I was so green when I decided I was going to write a novel. So green that I had a false start. This is the story of what happened.
I sat down at my laptop full of optimism and naivety. A bright white, empty Google docs page staring at me and I wrote. I had no plan. Without realising it, I was attempting to be a pantser. This is what I thought being a writer was. I thought you sat down and out came a novel.
After a couple of hours, I thought I sucked at writing, but what I realised months later is that I sucked at ‘Pantsering’. I shut the laptop and gave up after writing one scene. I wasn’t disappointed with the scene itself. In fact, in my humble opinion, I thought it wasn’t half bad, and I got such a thrill from writing it. That was the best part about the entire experience. I absolutely loved writing it. So the ‘do I want to write?’ question was well and truly answered. But I had no idea where that scene would lead too and I ran out of pantser energy to figure it out, plus I did not know how my story would end. Hell! I didn’t even know what story I was trying to tell.
A month or two later, I found a LinkedIn Learning course by Jessica Brody that taught the saved by the cat fifteen beats to any good story.
That course was the key to unlock the beautiful, neurotic, OCD, creative beast of a plotter that I am. As I progressed through the course, I developed my very own beat sheet on a digital whiteboard (miro). I would have done it on a wall with post-it notes, but my Husband and I live between our house and our boat, so a digital version would be easier for me to reference no matter where I was.
By the end of the course, I had developed my story’s structure. Well, at least that’s what I thought I had done!
“Hello naivety, my old friend! You’ve come to visit me again!”
I had all the beats roughly plotted, and it was just a matter of writing these digital post-it note ideas into comprehensive scenes. But what I realised was, as I moved through the process of actually writing words. As I applied the flesh to the bones of my plot, more story, more sub-plot came into view and with it, revisions, research and additional scenes were required. Not that I’m complaining, it all feels right and intuitive. As the story unveils itself to me in detail, it tells me what I’ve missed, what needs to be added. It tells me how to make the story even better.
In addition to my miro beat sheet, and in accordance with my anally retentive nature. I set up a Google sheets to plan out some writing goals, I’m such a planner!
“Fail to plan, plan to fail!”
So without knowing how many words I was capable of writing in a day, I built myself a word count plan. Let’s be real. I did this knowing nothing about how one goes about writing a book. In my enthusiasm, I decided that by June 2022, six months away, I would be seeking an agent (and, in turn, a publisher) for my finished manuscript. Oh gawd I was fresh! So there I sat, proud as punch, with my word count tracker spreadsheet, complete with automated bar chart which showed my required word count (the forecast) and what I was actually achieving (words typed). In the business world we’d call this process the forecast or budget plan which we compare against actual sales invoiced to know if we are on track or not to hit budget. It took a few short weeks for me to realise I had grossly overestimated the number of words I could write in a day or week. So I adjusted, reducing the 900 odd words I needed to write every day, seven days a week, to a new, more reasonable 400 words per day forecast. Several weeks later, I realised I had no skills at forecasting my word count and decided to just track the days I would write, to get a feel for what I could get done. I plan to use this as a baseline if I am so fortunate to one day write another book.
By October 2022, I had 30,000 words down on paper. All of those words happened on and off, in between moving from our house to our boat, including a seven-day ocean passage from New Zealand to Fiji and, of course, all the preparation and hard work that offshore sailing required. Plus, up until March 31st 2022, I was working full time in the wonderful world of business consulting.
October marked another momentous moment for my bourgeoning writing career. I think I was scrolling through Instagram or some other social media platform when I saw something amazing! ProWritingAid was advertising to me about a week long online Romance Writer Conference. I couldn’t believe my luck! I had no idea what PWA was, so I got stuck into trying that out, and realised yes, I need it. And of course I registered for the conference. Two cool things happened as I watched and listened to the YouTube recordings of each webinar session;
1. I was standing in the galley, handwashing the dishes with my wireless earplugs in listening to developmental editors and co-creators of the Story Path course, Anne Hawley and Rachelle Ramirez talk about ‘The 5 Essentials of a Scene". They were asking the live audience questions, and I was just playing along, answering their questions instantaneously in my head as they asked them. Then I would listen as they read out the audience’s answers in the webinar chat. That’s when I realised I had something! Not only did I know intuitively how to construct scenes with all the necessary elements, but I could analyse a scene and identify the 5 essential parts. Every question they asked, I knew the correct answer. Up until this point (and on a regular frequency) I doubt my writing ability. But that session made me realise that even though I didn’t know developmental editors existed, hell! I didn’t even know what an editor did full stop! I had already written scenes with all the elements these two experts were saying were necessary. I had some natural talent, er... well, at least I think I might.
2. The PWA conference opened a whole new realm for me. I found out there is a bunch of 'My People' out there on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I had felt quiet isolated writing my book until I realised how many people out there are trying to do the same thing and are more than likely open to collaborating in some way or form. I also learnt that if I wanted to do this book writing thing, I needed to get serious about it. Hence this website! My very own author hub! The PWA conference inspired me to write more! It made me believe that this impossible mission to write a book is possible. It motivated me and taught me so much; How to edit, that there are stages of drafts, that I need to be marketing myself now, not start after I finish my manuscript. That I need to build a network and figure out who my ideal reader is. So many things, so many exciting things!
And then I sat back and reflected on it all and had a thought...
“For a long time, I have wanted to own my own business, but my excuse was always, ‘I don’t know what product I would sell?’ Turns out all I needed to do was write my product!”
So follow along as I make Alex Valley, Alex Valley The Author!
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