Six Ways To Finish Writing Your First Book And Actually Survive, According To A Debut Novelist

Ernest Hemingway once said: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Update ‘typewriter’ to ‘laptop’ and you have a fairly accurate statement for contemporary standards, with or without the menstrual cycle implication.

Writing a novel is tough. I just finished my first, Who’s Afraid?, which took six months to write, four years to get represented, a year and a half to get a deal and another year before it landed on a bookshelf. That’s not including the little piece of my soul and the major chunk of my sanity that went with it, so when the word ‘tough’ is used? We’re talking tough. And that’s just to write a freakin’ werewolf novel.

But if walking in to a bookstore and being surrounded by thousands of tomes tells us anything, it’s that writing an honest-to-goodness, real-life book is doable. Definitely doable. Whether you’re writing a historical Russian war story or an urban fantasy novel about, er, werewolves *coughs*, here are six handy tips to survive the process.

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Planners And Pantsers

A popular term used among writers, especially those within the National Novel Writing Month community, it aims to split prospective novelists into two categories: those who meticulously plan their work and those who wing it. There are benefits to both, obviously, with those who plan having a better idea of where their story is going and what they need to do to get there. Yet pantsers have an advantage too: they’re less likely to become consumed with the need to hit every pre-decided beat and more likely to lose themselves in the process.

The key is to work out which one you are: planner, pantser, or a little bit of both. If you’re a planner then having carefully organised notes is going to be crucial for you feeling like you’re in the right headspace to write tens of thousands of words. If you’re a pantser, you have the freedom to dive balls-deep into the journey and get cracking without being precious about what has been organised into which chapter where. If you’re that happy medium, make sure you have just enough note-work to get you going and just enough foresight to know that if you veer from the path it’s not the end of the world.

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Consume

It’s a common misconception that when you’re creating your own fiction, you can’t – and shouldn’t – consume anyone else’s. Not true. Look, we’re not saying Netflix and binging your way through the latest season of The Flash is the way to go, but sometimes getting reacquainted with someone else’s art can be inspirational and motivational all in one hit.

If you’ve met a wall and are suffering major writer’s block, revisit one of your favourite pieces of work. Whether it’s a novel you love or a comic book you’re obsessed with, losing yourself in the story and masterful use of language can remind you exactly why you’re doing this in the first place – therefore reinvigorating your mission. Ya welcome.

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“The Doing Is The Thing”

Amy Poehler is a consistently quotable person and her semi-autobiographical/self-help book Yes Please! has a lot of great quotes in it. “I’m crying because of how wrong you are” and “I am always thisfuckingclose to doing some crazy shit” are a few of them, but one that’s particularly relevant to this discussion is: “You do it because the doing of it is the thing. The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing.”

The best tip for writing a novel is to write a novel. Being prepared, well versed in your story and properly researched all help, but to do it you need to, well, actually do it. A first draft will never be perfect, so set fire to that notion. Yet having an imperfect first draft to actually work with and sculpt into your desired end result is a thousand times more useful than having a few perfect chapters.

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Highway To The Danger Zone

Think of the ‘danger zone’ as your perfect place to work from: that might be a quiet home office or breezy city park. The important thing is to know where you work best and create that environment for yourself. Having grown up working in a busy and bustling newsroom environment, personally libraries and lo-fi locations are the places I’m least likely to be productive.

My focus and word count tends to be on-point in a café, with plenty of ambient noise and activity bubbling around me. Some writers can only operate with music in the background, others find that infuriating. Finding what works for you as a consistent and manageable ‘danger zone’ is integral.

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Draw Me Like One Of Your French Girls

You don’t have to be Picasso to find an enjoyable release with artwork –the adult colouring book craze is proof enough of that. When it comes to the writing process and you’ve been immersed in it for days/weeks/months/[insert other suitably depressing time measure here], sometimes it’s necessary to take a step away from the physical doing of the thing.

Art can be a great way to do that. Love your world and the characters you’ve created, but think you’ll go full Jack Torrance if you have to look at another Word doc? Drawing your characters, sketching their likeness or designing the places you’re bringing to life can be a fantastic way to escape the process without having to escape the world you’ve spawned.

Not a great illustrator? Doesn’t matter. No one besides you has to see what’s inside your notebooks, yet sometimes doodling in the margins of a page can do more for your fictional creation than sweating through another paragraph.

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Going The Distance

“The most important thing is to finish it.” This is a common piece of advice tossed at aspiring novelists when they seek some insight on how to get a book completed, but it isn’t necessarily true. You either have it in you to finish a novel or you don’t. You either will get to the finish line, or you won’t.

Even if you do make it to the end, it’s just the beginning. Endurance is not only needed to finish the book, but for everything that comes after: editing the book dozens – sometimes hundreds – of times, trying to find yourself an agent, getting a publishing deal and then marketing the novel to whoever is interested in it. Personal energy is crucial to maintaining enthusiasm for your work, your story and your characters throughout the process. Hence: endurance.

Good luck.

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Maria Lewis’ debut novel Who’s Afraid? is released in Australia and New Zealand on January 12, 2016 through Hachette Australia and worldwide on July 14, 2016 with Little Brown Books.