I’m in high school and trying to think of a book idea.

I’d played around with novels in the past and always said I wanted to be an author, but I wanted to sit down and really do it. I mean… I was fourteen years old for crying out loud. SE Hinton had her first book written when she was 15 and published when she was 18. Clearly, I had to get going.

There was the age old advice of “write what you know” and I always rolled my eyes at it. What I knew was so boring. Until my sister points out “you know the story of Snow White better than anyone. Why don’t you just write about that?”

Well… now there’s an idea.

It’s a few years post college and I have an incredibly rough draft complete of this old idea about Snow White I once had.

Having put my writing aspirations aside as a hobby and only participating in NaNoWriMo and toying with edits in exchange for focusing on a different career path, I realize I’m tired of keeping my writing on the side. I have so many other ideas. More characters and worlds to explore. I can’t not write anymore.

But… this book is not good.

For someone who played around with it periodically in high school in college it’s just fine. As an actual publishable novel? Not at all.

And I’m okay with this.

I set the book aside and work on something brand new.

It’s a couple years later.

I’ve completed and revised a book and queried it out to agents. Nothing happened with it. While I’m sad and disappointed, as I look through the manuscript I know there’s so much work to be done on it and to be frank - there wasn’t a market for this genre at the moment. Maybe I can return to it someday.

Yet, I don’t have anything else to work on.

As I sit in my living room watching TV an idea hits me like a lightning bolt. It has to do with Snow White. But… different.

No. NO WAY. I can’t go back to my terrible terrible book from high school. BAD IDEA.

But…

The same skeleton of the Snow White tale is there (obviously) and the same with the love interest. Yet… there’s more. A completely new turn. A new story. Sure, use the same character names if they still work. But this isn’t just revising a terrible old draft. It’s something new.

It’s August of 2018 and there’s two weeks to go until the PitchWars deadline.

My Snow White novel isn’t complete. It’s close, but, there’s so many more words to write than I’m used to in such a short period of time.

Yet… maybe I could do it.

Would it be hard?

For sure.

Is it possible though? Am I crazy enough to go for it?

I set a schedule for myself where I wake up early each morning before my 7am clock in time for work. When I get home, I write even more. Sometimes from the moment I get home to the moment I go to bed only to start it all over again the next morning. I cancel plans with friends and have to back out of meetings. I talk to my supervisor about my goal and they’re kind enough to let me leave early the day before my deadline and have the whole next day off so I can get it done.

With a few hours to spare - the book is done. The last half isn’t perfect. The last quarter is a hot mess. But it’s done. I’m completely and utterly exhausted and I never want to look at a computer screen ever again. I also have never been more proud of myself regardless of the outcome.

Submit.

It’s April 2019 and I’m still revising.

I didn’t get picked for PitchWars - but I later learned I did get attention. Someone helps guide me through how to revise. I read a book about plotting. I outline, write and edit, reoutline then rewrite and reedit. I get started, then there’s times for weeks I can barely look at the page.

Each time I have a break through a roadblock appears. Even if it’s just one I’ve created in my own head. I think I have it all though through then when I go to write my mind completely blanks out.

I’ve cut so many words and added even more words only to have them cut again.

I know this is how the revision process goes, but it doesn’t feel like I’m making any. I know it’s being made, but my heart won’t accept this fact.

Other novel ideas are floating around in my head and it’s so tempting to just say “well… I tried that time for something else.” I want to dig through those stories and characters. I want to take all that I’ve learned and maybe, just maybe, this time around it’ll be better.

It’ll be easier.

But if I stopped one book and started a new one every time it got hard I would never have anything complete. So, I keep going.

Then I doubt myself. “What if this wasn’t such a brilliant idea in the first place? What if there isn’t really anything to salvage out of this? Do I really want to waste my time on a book that’s never going to be great? Maybe you were never meant to publish a book. You’ve been talking about this literally your entire life and you still can’t even get revisions on this one book done.”

There’s a literary agent/writer I follow on Twitter, Eric Smith, and he tweeted several weeks ago “The book of your heart is worth fighting for.”

In case you're a writer who needs to hear this...

The book of your heart is worth fighting for.
— Eric Smith (@ericsmithrocks) March 16, 2019

Is this Snow White novel the book of my heart? It might be. Although, I wonder if there is even a single “book of your heart.” I think you might have a few. They all just each explore a different part of your heart. I think this book is one of the books of my heart.

I keep trying to remind myself that if this is the case, it’s worth the fight and the battle. The days of self-doubt and frustration. All of it will be worth it.

Maybe I should shoot for only 100 words a day. Even if it’s not much progress, it’s at least something on days when my brain can’t work any more. Maybe I should set another hard and fast goal to force myself to get it done and stop making excuses. Maybe if I make one more outline it’ll work itself out.

Maybe this

Maybe that

Try this

Try that

Yet… it’s still not done.

Why isn’t it done?

I know I don’t have a timeline and I can’t compare myself to the routines of other people because every has their own process. In spite of knowing this, I can’t help but keep asking myself “Why can’t I just figure it out and get it done?”

There’s something that’s going to be special and unique about this book. There has to be. Something in me says to keep going and keep digging through the muck and I’ll find something special. For some reason, it’s not coming out yet.

I know writing and revising is hard. Most of us writers know this. But when we’re actually in the middle of it, we (or at least I) start to wonder “Is it supposed to be this hard?”

The book of your heart is worth fighting for.

