I did it! I wrote a book. (Look, there it is, all shiny and new!) The ebook is available on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk and the paperback will be coming soon.
This has been a dream of mine since I was a young child. Not exactly this book, but you know, writing a book and having people read it. Admittedly when I was a child it was going to be about a brilliant but socially awkward nerdy girl who discovered she had magical abilities, but you know, I’ve grown up a bit since then! And I realised Matilda had already been written.
Between the ages of nine and thirteen, I used to write letters to my great great Auntie Edna who was in her nineties. I remember in one of my early letters, I told her that I wanted to be an author. She told me that I would have to improve my spelling if I planned to write a book. I recall laughing to myself. “Silly Auntie Edna,” I thought. “I’ll have an editor to worry about that sort of thing!”
Well, Auntie Edna, you were more right than you know. Not so much about the spelling, we have software for that nowadays. But definitely about needing to edit my own work. And you were right that I would have to learn a lot more, before publishing my book.
Most of what I needed to know, I learnt in the last year. Mostly, I learned how to write a book.
I, like so many people, assumed that being well-read and fairly intelligent was pretty much all I needed to write a halfway decent book.
WRONG! So very wrong. Queen Wrong of Wrongland.
If my novel had a bibliography, it would be longer than the one for my MA dissertation. I read so many reference books, autobiographies, manuals, etc
So here are some of my (fake, vegan) pearls of wisdom.
Unless you have an academic or professional qualification in creative writing (and perhaps even then) you know nothing about writing a novel. Not really. Be prepared to learn.
Writing the first draft is the fun bit, and more importantly the easy bit. Editing is where the hard work really begins.
Don’t be precious about your work. Once you begin editing, you may find phrases, bits of prose, or even whole story elements that you absolutely loved, but just don’t fit. Let them go.
On a related note, don’t permanently delete anything. I keep a doc file open called “Slush” where I dump anything that I’m deleting from my draft. It may be completely forgotten, or you find a place for it later, maybe even in a different book.
You will need to grow a thick skin. Whether that’s to accept the constructive criticisms of your alpha/beta/ARC readers, or to deal with people who hate your book, a thick skin is a necessity. (I haven’t dealt with the latter yet, mainly because only about 7 people have read my book, but I will. All writers will. I’m as ready as I can be.)
You have forgotten basic grammar and punctuation, or you will at some point. That’s fun.
Everything takes longer than you think.
If you’re using KDP: screenshot everything!
Finally: self-publishing is hard. Yes, it’s quicker than sending a million queries off to agents and probably never being successful, and it will get your book out there. But remember, you have to do everything yourself, or pay someone else to do it.
I’ve had to give myself crash courses in:
Creative writing
Editing
Proofreading
Marketing
Advertising
Graphic design
Formatting
Taxes
Accounting
Web design
Social media management
And probably a lot more.
So, now you know that you know nothing, and once you know that you can start to learn some things, just like I did.
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