{"id":980,"date":"2024-08-13T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/?p=980"},"modified":"2024-08-13T02:07:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T01:07:01","slug":"a-year-of-writing-misconceptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/13\/a-year-of-writing-misconceptions\/","title":{"rendered":"A Year Of Writing: The Misconceptions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A year ago I started writing my first nove<\/a>l, at that point called \u2019Softening<\/a>.\u2019 and now called \u2018Somewhere In Between<\/a>\u2019. A year later and I\u2019m 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\u2019s been a year of writing misconceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 1: I\u2019ll be finished in less than a year<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I churned out my first draft in three months<\/a> while working full time and I was very pleased with myself, very pleased indeed. A that rate, my newbie writerly mind thought, I\u2019ll be done in six months and entering it into competitions by May 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wrong. A year in and I\u2019ve just got out a version that will go for its first full beta read. Once that\u2019s completed then it will be back to the edits. If I\u2019m lucky then the edits will be sentence level, and if I\u2019m not then I\u2019ll be back to wholesale structural edits. The only certainty is that the novel writing will continue into its second year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 2: I\u2019ll write my novel every day<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I love writing and I\u2019m slightly (very) obsessed with it. So, sporting the gift of troubling levels of focus<\/a>, I thought I would write the novel every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half right. I do pretty much write every day, but not solely on my novel. It just doesn\u2019t 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\u2019d done in the previous weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I do write (nearly) every day, but I\u2019ll write morning pages, my blog, copy quotes out of books, or jot ideas down in my inspiration file. And I\u2019ll also write my novel – some of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 3: The more beta readers the better<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Not really. For my first partial beta reads, I sent it to five people<\/a> which was way too many. Some were great and provided super helpful feedback, and some weren\u2019t and provided a single line of inaccurate comment<\/a>. And my daughter is terrible at feedback, so don\u2019t ask her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 4: I\u2019ll be terrible at taking feedback<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Because of my neuro-spiciness, I\u2019m awful at talking feedback<\/a> – 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\u2019m no longer inhabiting my own body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But actually when I got feedback, I was grateful and interested and acted on it<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t all plain sailing though. When I got detailed feedback from Ally Blake<\/a>, my author mentor, it triggered the doubtful doldrums<\/a>, and she was really<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019m not terrible at receiving feedback – I\u2019m probably just like most authors – okay at taking it but not perfect. Feedback can be a bitter pill to swallow, but it\u2019s good medicine and I need to take it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 5: The drafting will be linear.<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The linear conception of first draft, second draft, third draft \u2026. final draft doesn\u2019t always hold<\/a>. 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<\/a>. Often, it is a series of edits that flow back and forth – story, scene, line flickering in and out of each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> comes in, then everything will be thrown up in the air again and I\u2019ll go back to a more fluid set of edits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps as I become more experienced then the edits will be more linear, but for now I\u2019ll have to go with the editing flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 6: Novels need beautiful descriptive passages<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I love writing description, and I\u2019m good at it. Unfortunately books don\u2019t 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\u2019t\u00a0 – I\u2019ve imagined it and\/or I\u2019m filling in the gaps. There is less description in the literary world than I supposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019t read them. And neither, it turns out, does anyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 7: It\u2019s publishable<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

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

Now I\u2019ve completed the eighth draft<\/a>, I like it again, but I don\u2019t 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\u2019ve been wrong before, so who really knows?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 8: It\u2019s definitely a romance<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I think Somewhere In Between is a romance<\/a>, but it was a rocky road. Original it was comedy, then it could have been a thriller<\/a>, then, when it was first read, people thought it was women\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 9: I\u2019ll never write a bedroom scene<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is partially true, I haven\u2019t yet written the spicier stuff, but I\u2019m more open to it now. I\u2019d 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<\/a>. It\u2019s an incredible skill to take one act, sex (there I\u2019ve written the word again – I\u2019m getting better) and bring something fresh, passionate and captivating to it. I admire the\u00a0talent it takes to write like that, and I want to be able to emulate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misconception 10: If I become a writer, I\u2019ll have heaps of free time<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I had this fantasy that if it all magically worked out, and I became a writer, then I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not how things are. Most writers still have day jobs, and those that don\u2019t 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\u2019ve been doing it for a year now and I\u2019ve never been busier (busy but happy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago I started writing my first novel, at that point called \u2019Softening.\u2019 and now called \u2018Somewhere In Between\u2019. A year later and I\u2019m 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 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