Things I Learned From My First Novel

I recently abandoned six years' worth of work on one novel in order to concentrate on a different story that I felt drawn to write(see my post yesterday for that long weird story). I called my mom, a writer with much more experience than me, to tell her what had happened. I knew that the change was the right thing to do, but wasn't quite sure how to proceed. She suggested that I make a list of what I had learned from my old novel in order to apply it to my new one.

After letting it marinate for a couple of days, I sat down yesterday to make the list. I thought it would be a lot of specific techniques: plot tricks, adjectives to avoid, how to name characters and so on. Instead, what came out onto the page was this.

Things I Learned From My First Novel

• Tell the story only you can tell.

• Don't get carried away by what it "could be." Let it be what it is.

• Don't stop. Don't edit.

• Don't expose the story to criticism or outside readers until the second draft.

• Believe it.

• Take it forward even when it doesn't want to go.

• Trust the story, trust the process, trust yourself.

• Roll with the punches. Also the kicks, slaps, and curveballs.

• There will be all of the above. Writing a novel is hard. Whether it's worth it is debatable.

• There is no reason good enough for giving up. If there was, there'd be no reason to start.

• Love it with all your heart -- otherwise what would be the point?

• Avoid deep dark wells and/or abysses of pain. In characters, I mean. Well, in real life too, but that kind of goes without saying.

• Trust it. I say it twice because it's very important. Trust it.

• Take it easy. Relax. Chill out. It's just a book -- we're not saving puppies from a chemical fire. Bad guys are not going to blow up the world if I turn a phrase badly. If they were, the world would be toast by now.

So there it is: my road map for writing a novel. Not rules, exactly, just pointers as to what I can expect along the way.

As writers, we often aren't taught to value marks of achievement less tangible than six-figure royalties, a movie deal, or a spot on the NYT bestseller list. Yet every project is a valuable tool for learning -- even the ones that don't get finished, much less published. Writers: take some time to think about what you learned from projects that didn't go all the way. What are your landmarks? Do they look like mine?