In 2005, I was confident. I had just appeared on the Today show to promote my first non-fiction book, an account of how my life transformed by sacrificing a few small luxuries. Just six months prior, I had made a major change, leaving my position as marketing director at a publishing company to start my own business and begin a career as a writer.
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Writing a novel has always been my dream. Even though I was financially successful as a writer, I wasn't sure my skills could translate from non-fiction to fiction. Like most working writers, a deadline with pay triggers an internal starter gun that allows words to flow freely and willingly on the page. The risky promise of a hypothetical future payday for a novel wasn't enough to motivate me. Even thinking of the word novel evokes intimidating characters – Richard Ford, Margaret Atwood, Jhumpa Lahiri and John Irving. I am petrified by the pretense of the notion that my book would ever be allowed on a shelf anywhere near my heroes' work. Wallowing in self-doubt had always derailed my writing process. I spent more time dealing with my feelings about writing than writing anything. It reminded me of people who obsess over getting their mess serious instead of straightening out the piles.
My insecurities were based on my deep knowledge of book publishing, where I worked for 16 years to promote authors. People in the industry are truly selfless in their love of writing and with that love comes a great expectation of quality. Because we read books, talk about books, dream about books, and sometimes love books as if they were family members, most of us harbor a secret desire to write them. Honestly, many book publishers should write. Most have the critical eye and training to recognize good writing. At least that's what I'd say about any book publisher I know.
But I couldn't take that advice myself.
***
One of the first considerations when writing this book is who is telling the story. Is it an omniscient observer inside the story, like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby or a witty, self-deprecating diary, as in Bridget Jones's Diary ?
I send an e-mail to a writer friend who undoubtedly tells me:“Don’t write in the first person. You can't tell the story as effectively this way, so write in third person! Inhabiting the omniscient power of the third person is impossible because I produce only two gloomy sentences in the next two days. I can't stop correcting myself, believing that every word must be perfect before committing it to the page.
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After several barely single attempts, I confess to having failed. I can't do this alone. Desperate for a solution, I find the National Novel Writing Month website, which recommends the book No Conspiracy? No problem! by Chris Baty.
I'm a big proponent of 30 Day Challenges. At the time, I had just left the experience of letting go of things month by month, serially, over the course of a year – which became my first book:Let It Go! My year of learning to live better with less. I had long since discovered that if you can do something for a month, you can do it for the rest of your life. it takes is a little determination and this high octane kit to kickstart motivation and inspire users to produce a 50,000 word book in an exhilarating and invigorating month-long Noveling adventure . ”
To finish such a long book in a month, I determine that I will need to write an average of 1,667 words every day, including weekends.
Baty's early recommendations give me instant courage. First, sign a contract with yourself to make this one-month commitment. This small action makes the project real. Second, turn off your internal editor, that mean, shiny part of your psyche that tells you how bad your writing is and basically has its finger on the delete button before you can even get to the period at the end of the sentence. Baty goes so far as to recommend drawing a representation of the internal editor button and physically hitting it whenever you feel the need to go back and delete all the work you just hammered in. In my case, my in-house editor has company:the iconic works on the shelf that seem to mock me. They remind me that I won't be like them no matter how hard I try.
My inner publishing house not only reminds me that I can't write a "real book", but also that I don't have of plot, no hook, no marketable story to finally sell the book even though miraculously I am able to hard the month. One of the voices is actually quite rude, asking, Who do you think you're trying to write the Great American Novel?
I put my finger on the button of the internal editor that I drew.
***
Writing a book without a plan is like baking a cake without a recipe. You only have to confuse salt and sugar once to know that good carrot cake just doesn't happen. I know there's no way to make that word count by beating it. Luckily, Baty's book also gives me a recipe to follow, which for a beginner in the novel is essential. Because I'm goal-oriented, I equate my daily writing to the length of a magazine article, more or less the size of that article. That would be 30 articles in a month. To give you an idea of what that means, I usually take 1-2 weeks to write a feature complete with editing, rewriting, and fact checking. That's five times the amount I'm used to.
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During the first week, I let go of my insecurities and tried to take control. I quickly realize that the third person doesn't work. Imagining myself talking to a good friend gives me the voice of the protagonist, Jessie DeSalvo, the novel's main character. Once I resign myself to a first-person narrative, the writing becomes easier.
I feel better about the whole project, but I still feel anxiety. My antidote to the angst of life has always been yoga. Every day after writing, I silence the literary demons in my head by taking a class. "In the words of Ram Dass, 'here now'," explains the instructor. I wonder, Is this a sign from the universe telling me to write, here, now?
I give up the search for perfection and accept that it doesn't have to be pretty...
