5 Mistakes I Made Writing My First Novel

I began writing my first novel thinking I’d get it done in a year. It ended up taking me four. Sure part of this was due to my full time job, and propensity to procrastinate, but if I had known then what I know now I probably could have made it happen. Here are the top five things that I did wrong.

1. I overthought. Every. Single. Word. Having never written a novel before, I thought every word I put to the page counted, and it does—but not on the first draft. As a result I wrote very slowly and ended up with a bad case of writer’s block.

As time went by and the story changed I realized I was going to rewrite most of the novel anyway and didn’t have to be so precious about my words the first time around. I just needed to get them down on the page. Now if what I’m writing doesn’t sound perfect I just keep going with the knowledge I will go back and fine-tune it later.

2. I wrote for the first two years without a writing coach. I gave myself no deadlines, no writing schedule, a very loose outline, and I didn’t show my work to anyone. What a waste of time. Finally, I talked with a co-worker who was also writing a novel. She had started a year after me and was almost done.

When I asked her how she did it she said she had a writing coach. I got the woman’s number and hired her immediately. Best decision I ever made. My new writing coach helped me streamline my outline so that everything was planned out and ready to go, and got me writing on a schedule. We reviewed one chapter every two weeks and I finished the first draft of the book in less than a year. I’ll never write without a coach again.

3. I over-researched. This was a big one. I read every book on lucid dreaming, astral travel, psychic spies anything else that even vaguely had anything to do with the subject matter of my novel. If I thought of a book that might give me some exciting new ideas I’d even stop writing for a few days and read the whole book before I continued writing.

I also went on a few retreats and held off writing for the same reason. Don’t get me wrong. It was incredibly fun and I love “researching,” but I definitely used it as a crutch and it really slowed me down. Ultimately the answers I was looking for came naturally through the writing process. Now if a problem arises, I won’t take a week off to research. I leave my researching for the end of the day after I’ve gotten my writing done.

4. I tried to cram in too much. Before I hired my writing coach I kept trying to add more to the story: superfluous storylines, back stories, relationships, symbols, new age themes, and surprise twists. My writing coach was able to point out that they weren’t moving the story forward and so we got rid of them and the novel is much better for it. My new motto is: Just keep it simple.

5. I didn’t pay attention to word count. This was probably the biggest mistake I made. I kept forgetting to check my word count. I think I had this subconscious belief that the more words I had, the better my book would be, which just isn’t the case. I also didn’t research how long the book should be for my genre.

When all was said and done I had 50,000 words over what my publisher wanted and had to cut a lot and then rewrite again, which took up even more time. With the novel I’m writing now I know exactly what the word count is in my genre and track it every day so I don’t go over.

The truth is that when writing your first novel you’re going to make some mistakes, that’s just part of the process. But being aware of the common pitfalls makes it easier to sidestep at least a few of them which will help you get your book done sooner rather than later. And who doesn’t want that?

About the author: Abbey Campbell Cook studied creative writing at UC Berkeley. She now writes (and sometimes sings and dances) about her ongoing quest for spiritual and physical wellness on her blog, Adventures in Woo Woo Land, which often includes pictures of Channing Tatum in his underwear (Ryan Gosling too, if you’re lucky). The Lucidity Project is her first novel.

Follow her on Twitter @abbeycamp

Find out more about her on her website http://adventuresinwoowooland.com

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips