What I Learned Writing a Novel in 30 Days

“When I wrote THE END I wanted so badly for that to be the case.”

Today* was the 472nd day of my attempt to write a novel in 30 days. Last Thursday I decided to do a page one rewrite. I opened the file, clicked ‘select all,’ waited for the whole thing to highlight, and struck the ‘delete’ key. Then I picked up the first printed page and got to work typing it again, making changes as I went. Thus began draft number six.

This may sound like a failure or even a tired tale of writer’s block. Hardly. That blank page was the most hopeful sight I’ve seen in a while. It was a fresh start after weeks of frustration trying to make it work. This is what writing’s all about, the maelstrom at the heart of a project where the temptation to quit is greatest. This is the stuff that surly old masters have compared to boxing, fishing, and warfare.

In more practical terms, starting over after six drafts is the best on-the-job training I could ask for. There’s so much I would have missed if I was skilled or lucky enough to get it right sooner. Here’s some of what this experience has taught me.

*this piece originally appeared at DalyProse.com on June 17th 2016

30 DAYS IS PLENTY OF TIME FOR A FIRST DRAFT

I set out to write a complete first draft in thirty days. I did it. The work wasn’t all-consuming or frantic, I may have even taken a day or two off. If anything, I underestimated how quickly I could get the words down. If I could do it all again I would have been more all over the place, I would have overwritten more, written out every alternative ending, to give myself more raw material to work with later.

Deadlines got me into trouble in the later drafts–I rushed and cut corners–but limiting myself to 30 days for the first draft is probably the reason I have anything to work with one year later.

READ LIKE PAPA

Something about the full-steam-ahead approach to drafting discourages you from checking the rearview mirror. This is helpful in the early days because it helps you get your page-count up without second-guessing or realizing you’ve written garbage. However, failing to read the work as you go becomes a HUGE issue when the time comes to rewrite it. This was a fatal flaw in my process and it cost me months.

Moving forward, I’ll be using Hemingway’s method. Here’s his advice on reading yourself:

“The best way is to read it all every day from the start, correcting as you go along, then go on from where you stopped the day before. When it gets so long that you canʼt do this every day read back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start. Thatʼs how you make it all of one piece.”

RE-WRITING IS MORE EFFICIENT THAN LINE EDITING

My computer is a typewriter with a hard drive and Netflix. After the rough draft, which is handwritten, I print my drafts and start over with a blank document. This keeps me writing rather than rearranging pixels. Writing tens of thousands of words over and over forces you to choose them wisely. And it’s easy to catch yourself boring the reader when you’ve typed a section several times.

DONE DOESN’T MEAN FINISHED

When I wrote THE END I wanted so badly for that to be the case. I hoped to have defied the story writing laws of physics by somehow getting it right the first time. It’s easy to confuse the thrill of reaching ‘the end’ with the belief that you have a finished product. The sensible thing to do is take some time and space away from the work and come back to it with fresh eyes. But it’s only human to spam your friends with half-baked early drafts.

IT’LL BE READY WHEN IT’S READY

Writing book-length fiction is not a drag race, it’s a road trip. Like any trip, the surest way to suck all the fun out of the experience is to keep asking ‘are we there yet?’