First draft
I didn’t know I was going to write a novel when I joined the online writing community The Novelry. Perhaps a memoir, perhaps some short stories. Then suddenly, a story blossomed. A plot. Characters. And I became possessed.
Writing the first draft took me three months, and was magical. I’d wake each morning between 4am to 5pm, stretch and meditate, and write at least 1,000 words, stopping at a point where I was just hungry enough for a little more, but not satisfying that hunger, so the next morning I’d be excited to go again.
I also kept a writing log, where I wrote how many words that day, a summary of what I wrote, and a summary of what I thought I needed to write next. After three months, I’d this nice chart:
After writing the first draft, I took three months off and relaxed and read, just getting some distance from what I had written.
Second draft
For the next draft, I realized my process had to be different, but wasn’t sure how. There wasn’t a uniform process, and I struggled a bit. I needed structure and knew that writing and revising the second draft would be messy. Here’s what I decided to do:
Each day I had a spreadsheet where I would write what I planned on writing, what I actually wrote, and what I planned on writing next. I used Airtable for this, as I found it was an amazing tool to use for everything related to my process, from organizing my characters, scenes, and plot, ideas, among other details (I’d used this for the first draft too).
Sometimes I needed a space for bigger thinking or more rambly thinking, so for this I used Dropbox Paper, and always kept my Moleskine notebook close at hand.
After draft two, I sent the novel to a Dominic Wakeford, a fantastic freelance editor in London, who sent me back super helpful feedback and gave me confidence to move forward.
Third draft
I corrected all of this editor’s feedback which took me about a month, cutting about 10,000 words of needless dialogue, then sent it to Lily Lindon at The Novelry for their Ultimate Manuscript Assessment.
Fourth draft
I received super helpful feedback from Lily. All writing is subjective, so when you send it out to different editors they’re going to focus on different things. You must know your writing, know the story you are trying to tell, so you don’t get tripped up or swayed into directions that don’t feel true.
The next draft took me about two months, reviewing Lily’s feedback and focusing on different aspects. I restructured things, rewrote the second chapter, cut about 10,000 words, and added another 10,000.
Fifth draft
Put a special focus on different ideas in the story, made them more nuanced and real. Then, had a Big Edit session with Lily on the first three chapters.
Sixth draft
Read through the novel and fine-tuned it. Sent it to Lizzy, the Editorial Director at The Novelry, and she approved it to move forward. With The Novelry’s help, we sent the query and synopsis to ten agents.
I got lots of initial interest, received two full MS requests, but no one bit.
Seventh draft
Did another read-through, correcting things I felt could be improved. You know those nagging things with your novel you just know aren’t right? Yeah? Well, fix those before sending the novel to agents. You’ll feel better about your work.
I then submitted the novel to another ten agents. No one bit.
Eighth draft
Sent my query letter and first three chapters to another editor. She returned most of my money, because she thought the novel was already there.
Now, I am taking a break from sending it out, mostly because I am deep into my new novel and putting all of my focus there. In total, I’ve sent the novel out to twenty one agents, and either get declines or no responses. Once I’m at a good draft stage with this new novel, I’ll start sending this first novel out again.
❤️