A year ago I started writing my first novel, at that point called ’Softening.’ and now called ‘Somewhere In Between’. A year later and I’m still writing it. A lot of the things I thought I knew about the writing life have proved to be false – some were slightly untrue and some were wildly inaccurate. It’s been a year of writing misconceptions.

Misconception 1: I’ll be finished in less than a year

I churned out my first draft in three months while working full time and I was very pleased with myself, very pleased indeed. A that rate, my newbie writerly mind thought, I’ll be done in six months and entering it into competitions by May 2024.

Wrong. A year in and I’ve just got out a version that will go for its first full beta read. Once that’s completed then it will be back to the edits. If I’m lucky then the edits will be sentence level, and if I’m not then I’ll be back to wholesale structural edits. The only certainty is that the novel writing will continue into its second year.

Misconception 2: I’ll write my novel every day

I love writing and I’m slightly (very) obsessed with it. So, sporting the gift of troubling levels of focus, I thought I would write the novel every day.

Half right. I do pretty much write every day, but not solely on my novel. It just doesn’t work. Between drafts I need a break of at least two weeks, otherwise I stop seeing the words on the page and I can only see the words in my mind. Also, during partial beta reads, it was counterproductive to continue writing the novel. When the feedback came in, I had to abandon the current draft halfway and go back and do the structural edits, therefore wasting much the work that I’d done in the previous weeks.

So I do write (nearly) every day, but I’ll write morning pages, my blog, copy quotes out of books, or jot ideas down in my inspiration file. And I’ll also write my novel – some of the time.

Misconception 3: The more beta readers the better

Not really. For my first partial beta reads, I sent it to five people which was way too many. Some were great and provided super helpful feedback, and some weren’t and provided a single line of inaccurate comment. And my daughter is terrible at feedback, so don’t ask her.

I now think that two or three beta readers who you really trust, and are able to give helpful, balanced and honest advice, is way better than twenty substandard readers. Beta reading is a skill, and not everyone has it. Also my beta readers are doing me a massive favour, so the less massive favours I ask from my friends and colleagues, the better.

Misconception 4: I’ll be terrible at taking feedback

Because of my neuro-spiciness, I’m awful at talking feedback – not just normally awful, but genuinely clinically awful. At best I get really annoyed, and at worse I start to disassociate and feel like I’m no longer inhabiting my own body.

But actually when I got feedback, I was grateful and interested and acted on it, and my novel has improved significantly because of it. Feedback is a gift, and for once, it’s a gift I want to be given.

It wasn’t all plain sailing though. When I got detailed feedback from Ally Blake, my author mentor, it triggered the doubtful doldrums, and she was really lovely and clearly wanted the best for me and my writing. I recovered, did the edits and the book is heaps better for it, and lifted it from romance-like to a full-blooded romantic novel. And when the daughter gave me her latest batch of feedback I shouted at her. Oops – parenting fail.

So I’m not terrible at receiving feedback – I’m probably just like most authors – okay at taking it but not perfect. Feedback can be a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s good medicine and I need to take it.

Misconception 5: The drafting will be linear.

The linear conception of first draft, second draft, third draft …. final draft doesn’t always hold. Beginnings get reworked endlessly and the midpoint gets attention while other parts are neglected. Drafts get abandoned half way and the next draft gets started early. Often, it is a series of edits that flow back and forth – story, scene, line flickering in and out of each other.

Now the story structure has stabilised, the process has returned to a more linear set of drafts. But as soon as the next beta reader feedback comes in, then everything will be thrown up in the air again and I’ll go back to a more fluid set of edits.

Perhaps as I become more experienced then the edits will be more linear, but for now I’ll have to go with the editing flow.

Misconception 6: Novels need beautiful descriptive passages

I love writing description, and I’m good at it. Unfortunately books don’t need as much as I thought – not books written in this century anyway. When I think there is description in a novel there actually isn’t  – I’ve imagined it and/or I’m filling in the gaps. There is less description in the literary world than I supposed.

Modern books cut to the chase, and modern readers are impatient to get to the action. Even when I read, I skim the the descriptive passages, so why would I expect anyone else to carefully read mine. I love writing poetically descriptive settings, but I don’t read them. And neither, it turns out, does anyone else.

Misconception 7: It’s publishable

It might be and it might not be. I really thought my novel was brilliant after the first draft, but by the time I got to the fifth draft I thought it was the worse book ever.

Now I’ve completed the eighth draft, I like it again, but I don’t think it fits well into the kinds of romances that are being published at the moment – its heat level is definitely sweet, whereas the romance novels that are published currently trend to the steamy. If anyone was ever interested in traditional publishing it, I think that would be the blocker – so I would either have to write in the bedroom scenes or self-publish. But I’ve been wrong before, so who really knows?

Misconception 8: It’s definitely a romance

Finally, I think Somewhere In Between is a romance, but it was a rocky road. Original it was comedy, then it could have been a thriller, then, when it was first read, people thought it was women’s fiction, then it was a romcom with lots or rom, and now it’s contemporary romance with a bit of humour spliced in. So it is a romance – I think.

Misconception 9: I’ll never write a bedroom scene

And when I say a bedroom scene, I mean a sex scene – a steamy, full-bodied, naked, sweating sex scene (I even struggled to write that sentence).

This is partially true, I haven’t yet written the spicier stuff, but I’m more open to it now. I’d like to be able to confidently write those scenes, even if I ultimately never use them. I really admire the authors that can do it well. It’s an incredible skill to take one act, sex (there I’ve written the word again – I’m getting better) and bring something fresh, passionate and captivating to it. I admire the talent it takes to write like that, and I want to be able to emulate it.

Misconception 10: If I become a writer, I’ll have heaps of free time

I had this fantasy that if it all magically worked out, and I became a writer, then I’d have tonnes of free time. I could spend a few hours in the morning writing, float around in the afternoon and take weeks off at a time, to wander away and meditate in the hills.

That’s not how things are. Most writers still have day jobs, and those that don’t talk frequently of deadline hell and seem to have multiple side hustles to make the economics of their lives add up. I still truly believe it would be amazing to be a writer, but I no longer think it would be easy. I’ve been doing it for a year now and I’ve never been busier (busy but happy).

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash