It took me 22 years to finish one book. I wrote a lot of short stories as a kid but never was able to make them into novel length works though I always dreamed of doing that. At fourteen I used to add completely unnecessary scenes that had nothing to do with the plot of my works to them just to make it longer. I used to try typing in bigger font, having more chapter breaks. The longest I got was only about thirty pages on the computer. I would get so frustrated because they would be so much longer than that in my notebook where I wrote everything down. I didn't have my own computer. When I was in college I thought- okay I can finish this book since it is my school project, but it will probably take me three years to finish it. Then I made myself work on it everyday for an hour. Not a super lengthy time but substantial. It started to get done. I finished it mostly in one year. But boy I did not want to work on it sometimes. Sometimes writing is fun, but sometimes it is so hard I'd rather be running. That was what I did for awhile, or cleaned my room, or looked at my split ends. I could do that for hours a day. Hours plural. Finishing a novel was hard, really hard, like running 5,000 miles in a year hard in a different way. I didn't want to write another one.
But I did, want to. I just didn't do it. I wanted to want to do it. Until I was sitting on the beach one day with my notebook, thinking about the Uglies books I had just read. I wanted to write an adventure like that. It spoke to me on the beach, write me. And even though that novel was almost one hundred thousand words I finished it from start to finish in about a year.
I had another novel that was almost done that whole year, one that would remain in that state for over two years. I looked over it from time to time and I just didn't like it so I worked on other things, or nothing. Then one day I realized how many children I had living in the house and it was like a switch- I suddenly had to work on them until they were grown up. I worked until I finished that almost done one- about one hundred hours of work later and didn't stop typing.
My fourth book, Baby Summer, was in fragments in an old notebook that wasn't rediscovered until about two and a half months ago. It was about eight thousand words- most of them usable, a thousand or so not. In a month it had expanded to 50,000 words. In three weeks I liked all of it so much I stopped editing it.
Wait? That doesn't happen! I don't like them even when I have spent months editing them sometimes. Sometimes I never like them, they are unlikable. This was a novel writing break.
It took 22 years for 1, 3 years for the second, 1 year for the third, and one month for the 4th!
Only 9 to go
But I did, want to. I just didn't do it. I wanted to want to do it. Until I was sitting on the beach one day with my notebook, thinking about the Uglies books I had just read. I wanted to write an adventure like that. It spoke to me on the beach, write me. And even though that novel was almost one hundred thousand words I finished it from start to finish in about a year.
I had another novel that was almost done that whole year, one that would remain in that state for over two years. I looked over it from time to time and I just didn't like it so I worked on other things, or nothing. Then one day I realized how many children I had living in the house and it was like a switch- I suddenly had to work on them until they were grown up. I worked until I finished that almost done one- about one hundred hours of work later and didn't stop typing.
My fourth book, Baby Summer, was in fragments in an old notebook that wasn't rediscovered until about two and a half months ago. It was about eight thousand words- most of them usable, a thousand or so not. In a month it had expanded to 50,000 words. In three weeks I liked all of it so much I stopped editing it.
Wait? That doesn't happen! I don't like them even when I have spent months editing them sometimes. Sometimes I never like them, they are unlikable. This was a novel writing break.
It took 22 years for 1, 3 years for the second, 1 year for the third, and one month for the 4th!
Only 9 to go
