I’ve been writing for twelve years. I started, strangely, three months after being diagnosed with bipolar 2, which I hadn’t realized till today. I know I didn’t start writing as a coping mechanism or as character insertion (my first characters were not me) and I didn’t write about being bipolar. I think I started writing because being treated for bipolar helped me focus on continuous tasks instead of pouring all my energy on the whim of the moment.
I was not a good writer at first — I wrote each chapter as if they were separate episodes, like short stories strung together. I didn’t feel like I wrote an overarching plot. The novels (I use the term loosely) I wrote then I have had to revise several times such that only the characters are the same. I learned a lot from revising them.
Things I have learned over the past few years:
- My first draft is not my novel. Over the years, the novels have needed less and less rewriting, but there are always things to fix in second and third (and fourth, and …) drafts.
- Developmental editors are an important part of your writing toolbox. It is worth paying for them.
- There are three ways to write a novel: Plotting, pantsing, and plantsing.
- Plotting: an organized outline at the beginning, and following the outline.
- Pantsing: writing it as one goes along, without the outline.
- Plantsing: writing with a rough outline but pantsing through the chapters.
- I am a plantser.
- Scrivener is a great program for composing my work, especially plantsing.
- Scrivener arranges itself around a chapter format and a synopsis form that I use to guide my chapters. I use it like pantsing with training wheels.
- One can get templates for Scrivener novel-writing that incorporate plotting frameworks, such as Save the Cat and Romancing the Plot.
- ProWritingAid was another investment I don’t regret — my grammar has improved in ways I hadn’t considered before. I have lessened my passive verb structure massively.
- Writing is the easy and fun part. I still don’t think I have the hang of promotion (and this blog is part of my proof of that.)
- My favorite novel is always the one I just finished.
The most important thing I learned? That I can write. The second? That there’s a whole lot of luck in being discovered, and luck hasn’t come to me quite yet.
I feel like I could have learned more in 12 years, and maybe I have, but these are the biggest things I can think of. I hope they’re helpful to someone!
Words Like Me 