Some Process Thoughts to Keep You Focused and Motivated as You Write

Lesson 8 of "How to Finally Get Started on that Novel"

Mariam Chagelishvili

Lesson 8 of 8 from “How to Finally Get Started on that Novel”

So, how's this all going to happen?

At this point, we’ve gone through a lot of the craft topics that come up when first starting to put together a novel. But to be perfectly honest, a lot of the time when I work with stuck novelists, what’s keeping them stuck is not a craft issue. Frequently, writers just can’t figure out how to fold into their busy lives the enormous project that is writing a novel.

Who has the time?

The truth is that everyone has the time. Sorry! 

Really all you need is an hour a day. Or 15 minutes a day. Writers make it happen. 

Let me just say that sometimes people are somehow under the impression that all novelists do is write all day, but this has never been true for me personally and I am hard-pressed to think of a single novelist for whom this is in fact true. Maybe there are a few out there who are financially solvent enough – via independent wealth, rich spouses, or some fabulous streaming/movie/amusement park ride deal or something? – but almost every novelist you can think of has a day job or other responsibilities. Too bad, kinda, although I also think it’s the rare writer who can actually physically write for more than a few hours at a stretch. And besides, if we didn’t have work, and to be in the world, wouldn’t our writing material become awfully rarified? (I’m happy to try though, if any patrons out there are looking to fund a nice lady novelist…? DM me!)

I wrote my first novel in the mornings before work, waking up at 5am to tap out a few pages every day. I wrote my second book while I was home with a baby, trading babysitting hours with other writer-moms I knew. I wrote my most recent book, Dear Edna Sloane, on lunch breaks when I worked in an office. So like, I’m not the most sympathetic to the “I don’t have any time” excuse. You have time, you’re just using it for something else.

Now, maybe that something else is something that is more important to you right now than writing the book – Exercise? Friends? Recreation? That’s all very valid and very fair. 

And maybe, just maybe, what you’re lacking isn’t really the time so much as the space, or the energy. Also, very valid and very fair! I get it!

As we’ve said a couple of different times in a couple of different ways in these lessons, so much of figuring out how to write a novel is figuring out what actually works for you, in your actual life. Set up a system that works for you, and the idea you have, and the space in which you write. Try not to be precious about it. Yes, a lot of writing a novel is a near-mystical creative-conduit experience, but in order to get there, you have to be somewhat practical.

Here are some things to figure out as you get started:

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