This “let’s go write and independently publish a novel” thing has certainly thrown my life into a tailspin for the past hrm, three years! 🙂 As you may know, “Ghosts of Koa” is entering the end stages of the editing process, and as I am feeling very accomplished at the moment, I thought I’d share some unsolicited pearls of wisdom regarding this process.
1. Sure, have a business plan, maintain your blog, and expand your social networks, but finish the damned novel! Lol, you think this’d be common sense, right? But sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in the publicity and marketing aspect of the process that you lose sight of the most important thing: your work. PRIORITIZE your novel, because ultimately, that is what readers are going to connect with. Focus more on marketing as you come to the end of your novel writing process (more like in the final editing stages and the layout stages of the book). But while you’re still developing the novel, keep developing the novel!
2. Inertia is an awesome AWESOME blessing. Just wrote a kick ass scene that has your heart pounding? Just hit a milestone with your narrative? Just hit 90,000 words on your novel? Great! Now, KEEP WRITING. It doesn’t matter what you write actually. Just write. I find it so much easier to keep generating ideas, banging out pages, and scribbling out blog posts if I’m working on them everyday. I read a great article on inertia that rocked my socks, and I found it to ring so true with my experiences: http://www.scriptmag.com/features/get-a-new-story-just-do-the-writing
3. Make sure you read… and KEEP writing. There are going to be times when you’re really stuck on a part of your novel or something just isn’t working for you. That’s okay. It’s okay to take a moment to read a how-to book on plot writing or to dive back into the prose of your favorite author to reconnect with your love for literature, but that doesn’t mean you should stop writing. If you write through the hell, you will eventually hit a point where you feel steady again. And heck, maybe the “hellish” writing will be some of your best work!
So I guess the take-away point of this is that you should always KEEP writing. It’s honestly the only way you’ll get your novel finished!
What lessons have you learned from novel writing? Feel free to share, and in the meantime, keep it indie! 🙂