I am grateful to all the people who have been supportive and followed my writing journey. My novel will be launched at the end of this Month. and I am so excited to announce this. To say how long it took to get to this point is crazy. I wrote a 71,000-word women’s fiction novel in only a few months, but the time it took for rewriting and editing has taken over two years. I am writing this article to share my writing journey with you and what I learned along the way. (Make sure to follow my blog to read the summary that will be on the back cover of my book, to get a sneak peek of my novel.)
So where did the idea for this novel come from? One night when I couldn’t sleep, the idea for this book came into my mind. I sprung up from my bed and wrote all that I could think of at that moment in a note on my phone. If you are a writer or artist, you know that when creativity strikes, you take full advantage of it, no matter how late at night it is.
But having an idea is not enough, there are plenty of book ideas I have that started just like that, but I never did anything with them.
After coming up with the idea this time, I showed my writing critique group. They thought it was the best idea from the book ideas I have shared with them, so I decided to stick with it.
So, I wrote an outline. Though I updated that outline many times, it was very helpful to have it when I had writer’s block.
I learned a few things from writing this novel:
- I never knew how much blood, sweat, and tears would actually go into the making of a novel. I mean that figuratively and literally. It takes a lot of time, energy, and emotion. I poured my whole self into this novel and the characters, but I was lucky to have a writing critique group to aid me and keep me motivated along the way.
- Writing a book is a long journey. There were times I didn’t want to write. There were times when I had writer’s block, but I had to keep pushing myself. I would not let myself forget the reason I started writing in the first place or the reason this novel is so important. I believe my novel will help many women and resonate with many people.
- When I finished writing the novel, the work was not done. I had to find beta readers (aside from my writer critique group) and a professional editor. I know that I did hire a professional editor, which not all authors do before finding a publisher, but I did that because I wanted to try to make this book as perfect as possible and that really helped me in the long run.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I look forward to keeping you posted on more updates on my debut novel After She Said Yes!
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