I'm Writing a Book | Patience with the Process

 

Writing a book is hard.

It's something I've known in the back of my mind ever since I attempted to put my fleeting ideas on paper throughout my middle school career. But it's honestly amazing that there are as many books as there are in the world. The amount of patience, frustration, and trust you must have in yourself to make a story come to life is incredible. 

I've been learning, through trial and error, through tears and triumphs, how to write again. And oh what a process it has been! It's now been a year since I started the first draft of my historical fiction novel, the story that's been on my heart for nearly 4 years. My intention was to share more frequent updates on my progress, but I have to admit, when I look back on everything I've done in the past 12 months, it's hard to really see that I've accomplished anything at all.

The biggest thing I have realized is that not everyone's writing journey is the same. Reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott made me come face-to-face with my impatience with my writing. I so wanted to be done with my first draft. I felt like I should be done with my first draft by now. But there is so much more to writing than finishing and eventually publishing a book. Sometimes writing is taking a day to research. Sometimes it's squeezing in a couple hundred words between finishing work and cooking dinner. Sometimes it's rearranging your outline or writing out detailed character descriptions to better understand their motivations. It's not simply Once Upon a Time to The End. It's not a linear process. It's all important.

Right now, for me writing is rewriting and tightening up my outline. I'm not a natural plotter. It's hard for me to see the path of my story without actually writing it, so I've been discovering the plot as I go. But, of course, as I adjust the outline some details in the beginning need to be changed. I have around 4k words left to sort through, with over 20k in the draft. It's the most I've ever written in a story, and I'm predicting this is going to be a long manuscript. I don't mind though. I still absolutely love this book and I have hope I'll be able to do it justice.

So yes, writing a book is hard. But I've learned to have patience with the process. And it's been worth every moment.