I Wrote Three Novels in Fifteen Months
This is how I did it.
In September 2021, I began writing my first novel. Well, it wasn’t my first novel, but it was the first one I ever finished writing. So yeah, I give it the title of my first novel. By December of that same year, I finished the first draft. However, the book underwent massive revisions until the end of 2022. During that long revision period, I wrote two more novels.
As someone who had struggled to finish writing a book for years, this was a huge achievement for me. But of course, this wasn’t something that magically happened. I had to put in a lot of effort to write three books in one year.
There were many things I had to relearn, and bad habits I had to let go of just to reach my goal. It was the hardest yet most enriching experience of my life. Writing a book is not for the faint-hearted, I tell you.
I didn’t think I would experience the most extreme of emotions until I seriously began this journey. Pleasure, pain, passion, anger, fear, self-doubt, euphoria, love… I felt it all. It was exhilarating yet depressing at the same time. By the time I was done with the book, I couldn’t even recognize myself.
The experience changed me so much that it pushed me to write two more books.
The year 2022 was undoubtedly my most creative year. But like I said, it took a lot of work to get there.
So how did a master procrastinator like me manage to finish three books in fifteen months?
I learned self-discipline
You need ideas to write a book. But simply having ideas is not enough and I learned that the hard way.
Ideas come to me as easily as breathing. The problem was that I couldn’t sit down and put these ideas together into a full book. It takes a lot of self-discipline and commitment to do that, and I had none.
Anytime I tried to write a book, I failed miserably. I would start with zeal, looking forward to exploring my characters only to eventually give up. I started a blog on WordPress somewhere in 2015 or so, but that too didn’t last. I was too damn lazy to keep up. In 2017, I discovered Wattpad. And yes, I ended up deleting most of my stories because I didn’t have the willpower to finish them.
It was an endless cycle of starting and quitting. Before long, I was just tired of the whole thing, and I wanted to quit writing altogether.
But my stories won’t let me. The characters would literally torment me, pleading with me to bring them to life. And just like that, I would buy another notebook and start crafting stories again. Yet, I couldn’t finish a book. It was frustrating.
What was the problem? Pretty simple. I sorely lacked self-discipline. I was accustomed to getting things done very quickly no matter how much I procrastinated. Back in my university days, I would wait until the last two days to begin working on an assignment given to me two weeks ago.
And yes, I got it done perfectly. That made me think that things were that easy.
I stupidly applied this same mindset to writing a novel, and um… it didn’t work out. You simply can’t finish a book by procrastinating. It doesn’t happen.
I had to relearn everything I knew and forced myself to work on my book regularly to get it done.
Within three months, I finished the book. The creative hunger wouldn’t leave me alone, so I channeled it into writing two more books. I couldn’t even believe I did that.
Me, the laziest primate in the solar system. I wrote three whole books. The hell. Was that even real?
All it takes is self-discipline. That’s it. Without self-discipline, achieving your dreams will be next to impossible. If you have no self-discipline, don’t worry. It’s not genetic. It’s something you can learn.
It doesn’t happen overnight. However, you can cultivate it slowly until it becomes second nature to you. If you procrastinate a lot, you can read my post on how to overcome it.
I let go of perfectionism
Ever since I was young, I knew I loved to write stories.
But I wasn’t interested in writing short stories. Nope. I wanted to write novels. Not just any novel, but the best one to be ever written. Fucking delusional, I know.
Because of this mentality, I often lost sight of why I was really writing my story. Instead of having fun and enjoying the process, I did the very opposite. I wasn’t ready to make mistakes though I was still a novice.
I would tweak the story over and over, conflating it with pointless characters and plots just so I would achieve the perfection I envisioned. To make things worse, I edited as I wrote the first draft, so I never progressed. After a while, I would get frustrated by the whole book and then give up.
It wasn’t until I told myself to stop thinking about writing a perfect book that I allowed myself to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Perfectionism held me back. Once I let it go, I was no longer shackled by it.
I no longer cared if my book was bad. In fact, I came to terms with how bad I was and that gave me the freedom to express myself however I wanted.
I learned (and still learn) the craft of writing
Though I wanted to be a novelist, I had no idea how to write one. The irony was that I didn’t even know how ignorant I was. I had this ridiculous idea that I already knew how to write a story. After all, I’d been writing them since I was seven.
I thought that because my teachers said I had a way with words, then I could easily conjure an entire book of earth-shattering fiction.
Um…no. It took me eighteen years to realize that I knew nothing at all.
When I began learning the craft of writing, one of the first books I read was Elements of Style by E.B. White and William Strunk JR. That book thought me a very simple truth — that my writing was trash. At the time, I thought that good writing was about using big words and having a large vocabulary. So, I adopted the bad habit of verbosity. I would use too many words to convey simple things.
I learned to ruthlessly cut all needless words from my writing and be as succinct as possible. I’m still learning this, but I’m proud to say that I’m a lot better than before.
I also learned about writing fiction by reading books like How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey, On Writing by Stephen King, Stein on Writing by Sol Stein, Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, and so many more.
The more I learned, the more it dawned on me how ignorant I was. All my perceptions about writing shattered and reconstructed.
I used to have a warped idea of what a novel should be. I was more interested in the length of the story rather than the actual story itself. Due to this, I crafted my stories to be insanely long. I remember writing over a hundred chapters of one particular book and I still had no idea what the book was really about. It was ridiculous.
When I stopped worrying about length and focused on the story, things became simpler.
Well, to be fair, my first novel, Vanquisher, turned out to be a whopping 170,000 words even after all that revision. But at least, this time around, I had a story. Besides, my first book has the right to suck. So, yeah. No judgment.
Writing Vanquisher taught me more about writing than anything else. I learned from my mistakes and did better in my other two books.
If you want to write a novel, you have to learn the craft. Don’t only stick to non-fiction, but read other novels, especially in the genre you write.
Well, at least that’s what worked for me. I read many fantasy books to see how the author handled things like plot, character development, subplots, conflicts, and so much more. When I loved a book, I asked myself why I resonated with the story so much. If I didn’t like it, I would try to identify what made me hate the story so I wouldn’t repeat such mistakes in my own story.
Conclusion
Anyone can write a book. All they need is the will to actually write, rather than simply thinking about writing.
It’s important to remember that writing, like any skill, can be learned. No matter how bad you are, keep writing and you’ll get better.
Read more books and don’t even think about being perfect. No one is, and no one will ever be. Even the best writers are not perfect.
If your dream is to write a novel, 2023 is your year to make it a reality. You don’t have to worry about writing three books this year. Focus on writing that one book.
If you’re having a hard time finishing your book, read this.
I’m looking forward to writing my fourth book this year. I’ve already outlined the whole book and all I have to do is write the first draft. My goal is to finish the first draft by the end of January. Good luck to me.
Happy new year to you and I hope all your dreams come true this year.
Before you leave, do you want to learn how to write your first novel? Download my free ebook, From First Draft to Published. It’s a simple and practical guide to writing, editing, and publishing your first book.
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Originally published at https://torshietorto.com on January 2, 2023.
