Non Hughes

Sorry, I skipped the February check-in since I was already so close to finishing the first draft. It seemed daft not to wait a couple of extra weeks to give this update instead!

My goal was initially to finish the first draft of my current middle-grade novel by the end of March, but then I booked myself on a super niche writers’ retreat (feels so weird saying that, can’t believe I’m going on one, and I don’t even have an instagram account of anything haha), so the new goal became to finish by the 24th of March.

Then I worked so hard to get ahead of schedule that I got too far ahead of schedule, and my wonderful writing/accountability buddy gave me the extra push: I had split the last 4 chapters to be written across the next two weeks, and she made a face and went, “why not do them all this week?” And so I did!

It was also her suggestion to front-load the work and do so much in January, which is how I got ahead in the first place, so double thanks! Honestly, I don’t know how I got anything written without her last year.

My starting goal for the book was to keep it under 100k words, preferably under 85k, since I’m a serial over-writer and knew I’d have to edit down to about 65k to meet norms for the genre. Perhaps because of the rush, or because I planned the book out more meticulously than previous projects, but I ended up at 66k. This is nice, ’cause it gives breathing room if I end up needing to change major plot points, or expand on anything I accidentally glossed over.

Recap: I started January with 6k words written, and during that month wrote 28k more. That brought the total to 34k at the start of February.

By the end of February, I had written 22k more, bringing us to 56k, and in the first half of this month (March) I got the last 10k words in. Pretty pleased! I know that this is pretty much what loads of people do in November every year with NaNo, and it took me over twice as long, but I’m happy to have finally gotten out of the stuck mindset from last year. Skipping from project to project, filled with doubt and fear, never finishing any of them.

What did I learn from writing this book?

I’m a nerd. I like to dissect, retrospect, learn. From everything. Hopefully this helps lessons to stick in my head better for the future. And tbh, I learnt a lot this time.

First, plotting at the scene level. It’s something I knew how to do on paper but didn’t really ‘get’, so I went and studied the progression/tension/beats of different types of scenes in some of my favourite middle-grade novels, and found that all those blog posts and youtubers were right. Scene goal, turning point, midpoint, climax, reaction, bla bla bla. Fine, yes, it makes my scenes stronger. Thanks. I found that whenever I felt stuck on a scene, but couldn’t put my finger on the problem, it was because I was missing some super obvious element of the scene. I’ll definitely take this into consideration in my initial planning of future novels, since it felt a bit like I was laying tracks in front of the train as I was ploughing along. I’m a super planner, and thought I’d laid the tracks quite nicely before starting, but I’d only really cleared the trees and put down gravel.

Second, I learned some benefits of sharing my work as I go along. I’m still hard in camp “I don’t want feedback on my chapters as I’m writing first draft because it’ll make me want to go back and edit, and I can do that later when I’ve finished the full draft”, and I doubt that will ever change. But it was nice having someone who had read the book so far, who had the full outline, and who I could bounce questions and uncertainties off as I went along. My writing buddy and I had some great discussions around the ordering of scenes at the end of the novel, as I was approaching it, and I was able to ask what she thought of a different ending I’d come up with in the bath. She managed to talk me out of a few bad decisions, and talk me into some great ones.

Third, I don’t have to write 1000 words every day without fail to finish a book quickly. I have a full time job and two dogs, a snake and a millipede. I have housework to keep up with, and books to read, and meetings to prep for. It’s just not realistic to write every day. So long as I’m getting at least 3-5k words written per week, it really doesn’t matter if it happens all at once on a Sunday, or in dribs and drabs through the week.

What’s next?

Well. I need to leave the book alone for at least a month, for starters. I already have a 3-page list of edits I know I’ll need to make – fixing character inconsistencies and jazzing up the environment, clarifying plot points and focusing in on the stakes. I also need to put a single-page plot synopsis together, so that when I go to read the manuscript at the end of April, I have a solid idea of what the core of the story was supposed to be, and I can judge through my reading how strongly my intention came out in the book.

After that, the plan goes on as usual – I’ll write up edits through May and June, then send it out to the first beta readers at the end of June.

For the next month, though, I’ll need to stay distracted. I’ll probably line up a few blog posts, write some poetry, outline or write on another project, and focus a bit more brain energy on the job that actually pays my bills…

Anyway, I did it! I got out my rut, finished a first draft manuscript, and it feels great! Woo!