Applying this philosophy and lots of deep breathing helps me release tension and achieve my daily goals throughout the first week. Sometimes I type without knowing what I'm saying or where it's going. It feels like a shopping spree where you take 27 items into the T.J. Maxx dressing room, hoping that in the end you'll find a good pair of jeans to buy. Depending on my credit card, I always find a decent pair of jeans to buy, so I'm confident my editing can make the chaos I create pure genius. Once I let go of the pursuit of perfection and accept that it doesn't have to be pretty, especially the first time I type it, the word count becomes easier.
At the end of the first week, I notice that a ritual is beginning to form. For me, writing should be ritual. Like brushing your teeth, exercising or walking the dog. Consistency works, and soon I'm more afraid of jumping than writing. So there's nothing worse than skipping 1,667 words one day and facing double the next day.
Because I'm not on Facebook while I'm working on this, I I'm also not tempted to talk to people about what I do instead of doing it. In fact, I hesitate to tell anyone that I undertook this project. I feel like if I mention it, I'll be held accountable for my progress – and failure – if this project doesn't come to fruition.
***
My life is consumed by the book at the beginning of the second week. On the train to work, I take snippets of conversation, immediately jotting them down on a notepad. I become hyper-aware of my surroundings, trying to glean any sweet remarks or dialogue I hear. These provide great starting points for more words to flow. Some give me ideas for entire passages. The more I listen, the more it occurs to me that writing a secret novel is a lonely affair.
I get confused throughout the week with a certain level of confidence. After all, I had just completed almost a quarter of the entire project in a week. I write on average two or three hours a day, which gives me plenty of time to continue with the rest of my professional and personal tasks. My routine is solid:write every morning, then head off to yoga class where I can find ancient wisdom to apply to my daily struggle. When I hear their thoughts on suffering, I am convinced that Buddhists must be novelists.
Soon, however, I encounter a new problem. My in-house marketing manager is starting to wonder how I'm going to publish this novel I've just started and haven't edited at all – and haven't told almost anyone about.
The nonfiction process is very simple:you basically say, “Hey editor, I have this great book idea! Here's what it will look like. Here's how I'm going to market it. And here's what it's all about. The editor then says, “Sounds great! Here is money. Now go write it. »
In the world of fiction, you don't have that luxury. You submit the final, finished product, take it or leave it. And you get a lot of “leave it”. This concept weighs on me so heavily that by week three I hit a major breaking point. As the days pass, the writing gets harder because I can't help but worry about what's going to happen when I'm done. Will anyone like it? Is this just a waste of time that I could better spend making money some other way?
Baty answers these questions in his chapter on how to get to the halfway point. He asks me to start thinking about how to wrap up this story and wrap up the characters. Thinking about this end point, and how close I am already, gives me the drive to move on. I want to fix the messy problems I had already created for my characters in the first half of the book that are pushing me through week three. I manage to catch up on some of the slower days, so at the start of the fourth week, I'm just over the weekly target, with 38,000 words.
***
I'm enthusiastic looking forward to finishing the last week. I make a small chart to track the remaining seven days, like a prisoner checking the last moments before freedom. At the end of the month, my word count is 50,010. And while I should rejoice, all of those in-house editors I had silenced over the past four weeks were back. And they are angry. They want to know what's next. Having thick skin is part of being a writer, but at this point I'm paralyzed, scared to see anyone reading the book. I print out the unread manuscript and quickly put it in a binder, and try not to think about it.
All the requests I've put off for a month are coming back. I easily take on assignments that don't cause panic attacks, and over the next few years I write two more non-fiction books, helping more people put their lives in order and become a spokesperson for the Mark. At some point, I pack up the manuscript and all my other belongings and move to a new house in the suburbs, placing my month-long adventure in the same drawer of the same filing cabinet in a different house. Deep in my soul, I know the novel must come out of the drawer and into the world. But I still need encouragement.
A few months after the move, I'm working with a client who hired me to catalog all of their news, articles, and rejection letters. (Apparently, his real editors were almost as mean as my in-house editors.) When I tell my husband about this client, his mind goes to the same place as mine. He simply says, "You don't want to go back on your life and you regret leaving that book in a drawer. ”
I make a new plan:I hire an editor named Ken Salikof, a grammarian, morale booster and writing coach. Over the course of a summer, he helps me edit my messy pages and talks to me about the insecurities I still have. His best response to my in-house editor's criticism:"Well, if Richard Ford ever wrote an enlightening book, maybe this is it." »
I take that as praise.
So now, several years after spending a month writing, I've signed a contract with Post Hill Press to publish my first novel:Best Friend For Hire . It's shelved in the women's fiction and humor sections of stores, just yards from My Literary Heroes.
Thinking about this end point, and how close I am already, gives me the drive to move on.
And sometimes – if I let myself be truly happy – I push a metaphorical button to quiet the critics in my head, and I believe I've earned a place on that shelf.
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This article originally appeared in the September 2017 issue of SUCCESS Magazine.
