinced that I would have a polished, edited novel by the time the six-month course was over. I had a full plan laid out: 2,000 words a day, every day, would give me over double my word count, which would mean I would have time to write the novel, edit it, rewrite where necessary, and be ready to submit to agents by the summer.

Unfortunately, I did not take life into account. It turns out that in order to function you need to eat, sleep, work, and occasionally see friends to stop yourself from going mad.

Added to that, I did not factor in the human element. There are some days where the words simply aren’t flowing, or where you come up against a particularly tricky plot hole. It’s important to be kind to yourself during these moments—we’re not machines, and actually, taking some time out (even just a day) can be more beneficial than forcing yourself to write through it. Creating something does take time (three years in my case!), but there are ways to speed the process up if, like me, patience is not your strong suit. Which leads me to…

One of the biggest hurdles I came up against as I was writing was a lack of focus. I couldn’t understand it—I was doing everything right: sitting down at my computer day after day, churning words out as though my life depended on it, and yet something wasn’t working. I would stare at my blinking cursor and freeze, wondering why the scene felt forced or I didn’t know where to take it next.

The answer was simple: I didn’t yet have a clear idea of what I was writing towards, and nor did I fully know my character. Given my lack of aforementioned patience, anything that took me away from the writing itself felt like a step backwards, but it was only when I finally bit the bullet and sat down to figure these things out that the words began to flow.

There’s a lot of conflicting advice on planning—some writers do it religiously, and others simply see where the day takes them, but I suspect they all have a very clear sense of how the book is going to end and exactly who their character is. Planning, even very light planning, is better than none at all.

This one went against every instinct I had. When I pictured myself writing, I truly did imagine that it would be done in quick bursts of creative genius, where I was constantly inspired and dreaming up sentences that even Shakespeare would be envious of. I was quickly disabused of this notion.

There were so many occasions where I sat down to write, and I just wasn’t happy with what I’d put on the page. It was incredibly frustrating, but I quickly learned that in order to get anywhere with a novel, it was more just a consistent, concerted effort to get words—any words—on the page. It doesn’t matter if the words are bad—in early draft form, they likely will be—but you really can’t edit a blank page. Which leads me nicely onto…

The trap of perfectionism was huge for me. Once it became clear that the words I was generating were not, by any stretch of the imagination, Shakespeare-esque, my progress slowed dramatically. I’d sit down each morning and critique whatever I’d done the day before, making tiny tweaks here and there, restructuring sentences, and cutting huge swathes of exposition. Before I knew it, I’d look at the clock, and half the day had disappeared. It was not conducive to pushing forward or finishing a draft.

It was only when I forced myself not to re-read what I’d already done and instead keep writing, that I finally started to see progress. It was painful, reading that first finished draft, but it allowed me to see more clearly where the book was falling short, and make large-scale changes rather than tiny, sentence level tweaks. Those come later.

This was something I knew loosely, but I don’t think I appreciated quite how much of a time sacrifice writing a book would require. When I’d pictured it, I’d imagined my life would stay largely the same, but that was not the case. Any free time was suddenly dedicated to this mammoth task I’d undertaken, and—if it wasn’t—the guilt ate at me.

Lazy Sunday mornings became a thing of the past; I started waking up two hours earlier just to get words on a page; I declined dinner invitations worried about the knock-on impact a late night would have on my writing. I neglected friends, became very insular and put a lot of pressure on myself. It was not a particularly healthy routine, and if I were to go back and do it again, I’d remind myself that—as with anything—it’s a balancing act. Some sacrifices must be made, yes, but no creative work can be completed if you forget to live in the meantime. 

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