I'm in the middle of editing my manuscript, drafting my query letters, and browsing Querytracker and MSWL for agents that could possibly take on this project. I am living it now as opposed to back then. When did I know I wanted to write a novel?Short answer is: I didn't. had a ton of unfinished stories. I had a fanfiction that I'd written from start to finish (about 30 chapters). I had binders and bonders of poetry. But I never once thought that I could write a novel. Never attempted it, but saved all the snippets and scenes of possibilities. Until college. My first nerve-wracking short story submission resulted in a publication. That singular moment made me believe that I had a voice as writer that people wanted to read. I casually wrote, building upon an idea I had, but never finished. This project grew and grew, and with it, so did I. I researched how to plot chapters, how to craft stories. I took so many things from my Writing Popular Fiction class and Horror and Suspense (where I read Stephen King's On Writing). I wanted to do this writing thing right. But there is no right way to be a writer. I found myself trying to emulate the writers I read about and the writers, like Stephen King, who shared their ways of writing. I found that plotting was not for me. It slowed me down and pulled me out of myself. I finished my first novel manuscript in 2019 after the city closed down because of a Polar Vortex and I'd written it all without an outline. At 135k words, it was dense. I spent a year editing it and then, in my excitement for having finally finished something, spent the next year querying it to 35 agents. In hindsight: it sucked. I've heard many authors say that your first draft is for you. It is for you. It's to show you that you have done it. You've some how managed to push and pull that hard and heavy block of marble up on that pedestal. But its not finished. You still need to chisel and chip away at that block, forming it into the creation that you will eventually feel confident putting out into the world. That querying experience made me shelve that manuscript, but it showed me that I could write a novel. I'd developed my own way to writing, researching, learning, and creating. Stay grounded!This Facebook memory could not have come at a better time.
As I finish up my thousanth round of editing to the same manuscript I shelved back in 2022, its easy to get excited once again and charge on ahead. Its easy to let my mind wander to piggy's (?) over-confidence. It doesn't help much as a librarian, reading about how X has just signed with Y and to expect [insert books] in the coming year. I want that to be me. And so does every other writer out there.
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