How I Wrote My First Book: My Personal Journey
I want to share with you my personal journey of writing my first book. One of the reasons I love sharing tips about writing, mentoring writers, and working with my Book Incubator program is that it took me 99 years to write my first book. Well, it actually took me six, but it felt like 99, and I don't want that for you.
I'm going to walk you through the mistakes I made before writing and publishing my three novels so that hopefully you don't make the same ones. Here are my mistakes, and what finally happened when I stopped making them.
Mistake #1: Creating a life in which I had no time to write
The first mistake that I made was that I created a life in which I had no time to write, and I really mean no time to write. I was a lawyer.
I'd gone to law school because I was interested in the law and I thought being a lawyer would be fun, and I thought that I would write on the side. Well, that didn't happen.
I found myself in a job where I barely had time to do my job, much less write. So shortly after becoming a lawyer—I was a lawyer for less than a year—I quit.
I left my job because I didn't have time to write, and that's what I wanted to be doing. It really was my life's calling and what I felt like I was here to do.
You don't have to quit your job. But how can you carve out time? If writing matters to you, that's going to be important.
From my experience, it's not going to stop mattering to you. It's not something that goes away. So how can you carve out time and find a way to do it?
Whether it's in the morning before work, during your lunch break, or in the evening, you don't need to have big chunks of time to write. They can be small pockets.
Mistake #2: Too much feedback too early and from the wrong people
Now for my second mistake: too much feedback, too early, and from the wrong people.
When I left law and decided I was going to launch this writing career, I signed up for writing classes because I didn't know how to write a book. I didn't know how to write a novel.
I started a novel draft in this writing class, and the way this class was set up—and I learned most writing classes are set up this way—is that you submit some pages of your draft and your peers give you feedback.
So I submitted ten or fifteen pages of this novel opening that was really just a new idea. I didn't really have much more than those pages yet. It was just something I was experimenting with.
And what I got back were tons of comments from thirteen or fourteen classmates about everything I needed to fix in these pages.
I remember sitting there and reading comments like: "where's the inciting incident?”, "this scene feels like it goes on a little long," "I don't know if we need this much description," and "what is this character's motivation here?" I remember thinking, is this how writing works?
I didn’t even know what the story was yet. Was I supposed to just stop now and incorporate what Ralph and Sarah from my writing class told me they liked or didn't like when they also haven't published a book? I didn’t know if I should listen to them.
It was all very confusing, and I didn't know what to do. So I took everyone's feedback and just mushed it into my draft. And I did this for years.
For years I took writing classes and just kept writing to try to please all of the people who were in my writing classes.
I remember very vividly when I finally stopped doing this. I was sitting in one of these writing classes and this time it was the instructor—not an actual peer in my class—giving me this full rundown of exactly what she thought should come next in my novel.
"And then this character should do this. And then this character should do this. And then this character should do this."
And I sat there thinking, but that's not the book that I'm writing.
She was writing a different book than the one I was writing, and suddenly it occurred to me that what I had been doing was trying to write a book based on everyone else's vision.
But I was the only one who had the vision. This book had to come from me. I was the only one who had the vision.
I dropped out of that writing class. I went off on a writing retreat by myself and rewrote the entire draft in about a week. It wasn't very long at all. I rewrote it very quickly and got an agent at that point— within about six weeks of when I finished that draft.
That was the version of my book that sold at auction in the United States, meaning multiple publishers bid on it, and sold in a bunch of countries around the world.
So what's the takeaway here? Don't try to write your book to please others! You have to remember that you are the only one with the vision. Is there a time and place for feedback? Yes, but typically it's after you have finished a draft of your book, especially when it comes to peer feedback.
You may want to get feedback from another expert—an editor or a writing instructor or a mentor—earlier in the process. That can certainly be helpful, but those are people who give writing advice for a living and know how to do it. We've been trained to do it.
Anyone else—Larry, Joan, Harry, your sister, your brother-in-law, or your ex-boyfriend—you don't want to share your story with them until at least after you finish a full draft of your manuscript.
Mistake #3: Not viewing literary agents as actual people
My last mistake was a business mistake—not viewing literary agents as people.
As I was writing and rewriting my book based on feedback I was getting in writing classes, I was also pitching my book to literary agents.
In the publishing world, you're going to need a literary agent to get your book published. Almost everyone does. There are a couple of exceptions if you maybe go to a small publisher or if you choose to self-publish. But if you want a publisher to buy your book from you and publish it for you, 99% of the time you need a literary agent, which is the person who is going to pitch your book to publishers.
I knew that much. I knew I needed a literary agent, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought the way I got a literary agent was basically by being a spammer.
I thought I could just write a template email and send the same one out, the same mass email to all the literary agents I found in a database. Ah, it was terrible! It was not treating them like human beings, and of course it didn't work.
The right way to do it is to do some research and find the right people in this field for you and your book. What literary agents represent books like the one that you wrote or are writing? Where are they? What do they want from you?
Literary agents and agencies put this information on their website. It's not hard to find, but you need to do the work to find them.
Yeah, it takes longer than sending out a template, mass email to a bunch of people who you haven't even bothered reading about. But it's also the only way that actually works—that actually is successful—because it's the only way that treats them like the real people that they are.
My literary agent and I, by the way, had a pretty long back and forth before she ever signed me. She wanted to see me make some revisions on my book before she was comfortable representing me.
She actually turned me down three times! It was a little bit like a parable. She turned me down three times, but every time gave me thoughts on how I could improve the manuscript, and by the third time she read it and said, "This is it. You've nailed it. It's awesome. I'm excited. Let's do this."
Once you find the right person, it can be a really helpful, long-lasting relationship. And my relationship with my agent has been just that.
Those were my struggles. What are you struggling with?
Maybe you'd love to finally write your book, but you don't know how to find the time or you haven't written a creative word in years and don't know where to start.
Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe you have an MFA in creative writing, but it sucked all the fun out of it for you and now you feel paralyzed.
Ready to write your book?
As a published novelist and a writing coach, I've put together a free training for you on how to write your dream book while holding down a full-time job and not upending your life. You know, whatever that is. And in it, I teach you the exact process I use to write my books.
All you have to do to get this free training is apply, and be accepted, to my program, The Book Incubator. The application is only two questions. You can do it in under five minutes.
There's no obligation to join the program, but if you are admitted, I'll send you that free training right away. You've got nothing to lose, you know, except years of your life dreaming about writing this book that's burning inside you. So click below to apply and, if you’re accepted, you’ll get my free training on my exact process to watch right away. It'll be worth your time. I promise.
