Lessons on the road to finishing the fourth draft of my first novel
May 5th, 2021: The learning never ends. And it shouldn’t. I began writing my first novel tentatively in 2014 when my first son was about a year old. Naïve, and overly optimistic, I told my husband, I’d take a couple of years off from journalism to write the book that had been floating in my head for fourteen years! I didn’t have a plan or a plot, I didn’t consult with writers and authors. I just dove in, while also returning to some freelance journalism. Which eventually meant that I set myself up against false deadlines, especially when a second baby arrived in 2016 and “time” was a word in the dictionary, not something I really had the luxury of anymore. For someone who had worked for years in television and was used to shouting out questions at stake-outs and reporting live for an audience of millions, I was shy about my book and terribly self-conscious. Fortunately, better sense prevailed in 2017 when I started working with a developmental editor—hands down the best decision I made. Allison Williams of I Do Words, is kind, firm, and incredibly patient. She understood my vision even though I hadn’t translated it on paper yet. Then she gave me no-nonsense, compassionate guidance on how to rewrite my novel in stages, how to navigate the weak links. For instance, I struggled with dialogue at first. Cut to a few drafts later, and an editor who recently read the book says she loves the dialogue in Monsoon Gods. Who knew? So, yes, you can start on an island and land up halfway up a mountain. Writing is an individualized, sometimes mysterious experience. As the words flow over different crevices over many years, they might take you to some surprising places.
The second best thing I did was to attend a couple of writer’s workshops in New York as well as online. More than the workshops themselves, it was the writers I met who’ve enriched my journey. It helps that I live in Brooklyn where words float in the cherry blossom-kissed brownstone air and writers are everywhere. In your neighborhood café, at your kids’ schools, down your block. It infuses collective energy to an often hard and lonely creative process. But in the end, it doesn’t matter where you live of course. You don’t need to be in any particular neighborhood to write. It’s just good to surround yourself with inspiration, whenever you can, whatever form it takes. Ultimately, it’s persistence and commitment that make you finish a novel. It was the desire to tell my protagonist Antara’s story, that finally got me—one pandemic later—to a draft that’s ready for querying. And even now, even as I send out the manuscript, I can see the scope for revisions. (Many writers will tell you that even after reading their published, printed works, there are little things that they could have tweaked!)
So my current top lessons on finishing a novel, or any long-form work:
Join writer’s groups. Your family and friends may be super supportive, but they probably won’t “get” what it takes to be a writer. It helps so much to share notes with other writers. I found that even my journalist friends didn’t really get what I was trying to do with the book, or how long the process can take. Luckily, there are many groups to choose from online, or try and find one within your community. Read their work, be generous with your time, and give them your work to read in turn.
Find a writing and accountability partner, or several. These will be the people who you can complain to when you’re stuck and will hear you out, also the folks who’ll share resources and tips and pull you out when you’re in a funk.
Spend time developing a healthy writing mindset. I’m going to dedicate a separate blog post to this as this is the single most important aspect of pursuing a manuscript that might take years. But in essence: take your craft seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Love, learn, feel, observe, read a lot, write, rewrite, and keep at it. It will add up. I for instance am uninterested in seeping myself in the sagas of writing challenges. Let me be clear— there are hurdles aplenty. I just don’t want to spend time delving on them (I have in the past!) as I find that weighs me down. All writers have similar dreams — we want our writing to move others, we want it to be appreciated, we want to find an agent and publisher. But if one is focused solely on the applause, this is not going to be fun. And possibly, very disillusioning. Write because you love it, because you love the sounds and splashes of words, their feel and texture, the way a sentence can create a longing, and a period can move you to tears. Write because you’re driven to describe the powerful fragility of life, its contradictions and quirks, its heart-breaking beauty, and the incredible varieties of human stories woven through the tapestry.
Learn from other writers and be generous in your support for them! It takes an entire city block, a village, it really does. And that’s great. But also be careful about the writing and editing advice you accept, from whom, and at what time and stage. Listen, hear, be open and then ask yourself whether you need to accept that particular feedback. There’s no easy fix or solution to knowing how to navigate this—it’s an art, an instinct, a matter of developing your writing intuition, and finding your voice. It comes with practice. And a lot of writing.
Touch your craft every day whether or not you actually write. For me, the whole notion of writing a certain amount of words every day as a rule—just doesn’t work. Or hasn’t at this stage of life with little kids. If you’re the kind who likes to have a word count deadline, by all means – have it, deliver it. But being in touch with your long-form project can take so many forms: could mean re-reading an earlier section, reading another author for inspiration, one poet friend memorably nudged me to read a few verses of a poem before sitting down to write. And I love this reminder. Working on your book could also just mean penning a few ideas or words on your phone, tinkering with a single scene, creating a mood board for your book on Pinterest and a playlist on Spotify, or just spending some time daydreaming about the characters or settings in your book. There are many ways to stay connected with your book, not all of it means actual words on paper. At least it wasn’t for me. As Confucius said – “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Don’t stop!
2024 Update: In 2021 soon after I wrote this, I realized the book still wasn’t ready and needed a major rewrite. On closer inspection, there were themes, threads, conversations in the book that didn’t feel like they were quite where they should be, that I hadn’t yet reached my vision for the novel. While several literary agents I queried loved the core idea of Monsoon Gods, they too suggested a rewrite. That revision in turn took me another couple of years with work going into not only the refinement of what I’d already written, but also the introduction of new themes, subplots and entire scenes.
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