First draft: Writing update #1

I'm currently on day 9 of writing the first draft of my debut novel.

I started in order with chapter 1 and I'm still working on it. I've written a total of 3,239 words. I should be on 4,000 words by now but I caught a nasty stomach bug on day 2 and it kept me in bed for two more days...

In any case, a whole week of working on my first draft made me realise a few things:


1) I need to readjust my writing schedule! 

There is no way with my full-time job that I can realistically finish my first draft by February 28th. I decided to give myself more time and plan to write 20,000 per month until I finish the draft. Hopefully, it will be done by April 30th.

2) Writing is hard. 

I know this seems like an obvious observation, but really... this is nothing like anything I have written before simply because I used to write mostly fanfiction. I wrote in worlds where I knew the setting, I knew the characters, the only thing I had to create by myself was the plot.

This time around I am building everything from scratch and no amount of preparation is helpful enough to just sit down and write my novel for hours on end. Instead, I find that I need to stop every so often to quickly research something on the internet or decide some detail or other about my characters. Of course, I have left many details for the editing phase and Scrivener has a great sidebar to jot down notes for when I come back during my editing phase.

Still, writing a novel from beginning to finish will take more time, effort and energy than I had ever realised.

3) It will take time for me to find my writer's voice. 

I guess this is one of the reasons why many published writers say first chapters are often garbage. In my case, it's because I don't really know my characters yet, nor the world I'm building, although the story is all so clear in my mind.

I started writing the first chapter almost cautiously and I can already tell that the whole chapter will need serious edits to make it pop more and not sound so dull. It starts right on the action, there's lots of excitement and mystery and yet I've made it sound boring as hell. I've been conflicted on how to describe my main character's feeling and voice and so my writing for the first few days was rather flat. Everything needs to be rewritten and edited.

But that's okay.

I know that by the time I'll be writing chapter 20 this problem will have resolved itself after spending time with my characters every day and getting to know them more intimately. By then I will know exactly how they would react and what they would say and rewriting the first chapter will be more natural and easier than during the first draft.

I guess it's all part of becoming a writer. Practice makes perfect and I need to practice every day if I want to improve and find my voice.

4) Procrastination is easy... too easy

This is probably the most difficult realisation. In order to get my word count done every day while working a full-time job, I need to get up earlier. That isn't always easy and getting out of a warm bed to write 500 words or more of a first chapter where everything is awkward and difficult to write can be ridiculously hard.

I am pushing myself, but by Friday and Saturday, I will be lucky if I get 200 words written (my weekend is Sunday and Monday).

So there you have it.

Day 9 - 3,239 words - and lots of nasty realisations that are grinding me down.

I really have no idea how NaNoWriMo writers managed to write 50,000 words in a month! If I reach 20,000 this month, I would be incredibly happy!

Luckily my motivational poster and friends (both real and online) are there to support me and keep me going.

If you're a writer and in need of encouragement too to continue writing daily, then please check my writing group!

Keep writing, keep pushing yourself, and finish that book! ^_^