The Writing List: Welcome to My Book
Contests and beta readers...and eventually querying? What's in store for 2024
August 28, 2021 - Day Two of writing my current novel
Now that we’re a couple posts in to the new year and this new Substack, I’d like to introduce the novel I’m writing.
As you can see above, I’ve been working on it for two and a half years. There’s no standard timeline for writing a novel - some people can write a book in a year, others take a decade. Two to three years seems to be the happy medium for most writers.
I’m writing an historical novel set in 1930s Iraq following a real-life female Indiana Jones - that takes research time and a lot of words! I finished a 100,000 word first draft in just under two years.
August 4, 2023 - Finishing the first draft in style!
The second draft is moving along much faster. After taking a three-week break from the book, I downloaded it to a Kindle and read through. My fiance read it, too. I spent a couple of weeks talking it out with him, writing my own notes and rethinking the plot. Then I outlined a second draft.
September 1, 2023 - Seeing what works and doesn’t work in outline form
This isn’t the first time I’ve reached this point with a book. From 2018 to early 2021, I wrote two 100k word drafts of a dual timeline novel set in Ireland. I loved that book and hated it. Writing it got a lot out out of my system at a turning point in my life - the book was ambitious and messy and very self-consciously literary. I could never quite get the timelines to work together.
But it did lead me to join a writers group where I met my fiance. It was all worthwhile.
I learned so much from writing the Ireland novel and I brought it to this book which is built around a clearly defined journey/quest and takes place in the space of about eight weeks. Those choices are making for a much easier second draft. I’ve already written 47,000 words in three and a half months.
Enter the Historical Novel Society First Chapters Competition. If you haven’t checked out HNS and love historical novels - go there now! The organization has done excellent work over the past few decades as historical fiction increases in popularity. They’re holding their first unpublished novel competition and because I’m a journalist, I can’t resist a deadline! I decided it was just what I needed to meet my goal of moving towards traditional publication.
Dog enforcing deadlines!
The contest asks for the first three chapters. I’ve workshopped those first chapters twice in writers group and once in a separate Beta Readers Group I found through the fabulous podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. These chapters have been put through the wringer and now I’m doing line-level edits for the first time. I’m cutting out filtering (check out Emma Darwin’s amazing Substack This Itch of Writing - she has an invaluable post on words and phrases that keep readers at a distance) and thinking about stylistic choices. It’s sometimes overwhelming but it’s also exciting to reach a totally new level of writing. Line-level editing is working a completely different part of my brain.
Regardless of whether or not I advance through the contest rounds, the preparation and the different approach will almost certainly inform my work as I finish off the second draft. I’m on track to do that sometime in April - which leaves the summer to work on a third draft.
And yes, there will be a third draft! It’s an incredible amount of work but I’m honestly at my happiest in the moments captured above - laptop in front of me, a whole world opening up in my mind.
Are you creative? What does your process look like? Comment below - it doesn’t have to be a piece of writing!