The Process

South of Jordan took me a year to complete, and that was with me doing it all wrong. I wasn't used to being able to take my time while writing it. While journalism has a lightning fast turn around, publishing moves at a slow, plodding pace. And that's okay. A news article is a product intended for immediate consumption, and while a novel is a product, it's also art. Art takes time.

I'm just now realizing that it's okay to write slowly and to revise as many times as it takes. I was in such a hurry to get to the querying stage with South of Jordan, that I cheated the manuscript out of the time it needed to really develop. I thought I was done after five months of work, but after a reality check, I realized I needed another seven months of revising. Unfortunately that reality check came in the form of feedback from agents, and only one of them was interested in seeing the revised product. All of those agents who requested before I was really ready, I can't re-query. Do I wish I could go back and do it right? Sure. But I wouldn't have learned without that feedback, and I'm a much better writer and much more industry savvy because of it. South of Jordan may never get off my desktop, but it taught me how I write. Some writers can turn out a publishable book in a couple of months; I'm not one of them, and I suspect I am the rule rather than the exception.

So unlike with South of Jordan, I have a game plan for my latest work-in-project, Dub Girls. I'm actually writing it much more quickly than I did Jordan. I'm at 21,000 words and I've been working on it for a little over a month. However, I now know that probably 90 percent of those words are going to be deleted in revisions. The important thing right now is to get that first draft done and to be okay with all of its imperfections.

Once that first draft is done, I'm going to let it sit. I'm probably going to take two weeks with absolutely no writing to let my head clear, but we'll see when I get there. This time, I'm going to print out the manuscript and sit down with it and a red pen--something Stephen King recommends, but I didn't think I needed to do it with Jordan. Now I know better. After that overhaul, it's going out to beta readers. I did not understand their importance until an agent pointed out to me that I, as a writer, am completely incapable of knowing if my manuscript is predictable. Of course it's going to seem predictable to me--it's my story. Every novel is a team effort. I get that now.

I'm not putting a deadline on myself this time. Looking for Alaska took John Green four years to write. Was it worth the wait? Hellz yeah! I can't remember how long it took John Grisham to write A Time to Kill, but it was a long time, I promise.

I'm anticipating being done with the first draft of Dub Girls by March 31, and then taking at least a year to work on revisions. If I get the manuscript where it needs to be before then, great! But I will never again put unrealistic expectations on a manuscript. Everyone's writing process is going to be different. I truly believe the key to turning out a high-quality manuscript is knowing how you work best, and really, the only way to learn is to write that first novel. Even if it never gets published, the lessons learned will be priceless.