As some of you may know, I have been working on a novel for roughly 15 years.  If that seems like a long time to take writing a book, you’re absolutely right, it is.  I’d like to share the history of my novel, why it has taken so long, and what I intend to do to get this sucker done.  The story of my story if you will.

How it Started

At the cocky age of 17, I had experimented with writing poetry in various styles (including haiku, which I still enjoy from time to time) and short stories in a handful of genres.  I was in the mood for a challenge.

At the same time, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the plot-lines of many TV shows.  The solutions seemed obvious and the suspense unrealistic.  Take a romantic comedy where a couple falls in love under false pretenses, the truth comes out eventually, and someone dumps the other.

Did the main character ever stop and think, “Instead of going through all these elaborate schemes to hide the truth, should I just tell her (or him) the truth and build a real relationship?”

What about the super tough action movie star that spends 10 minutes getting the crap kicked out of him in the last fight scene of a movie before finally rallying and overcoming the villain.  Or my personal favorite variation of this: The hero who has the bad guy (that totally needs to die) held at gunpoint, but can’t shoot him because he is making vague threats.

Shoot him in the face and get on with your day already!  If you don’t have time to shoot him and then disarm the bomb, trying to pry information out of him for 10 minutes isn’t going to help you.

I’m still frustrated by this, apparently, but it’s not as prevalent as it used to be.  I’m not sure if this is because of a change in the way stories are told in film now or if it’s because I have realized the world is a lot more complicated and nuanced than my arrogant 17 year-old self thought it was.  Weigh in with your comments below, if you would. I’m curious.

Long story short, I was looking for a challenge and frustrated by tropes.  Then the idea hit me: I should write a novel with a character whose butt was unkickable.

Being a naive teenager, I figured this will probably take a month or two and I was ready for the challenge.  Fast forward 15 years later…

Fun fact: If I ever time travel, I’m going to take a copy of my book, go back to the moment I thought it would be easy and hit myself with it. If that sounds mean, keep reading.

I started writing the novel in a spiral bound notebook — single-spaced, in pen, if memory serves.  If the gravity of that escapes you, imagine trying to make corrections or notes.

I’m not sure how long I wrote in that notebook or how far I made it.  I guess I was about 30 or 40 pages in when I moved into my first apartment.

Guess what got lost in the move?  Go ahead, take a stab at it.  That’s right!  The notebook!

I lost that first notebook and the next two after that.  Each time I lost between 40 and 80 pages and it was always emotionally devastating.  I finally made the intelligent decision to start writing on a computer.

That version almost broke the hundred page barrier before the computer died and took my story with it.  I was about ready to quit, but I managed to find an old copy of the first 20 pages or so.  Not much, but not a total loss this time.

Since then, I have had maybe another dozen setbacks in the form of losing parts or having to reconcile multiple versions from backups.  One fun event was the discovery that I skipped a chapter number.  I spent a day’s worth of writing scrolling through a huge word file to find and rename a dozen chapters.

Where it is Now

My novel now weighs in at a whopping 310 pages and a hefty 130,164 words.  If these numbers seem high, it’s because they are.  My novel is overweight, like a Sumo wrestler in a figure skating competition.

Am I worried about this?  Not really.  Right now, I am in drafting mode, which means it’s time to get the thing on paper and out of the void.  I will carve it up like a Thanksgiving turkey in the editing phase.

Looking back, having such a rocky start to my novel has been healthy for it.  I can say with confidence the very first iteration of the story was total crap, but had some potential.  The second time around was better, but still crap, and each incarnation following was a little better.

Going Forward

My intention for this blog is two-fold.  First, I want to share the knowledge I have gained from research or personal mishaps in hopes they can save others from some pitfalls.  Second, I am putting myself on the hook to make progress or face the wrath of my dear readers.

To do that, we are going to need a plan.

I have combed through what I have written on my novel, broken down each chapter into a word and page count, and then figured out  the average number of words per chapter.

Next, I read through the full outline of the story and plotted out the probable chapter endings to figure an estimate of how many chapters I have left.  After some basic math and a little rounding, I have come to the conclusion I need to cover about 50,000 more words.

I want to finish up by the end of the year; so, each week I need to write 2,200 words.  My weeks will run from Thursday to Wednesday to coincide with the Merchants of the Void publishing schedule.  If I fall below 2,200 words for the week, I want you all to call me on it.

If you are interested in the full suite of stats on my book, let me know and I can figure out a friendly way to share them.  In the meantime, thank you in advance for yelling at me (never thought I would say that…) and enjoy the first book report.

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Words Written (Week 1):  918 out of 2,200
Words Left:  49,082
Last Three Words Written:  proudly in return

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