A year ago, I had never written a novel.
Oh, sure, I’d thought about it. I’d dreamed of it countless times. After all, isn’t that the goal of most writers? To pen a work of such length and magnitude that it leaves readers speechless?
But for whatever reason, my hard drive is filled with the half-finished husks of potentially great stories.
Actually, no — it isn’t for ‘whatever’ reason. The reason is simple: I didn’t finish them.
I recently made a comment on social media about finishing a novel in the span of a week. Someone asked me how to write a novel.
There are two answers to that question. One is the long answer: make a blood sacrifice to your Muse, plead and beg for a plot, interesting characters, and enough dedication, outline the story, write it, edit it, rewrite it, and so on.
The other is short: you write.
Completing a novel isn’t easy, but it doesn’t require anything more than discipline. You have to show up, sit down, and write until you’re done. Rinse and repeat.
Writing, I’ve learned, is not always a magical experience of joyful storytelling bliss.
It’s grueling. It’s painful. Sometimes the last thing I want to do is sit down at the computer and write another word, much less another paragraph. But I do.
One word. Then another. Those words become sentences. Those sentences become paragraphs. Those paragraphs become pages. And, in time, those pages become a book.
Don’t get me wrong. There are times when writing is easier than breathing, when nothing could feel more natural. As a writer, I live for those times. But it’s also my job to persevere through the times when it’s not so easy.
That’s the job of all writers: to sit down and write with or without inspiration, whether your Muse is beside you with a cup of tea and words of encouragement or across the globe at a Nine Inch Nails concert.
And that’s how you write a novel.
Patrick is a freelance writer, novelist, entrepreneur, and adventurer. Follow his travels at Voyager’s Quill.