So, I’m trying. And I’m fighting. Even if I don’t hit my word count goal each day. Even if end up deleting all of the scenes that I’ve already written and I have to start some of them (or all of them) over. Camp NaNoWriMo and spring arriving with it’s sunshine helps. Talking with other writers and my CPs helps. But it’s hard right now. It’s been hard for several months now.

But I can’t stop fighting for this book.

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Welcome to the second in the "My Writing Process" series! The first post was about brainstorming. That's simply getting your ideas together. Today, I'll share with you my thoughts on actually planing out a novel and the story.

There tend to be two categories writers place themselves into for this. There's the outliners and the "pantsers." (AKA- discovery writing.) Either you plan your novel out, or you just wing it.

The reality is, most writers are a mix of both. I know I am. It also depends on the project I'm working on. Some books I feel like I need to know exactly what happens when. Others, I let myself figure it out along the way. Although, I tend to go for more outlining. For the project I'm working on at the moment, I'm winging it a bit more than usual. Which is slightly scary. Some elements of this book I knew I had to know exactly what happened. The rest, I'm only planning one step ahead of where I am currently in my writing process. I have the first few chapters plotted out, but the everything else I have no idea!

Outlining

When I outline my novel, there are a few different methods I've tried.

The 9 Block Method

I found this one through the YouTuber KatyTastic. (One of her vidoes is below) You divide your book into three acts, each with three sections, and three chapters in each section. This would create roughly 27 chapters. (It sounds confusing, I know. But it isn't!) All of these roughly are just about setting up, creating conflict, and resolution. Beginning, middle, and end. Act one is setting up the story, act two is building up the conflict, act three is the climax/resolution. Then each act has a bit of a "mini" story inside of it with set up, conflict, and resolution.

Katy explains it far better than I do, and when I first started to outline this way, I had to refer back to her videos several times. (You can watch one of them here!) Now that I've gotten the hang of it, it's easy. It's a fairly commercial method of putting together a story and I like to use it when I'm getting stuck on plot. (I'm TERRIBLE at plot. Give me fun characters and witty banter all day. When I have to actually decide the things that happen to them and how it all fits together, it's the struggle bus for me.) It helps me to see how I can keep the story moving as well as eliminate things which don't add anything to the story.

The Snowflake Method

This one is about starting small, then getting bigger and bigger. You first start with a simple, short sentence, summarizing your novel. Then, you write a paragraph. Then three paragraphs (particularly if you're doing a 3 act structure.) Each paragraph having roughly five sentences each.

Once that's done, you move onto creating something similar for each of your main characters.

You can probably see where this is going. You keep going until it gets bigger and bigger then you're ready to write your novel. I'd continue, but you can follow this link to learn more. This method is good for people who like to take notes and write things out, vs. having a bullet point outline. I like to use this when I'm focusing more on my characters vs. the plot points.

Classic Story Structures

There's also several structures for classic story lines. Rags to riches, quests, the hero's journey, voyage and return, rebirth, and overcoming the monster. If you look at different genres and compare their story lines carefully, you'll see some basic plot structures and it's a good way to get yourself going. Figure out where the main "beats" of your story need to be, then go from there. You can see many of these on my Pinterest board.

The Pros of Outlining

You have an idea of where your story is going, and it helpful if you find yourself stuck or from keeping your book from taking it's own course. I especially find it useful during the revision phase because then you can weed out what is and isn't needed in your book. But we'll talk about revisions in a later post.

The Cons of Outlining

Some people get married to their outline and don't let their story grow and breathe. Personally, I found this to be the fatal flaw in the ending of the TV show How I Met Your Mother. The creators had a specific ending in mind when they first plotted out the TV show. But as the show grew and changed, the ending did not. So, when we got to the finale, it was a disaster. Years later, I still become irrationally angry if I think about it too much, because everything else was so well done!

Others don't like to outline because they feel like it constricts them and they can't be as creative as they'd want.

I always say, feel free to outline as much as you want; just be sure you're willing to be flexible.

Discovery Writing

There's not a whole lot to say about this method, other than it's the "figure it out as you go" philosophy. You start writing and see where it takes you. This lends itself to being more organic. It's easy to say that this is more "creative," which I don't agree with. There's definitely creativity in outlining as well.

The Pros of Discovery Writing

No bounds! No limitations! Do what you want! Discovery writing is awesome for people who don't like structure. If a random plot twist comes to you, you don't have to worry about re-doing that outline you worked on for hours and hours. You just go with it. Sometimes the surprises can be the best parts of your book.

The Cons of Discovery Writing

You may not know where your book is going. For me, this is the scary part because it's easy to get stuck. This is the beauty of planning. If you don't know what to write, you can just take a look at your outline and see what's coming next.

It's easy for your book to lose track of where it's going. You may find yourself with scenes you don't know what to do with, characters who don't have a purpose, and when you get to the end you have no idea how to tie it all together.

Overall, a majority of writers are a mix of the two methods, or it will vary with each project. I had one book where I had it heavily outlined and I relied on it for every step of the way! For projects like the one I'm currently working on, I have some details set and a few moments I want to be in the book, but beyond that I'm just seeing where the characters and the story takes me!

Brandon Sanderson, a popular epic fantasy writer, says he very much relies on his outlines. But then I've heard of authors such as Agatha Christie who claimed she didn't know who the murderer was until she reached the end of the book!

Basically - you do you.

When Writing is A Battle