What I Learned from Writing My First Novel Part 1

In 2019, I made it my personal goal to finally finish writing a novel by December 31st. I had been struggling with discipline and was down on myself all the time for never completing projects. I wanted to do this to prove to myself that I really was a writer, and that I could accomplish everything that I've wanted to do since I was a kid. 

I began planning the novel early in the year and started writing in April. I did the majority of my writing during that summer  while I was working a theatre internship in North Carolina, and I finished it in September. My goal was to reach 100,000 words by the end of the year, and my story ended at around 89,000. It was a big project, one I'm not completely finished with yet because I'm still in the process of editing/rewriting it. But now that I've finished writing it, I can look back on the process and the things I've learned and share them with anyone who would like to hear.

When I was writing down my ideas, I realized I had a lot more to say than I thought, so I’ve decided to split this up into a couple of posts. 

Part 1: My Writing Sucks, and That’s Fine

Yeah, sorry to my beta-readers out there who have to suffer through the rough draft. 

(Special thanks to @mouseatingawalnut on Tumblr who gave me the most feedback.)

But it's true, my writing isn't that good. There were some scenes that I thought sounded really great at the time, but reading them later I found that it was cliche, cringe-inducing, or just didn't flow like I wanted it to. There were other scenes that forcing myself to sit down and write felt like trying to pull out my own teeth with pliers, and it came across that way in the text.

However, there were bits and pieces here and there that were better than I remembered or were particularly eye-catching, and they reminded me that while my writing wasn't all great, it wasn't all bad, either. 

So the thing I have to remind myself is that it's okay that my writing sucks, because 1) I'm still a student trying to find my voice and process, and 2) everyone has to deal with rough drafts, even the greatest, most famous writers you can think of. That's what editing is for. The important thing is that I've got the story on paper.