More thoughts on my 2009 challenge to aspiring authors
One of the purposes of that challenge is to help you get past that huge stumbling block of thinking you only have one great novel in you. I know from experience that you can spend years and years revising the same manuscript, sending it out, waiting months for a rejection, then revising it again, sending it out again, and so on for YEARS.
The reason I’m asking you to write three novels in a row, very quickly, is to burst through that dam. Prove to yourself that you have more than one novel inside you. Prove to yourself that there’s no need to put such enormous pressure on just that one novel you have out there circulating among agents or editors, because you can always go to work on the next story and then get that out, too.
I’m not saying a novel you could write in a month or two will be perfect or golden or publishable. Every novel needs revisions. But as Nora Roberts is famous for saying, “I can’t fix a blank page.” Or something like that. The point being, until you write it all out, FINISH, for heaven’s sake, you won’t have a full novel to work with. So write it fast, get it all down, then after you’ve done your three novels in a row you can go back and work with your favorite one first. Then when you’re done revising that, you can go fix your second-favorite.
And when we’re all done, it should be the end of the year and you should have one or two or three novels you’re pleased with. It just happens that way.
But don’t worry about the revisions yet. Just write your fingers off.
Got it?
Great advice Robin!
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Don’t worry, i already know i have a few novels in me since ive already started a lot of stories, and when i say a lot i mean like a hundred. But that is great advice.
It’s soooo hard though…. way easier then it seems when your breezing through the reading of a book…. And I’m constantly distracted by the evil internet!
Hope it helps, e!
Carli, you have a good start. Keep going.
Dylan, I get distracted, too. Let’s talk Top Chef, Project Runway, movies, books, the “evil internet” (too right sometimes)–but it’s all a matter of deciding what you want. And I want to write and see published lots and lots of books!
Omgosh yes! lol There’s so much out there, but I guess I just need to get a little more organized…. but then it doesn’t help when I just don’t feel good about the plot, or you know? Like if I feel confused abut something it’s like it requiares so much… well ok energy XD so that I just find myself going into something else becasue I think for myself if things would take a little more effort, then I put it off untill I’m “free”. Man that makes me sound soooo lazy…