I was watching a YouTube video from Taylor Ann Wright called “being vulnerable about the realities of writing” and the things she had to say sparked something in me, thus this blog post.
She mentioned how she realized she wasn’t proud of her first book when she was writing the third in the series and needed to go back and rewrite the first one in order to do justice to the story she was telling. This resonated with me. One of the pieces of feedback I got from beta readers who read the first version of Between You, Me, and the Moonlit Sea was something along the lines of, “it’s good, but it could be great if you put a lot more work into it.”
And they were right.
I’ve said this several times now and I’ll say it again: BYMMS was supposed to be a simple book. BYMMS was supposed to be a 70,000ish words easy romance, a little break from my bigger works that I tackled in 4 or 5 months. Not only did it become much bigger, clocking in at 140,000 words when the first draft was done, but it became much more complicated. I realized, somewhat on my own but mostly through the very insightful comments of my betas, that I had neglected to see the true depth of the characters I made and how that informed the story I was telling. Actually, I had neglected to see a lot of things that would inform and shape the story, and as a result I wrote a story not up to my standards.
My first novel, Iron Spirit, took 5 years to write, and in that 5 years I rewrote the entire book from scratch four times, with edits to each draft every time. (If I remember, the final version you can buy now was labeled “Iron Spirit Rewrite 4 Draft 2 Final.”) Now, mind you, that’s because I started it when I was still learning the ropes, I had yet to go to school to improve my craft, and it was an ambitious idea for my skill level. I loved it, though, and I didn’t want to give up on writing it. So I kept writing it until I finally had a version I felt good about, that I felt proud of. Why does this matter?
Because I wasn’t proud of the first version of BYMMS. I didn’t realize that at first. I thought BYMMS was fine, but the more critique and comments I read from my betas, the more I felt ashamed of what I’d completely missed or neglected. I wasn’t proud of the story they read because it wasn’t nearly as good as it could be. But it was my second book, the book I wrote after all that learning and growing! How could it not be good?
It wasn’t good enough because I rushed it. I worked too fast, obsessed with that four month time frame I was trying to work in rather than in the story I was trying to tell. I was under the mindset that because I was now a professional, I had to immediately operate on a full-time professional level– nevermind the fact that I have a full-time office job, as well as social obligations, and simply do not have the time to also be a full-time author, only part-time. I was also trying to work faster than I naturally work through a story. When I was writing Iron Spirit I had no deadlines, and that made a huge difference. It was my first book, so I let myself take my time and said, “However long it takes, that’s how long it takes.” As a result, I put a lot more work into it, and I paid more attention to it. I didn’t do this for BYMMS.
Through working on BYMMS, I realized I can’t rush my process or the entire story suffers and just creates more work for me in the end. I’ve been working on BYMMS for nearly a year now, eight months longer than I expected to work on it. All things considered, I will get it done in a smaller time frame than Iron Spirit took, and that itself is an improvement I should be proud of. I’ve learned so much more from working on BYMMS. I made a lot of mistakes in the process of learning these things, but nothing I can’t fix.
I’m halfway through my edits for BYMMS and you know what? I’m proud of it now. I wrote a chapter the other day that I fucking loved. I think about it everyday and am excited to work on it whenever I get the chance. I found the spark I needed to push through and take my good story to great. When BYMMS is published, I will be happy to put it beside Iron Spirit.
So what is the point of this blog post? It’s a reminder. A reminder to me that I need to give my work time, and that I’m still growing as a professional. A reminder that I’m still learning how to navigate this world and perfect my process. It’s okay to take time to craft the story you want to tell. You’ll see plenty of authors who write faster than you, but you shouldn’t compare yourself to them, especially while you’re still learning and perfecting your process. You’ll get faster over time naturally.
I wanted to share this in case it helps anyone else. As long as this is not your full-time job, the sole thing that puts food on your table, you don’t need to conform to such strict deadlines. You don’t need to immediately operate on a professional level, even if you’re published. As long as you have the means to support yourself, let yourself experiment and explore and figure out what works best for you in the long run.
That’s all for now. Time for me to get back to edits.
LINN FOSTER 