Your First Finished Book!

 

Your First Finished Book!

Holy cow! How thrilling!

 

You finished the draft.

You've self-edited, ROLing - Reading Out Loud - at least once.

You've had the appropriate beta readers go through it, and you've made the necessary corrections.

Now, you're jonesing to have it be read by all the world!

 

WRONG!

 

Remember. It's your FIRST book, not your 7th or 20th or 200th.

It will never be the book that will display your best writing skill. 

 

Yes, it will be good, if you've done all the steps I mentioned above, but unless you've paid a professional editor to go over it before self-publishing, or your draft has been picked up by a publishing acquisition editor (both avenues will have you up to your neck in editorial rewrites, guaranteed), it most likely has developmental and/or line and/or mechanical gaffes every first book has.

 

Yes, by all means, put it out there — self-publish or promote it on a small scale — but don't go nuclear in your promotions.

 

You NEED independent reader feedback at this point to highlight those gaffes that weren't evident in your prior editorial efforts, so you have time to correct that manuscript before the world gobbles it up.

 

This is NOT a downer I'm expressing here.

It's a cautionary tale in the self-preservation of your author Image.

 

I read almost daily of new writers going on social media and shouting from that virtual mega-phone of their first book, and its instant availability to all 'n' sundry... and likewise, I quietly shiver, fairly well knowing what those first few book reviews may look like.

 

No, they won't be all bad.

But those who aren't linked to you in any way will NOT give you vacuous glowing reviews like your friends, colleagues and family might, or others who read it and never absorbed it, glossing over the gaffes.

 

Be proud of your achievement. hell, yes!

 

But don't let your excitement cloud your business sense.

 

You want your good author name to last for an eternity.

So, take it slow, and be careful with what you add to create that good name.

Your First Book - Don't Make It a Memoir...

 

New writers often think writing about some aspect of their troubled past, however veiled in a fictional story or a straight-up memoir, will be their Opus Magnum.

If this is your first book, you're wrong.

 

Writing on emotionally charged topics, personally experienced, is a double whammy of difficulty. Now, you're combining your lack of experience writing a book-length work with a troubled mind. You think your quest to reach answers for yourself and the world is through this undertaking, when all it will do is frustrate you more.

 

Result: you will find it far too difficult to face these memories to competently complete a long work, and that work will end up in the back of your drawer for years, leaving a bitter taste about writing in your mouth that may have you never write again, all because you chose to face two difficulties at once.

 

Solution: for your first book, and maybe a few more thereafter, select an objective topic, one that is not emotionally charged. Make that topic be far removed from your personal life experience, but in a genre you enjoy reading yourself. Doing this will free you from the pressure of experiencing something difficult while learning to write a book-length work. Your chances of enjoying the process and staying with the work to a competent conclusion are infinitely far greater this way.

 

And once you have one or two books completed and have become accustomed to what it takes - mechanically and artistically - then, you can tackle more difficult, personally charged issues like a memoir of a troubled past.

As a first time book writer, you simply cannot do both.

You can argue with me all you want, but this is a fact.

 

If this describes you and your partially written novel chock-a-block full of angst, put it aside, and start something new. You need to learn how to FINISH a book before tackling life's big woes. Make it easy on yourself to handle one task and then another.

 

This is the reality of writing talking to you, not the romance.

 

HOMEWORK: decide tonight if your current WIP - Work in Progress - is a veiled angst-ridden memoir. If it is, accept the reality that you're not skilled enough yet to take on that topic, and choose a lighter tale. 

 

This is you not failing. This is you succeeding. 

 

Example: does a beginner skier choose a black diamond run or the green beginner run as his first hill? You see my point here? 

 

Tonight, take a long hard look at yourself and your skill level, and make the successful choice. 

You'll thank me later.

Stop Petting Your Blofeld Cat...

 

We've not met in person, but I know you well.

You have a pet Work In Progress manuscript that is not finished, that you sit down and pick at every once in a while... and have done for the last decade!

 

*Sigh............*

 

Yesss, I know, you WUV your pet WIP.

I see you lovingly stroke it like Ernest Stavro Blofeld did to his white Persian cat in the '67 Bond flick, You Only Live Twice.

 

*Sigh.................*

 

Here's the deal:

Time and fiddling do NOT make you a better writer.

Many completed works do.

 

And if you never finish this first work, to know what mistakes were made and what successes were achieved, you will NEVER acquire the skills needed to complete another work ever again.

 

Yesss, some writers take a decade or more to finish a great work, BUT those writers are upper-level profs who have long studied the craft and/or have finished and published many shorter works before this long-drafted novel. All the Light We Cannot See and Winds of War spring to mind.

 

My guess, you are none of the above.

Sorry, man, but I'm here to help you finish your book.

Not humor you.

 

Where you are right now in your craft, you simply cannot know what works and what doesn't, and as yet haven't a clue how to complete a long work, so you CAN move onto the next to up your skill set to create better works.

 

Again, this issue is mostly psychological.

 

Subconsciously, you know if you don't finish this pet WIP, then in your mind every good outcome is still possible, and as there have been no critical eyes on the piece to tarnish your belief that THIS work soars above all others for all time, your Ego has not yet been bruised. Yes, writers have fantastic imaginations and wear their hearts on their sleeves...;-)

 

Thus, you will never complete a work which soars UNTIL you've completed MANY less stratospheric works. Fact. The word "completed" being the operative here.

 

HOMEWORK: decide TODAY that come hell or high water, or purely pedestrian prose, your pet WIP WILL be finished, so you are free to start another.

 

Your first book will never be your best book.

I know, harsh truth, but that's a writer's reality right there.

Accept these facts, and move on.

 

Stop petting your Blofeld cat.