Lessons on the Journey to Publishing My First Novel
I’m back!
At the beginning of August, I submitted my manuscript to my editor for the first round of developmental edits. I know it needs lots of work but after months and months of writing, I’ve reached a place where I needed an editor’s critical eye to tell me how to take this story to the next level. How to make the characters more alive and the setting more real, the plot more compelling, and the conflict stronger so that readers will stay engaged all the way to the end.
While my editor does her magic, I’m keeping busy working on this blog, building my email list, and trying to get over my aversion to social media. Because authors need to build an audience long before the book comes out, I’m told. And social media is a prime way to do just that. That is one of the many lessons I’ve learned over the last nine months since I began this journey. Here are a few other lessons.
Three lessons learned on the journey to becoming a published independent romance author:
1. Do What Works For You
Find a writing schedule and routine that works for me and throw out any advice that doesn’t align with how I work best. This was an important one for me. I don’t write every day. I have dedicated writing time on the calendar five days a week. But I probably put words on the page about three out of five days a week. The other days are spent walking (while voice texting ideas), daydreaming, and reading, lots of reading. I don’t measure the success of a writing week by the number of words I put on the page although I do use the project target feature in Scrivener to track how many words I’m writing. Some weeks, I write 500 words other weeks I write 10K. That’s fine. It all evens out in the end and most of the time I meet my deadlines. Mostly because nothing motivates me more than urgency.
2. Don’t Be Ruled By the Word Count
It’s okay to take breaks and even step away from the book for weeks if I need to. I had this idea in my head that I would put out two books in the first year, but this first project has already taken much longer than expected and that’s okay. I’m learning a lot about the writing process as I go. So many of my favorite indie authors are just incredibly prolific. They publish 2-3 books a year and I thought that would be a model I would follow but at least for this first project I needed more time. I needed to take long breaks from the project before coming back to it. I also don’t write and publish full-time (at least not yet). In April I was traveling a lot for work and I needed time to recover from my travels so I didn’t write but I did a lot more reading. I came back to the project with some fresh ideas about how to strengthen the plot and began reworking major parts of the story. I don’t know that I would have been able to get there if I hadn’t taken a break from the story.
3. Find Your People
Find community. Writing can be a lonely process, but you need to find your people. This is one I’m still working on. Finding other independent authors that I can build community with, to collaborate and support each other on the journey. I’m taking some tiny steps in this direction. I’ve started following other indie authors and commenting on their posts. I’ve also joined the Independent Romance Authors Association. I’m excited to find my people because writing is a solitary process, but publishing requires relationships and community.
Thanks for reading my blog and following journey. This fall, you’ll find book reviews, writing strategies, my takes on a neurodivergent representation in popular fiction, and maybe even some sample scenes from my book!
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