The Sun Also (finally) Rises for Aspiring Novelist

Guest Blogger Robert Jones

It’s been about four months since I wrote my debut guest blog (http://visionsinthevoid.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html) where I discussed both my fears and my desire to start finally writing a novel.  For a couple of weeks after writing that blog I was my usual procrastinating self, finding time for every other thing but writing.  Finally, one night in the middle of June everything hit me like a tidal wave. 

At around 2:00 a.m. one night I finally began writing the novel I had been preparing in my head for four years.  You hear stories of people who buy every “How to Write a Novel” book and prepare lengthy outlines, flow charts, and Venn diagrams in anticipation of writing a novel.  That may work for you, but it certainly wasn’t going to work to me.  The very first words I wrote regarding my novel were the very first words of my novel. 

I am currently 30,000 words into my novel, and while I have been told this is pretty good for just over two months of work I still feel constrained by the fears I wrote in my previous blog.  When I write, I am a machine.  I knockout 2,000 to 3,000 words in an hour when inspiration hits me the hardest.  However, if you add that up, which I have, you can see that at best I’ve spent 15 hours on my novel in 2.5 months.  Not a bad work schedule if you can get it, but also not very productive.

My productivity level has been a topic of conversation with Nat, but surprisingly to me he has defended my productivity rate while I have been the one questioning it.  Nat says I should just write when I feel like it, which is clearly what I’ve been doing, but he has also mentioned that some of that lack of production has been “the fear.” (EDITOR: not exactly what I told him. I said try to put in a little time every day to get in the habit and learn discipline, but if he couldn’t do that, it was okay to write when he wanted because some writing is better than no writing – Nat)

Since starting, week after week I have entertained the idea of going on “lockdown.”  There is something romantic to me in the stories you hear of writers who wrote their novels or screenplays in 4 days (Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” and Sly Stallone’s “Rocky” immediately come to mind) with nothing but a pot of coffee (or bottle of scotch) and what you need to write.  But, as Nat and I have agreed on, forcing yourself to do something like that would be hurtful to your story if you are just writing for the sake of writing, and you aren’t used to putting in long hours like that.  For me, my best writing comes when it comes to me in spurts.

I won’t get into what my actual novel is about now, but I will get into some of the difficulties I have came across during my initial stages of writing.  Hopefully other aspiring authors can learn something from my mistakes, but if they can’t I’m sure they will be able to sympathize with some of my issues. 

One of the biggest problems I’ve had, and it may seem silly, is remembering the name of some of my secondary characters.  With just writing the story as it comes to me, as I have, I have routinely just come up with names off the top of my head.  More than a few times my main character has had thoughts about these secondary characters and I find myself pressing ctrl + f on my computer in an attempt to find that person’s name.  When I started I just assumed I would become intimate enough with my characters to remember their names, but just like real life I realized I forgot the names of people I haven’t grown too close with. 

Another problem I’ve had is finishing scenes, and thoughts.  Dating back to high school, I would have people who read my writings (teachers, friends, girlfriends, etc.) compliment me on my skill of turning a phrase and being able to segue into other topics smoothly.  In 1,000 to 2,000 word essays and short stories I think it was easier for me because it was generally a centralized topic.  Fortunately, instead of writing “and then, and then, and then” I was able to come up with a phrase that both emphasized my previous point and prepared the reader for the next.  In a novel, it’s a entirely new ball game (See what I did there? Ha!).

While the main idea of your story may be the same, your main character is virtually going to go to places, both figuratively and mentally, that you are unprepared for.  Being unprepared is sometimes a surprise because you’re writing something you didn’t expect to, but getting from one place to another becomes tougher.  I have spent long minutes when I reach the end of a chapter or important point staring at the screen wondering how to get to my next point.  This may not sound like a huge deal, but in my book my character is going through a lot of things, and I feel if I don’t successfully segue to his next thought while giving proper consideration to the one he is presently in then it could hurt my book drastically.  (EDITOR: he needs to let his CHARACTERS tell him where to go next, and in order to do so, he must inhabit them and be them and then he will know exactly where to go next)

Those two examples of the issues I am facing will most likely be fixed with editing, but for me that poses perhaps my greatest issue, and it’s one that’s still potentially months away.  I have a confession.  In my writing career – boxing, poker, biographies, personal stories, school reports, etc. I have estimated that I have written close to 1000 pieces of work.  Of those 1000 works, dating from childhood until now, I have personal edited maybe 10 pieces of those writings, all within the last year.  It’s most certainly a self-esteem issue, but I hate reading what I have wrote until a lot of time has passed, and of course by then it has been edited.  The majority of these works, especially lately have been edited by my step-mother and my wife. 

While I still have a while to go before my novel is done, I am forcing myself to self-edit before anyone else edits it, even if it kills me, and I do mean forcing. I hold solace knowing that Jack Kerouac never edited any of his work, leaving it instead to his friends, but for the novel to truly embody what I want it to be I have to edit it myself or at the end of the day I will not be happy.  Don’t get me wrong, I suspect no less than ten people will offer editing and formatting tips by the time my novel ever sees the light of day. If I just release my work to others to complete it could be just as big of failure as never have even writing the book. It would be like hitting a game winning home-run and stopping at second base.  A year ago I would have never dreamt of saying this to an audience about editing.

I have just one final point about my previous five paragraphs before I finish up.  I can only hope that potential and experienced writers get something from my issues, but if you don’t I hope you at least enjoyed reading about my ups and downs, though and the grand scheme of YOUR writing they aren’t that important.  These are just the things that I am personally going through heading down my walk of solitude.   My advice at the end of the day is the same as it was in my first blog and was passed down to me from Nat.  Just Write.  Those two words are more important than anything I’ve written in these two blogs.