My book writing journey so far

I know it’s been a while, so I thought it was about time I provide an update on my book writing journey…

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To recap, last October, after a long layoff spanning several years, I decided to revisit my novel again. I started by cobbling together a rough draft I could work with, though it was more like half outline, half draft. I completed that sometime in November, and the result was a manuscript of about 20,000 words.

I then spent another month reworking my outline/draft to add necessary scenes and transitions to make it more coherent, and by the end of that process, it was about 35,000 words. I still didn’t consider it good enough for anyone to read, so my next goal was to produce a version that was at least good enough for my 13-year old son who happens to be an avid reader, though he pretty much only reads young-adult books at this point.

By February, I finally delivered a draft for my oldest to read, and now my book was clocking in at about 43,000 words. Good son that he is, he spent a couple of hours alone in my office and read the whole thing in one sitting. His verdict was that it was good, not his favorite book or anything, but he said it was easily in his top 10. Not bad for a rough draft, I thought, especially considering the fact that he said he didn’t really understand the ending, and that’s the most important part.

So now that I have some reassurance that my book isn’t a total waste of my time, I’m in the long process of rewriting and improving it in preparation for publication. In total, it’s 18 chapters long, and I’m through 15 chapters of the current revision. While I only have three chapters left, they probably represent the three hardest ones to get through since the ending needs the most flushing out. At the moment, I’m sitting at 49,000 words, so I figure it’ll be well over 50,000 by the time this draft is done. I’m targeting the end of this month for that.

Then the goal is to do one more rewrite, mostly focusing on adding emotional depth. After that, my efforts are mainly going to be on improving the prose itself, adding more details, that sort of thing. I’m giving myself roughly six months for that phase, after which I’m hoping to have something I’ll be satisfied publishing.

Going through this process has definitely been interesting since I can’t help but compare it to back when I first tried writing this book in earnest about 20 years ago. Back then, I was full of hopes and dreams, but I had no strategy in terms of how I was going to achieve my goal. This time around, I feel like I actually have a roadmap with specific timelines that is helping me chip away at the work so it feels much less overwhelming than in the past.

As far as how the book is coming along so far, I’ll say I wouldn’t be continuing this journey if I didn’t think the book had the potential to be something I’ll be proud to put my name on. That wasn’t the case before. While I thought the story I was trying to tell had potential, my execution fell way too short. I’d spend all night writing, only to reread what I wrote the next morning and come to the conclusion it was all a pile of crap. This time around, while there are still parts that definitely need more work, I find myself being more encouraged than discouraged when I reread what I’ve written.

Anyway, I now have less than eight months before my self-imposed deadline. I’ll try and have another update in the next month or two. Maybe in the next one I’ll try to share a little more about the book itself like what genre it is, and what it’s generally about.