A Thinker in Space

The Journey

Two months ago, I announced a small hiatus here. I revived this blog just over a year ago (which is wild at this point) and published consistently for around 10 months, before vanishing on February 27^th. That was great practice, spinning my writing wheels, and was a factor amongst a combination of factors that, at this point, I can confidently say changed my life.

I have always wanted to be an author. It has been a life goal since 7^th grade, which is wild to me. Little 7^th Grade me had big plans, big ideas, and began drafting what would become my first novel, a book about two boys and their imaginations. I had been writing it on and off for many, many years, and finally finished it at the height of COVID. I was holed up on my own for Christmas, and used that time to sit down, take my book, and wrap it up. Obviously, I did not seek publishing for that novel. What I did seek was feedback from Beta readers, and when I got that feedback, it consisted of a lot of positives and negatives, and one overarching theme:

My book needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

This was… very discouraging to my writing journey, and I stopped putting my hands to the keyboard and took a break. Then, I came back, energized, and started a new project with new characters and worldbuilding. I had a ton of fun developing it, but I got myself twisted into a knot and stopped writing.

Fast forward five years, and a friend introduced me to Brandon Sanderson’s writing lectures. He has posted multiple sets, but I began listening to his 2025 class as it was releasing.

This changed my entire perspective on writing, and reenergized me to the practice. It reminded me how much I wanted to be a writer. On February 28^th, I sat down at my computer with a blank document in front of me, and started a brand new book. No worldbuilding outline, no character maps, nothing. I simply… started writing.

And then I kept writing. For 29 days straight, with a few breaks. And at the end of those 29 days, I wrote the words End of Book One at the bottom of a 120k word draft of a brand new novel.

I stared at those words, and let it sink in. A complete novel, cover to cover, written in only 29 days. And I realized that this was something I could do.

The Process

I don’t mean to come off as patting myself on the back. I debated for a long time about writing this article for that very reason – I know this book needs work. It has taken up a lot of my focus these past two months for this very reason. It might be finished, but it is a long way from ready. What I do want to do is share some of my experience, because I know other prospective authors out there may benefit from what I did, and what I learned in the process.

Writing a book takes a different amount of time for each person, and for each project. I was writing my first novel for over ten years before I finally gave it an ending, and it is still noticeably rocky and deeply flawed. This book was different – it flowed out of me like water. The next might take longer, might be something I need to stew over, with a plotline that I get stuck on for days on end without resolving its flaws. I am still very early in my writer’s journey, and there are a ton of things I still need to learn about myself and about writing in general. I don’t stand here as an expert, simply as someone who has taken the first step in a very long and arduous journey.

The thing that I discovered about myself the most during this process is that when I get going, I have a fast writing speed, clocking in at 2000-2500 an hour. Are all those words good? Nope, they’ll need a lot of polishing. But they push through the story, and get me to the ending faster than the average speed. Everyone writes at different rates, but if this is something you want to do, you can do it. If you put your mind to it, and put effort in it, you can go from sitting on empty drafts and hopeless story ideas into someone who is sitting and revising the draft of your first novel.

What I Learned

Eight years ago (wow), I wrote an article called Some Handy Tips for Focused Writing. Rereading this, I absolutely agree with myself. Some of what I am about to say is the same as what was mentioned in that article, but there is a lot I learned that I can add on in this one. I’m going to go down a couple of lessons learned that can hopefully benefit other aspiring writers!

Minimize Distractions

Surprise! This was the first one in the aforementioned article, and remains one of the most important things to do in order to have a productive writing session. Eight years ago, I wrote about how our world is so fast-paced that it is hard to focus. That is doubly true today. Distractions abound, and if you have a full-time job or a family, they aren’t just hobbies or other fun activities, like I mentioned in the last article. Some of these are necessities. Responsibilities that take priority from your writing. Writing a book with a child and a teaching job, I found one of the most valuable things I could do was to cut out my hobby time. Instead of playing video games, or reading books, or watching television, I used all of that time to write. During that month, I was either spending time with family, teaching students, grading papers, or writing my novel. I was blessed with a week-long break where I was able to take multiple days to write with 0 distractions for the entire day, and that was where I did some of my most significant amount of work, averaging around 9k words a day (with two days over 11k). Minimizing distractions and setting aside your phone is a great way to dive deeply into your writing and get you into the zone so that your writing session is as productive as possible.

It is also valuable to know what environment is best for you. For me, it is a comfortable space with music on in the background that matches the tone of my book.

Learn What Type of Writer You Are

In his lecture series, Brandon Sanderson talks a lot about the distinction between discovery writers and outliners. Knowing which of these two archetypes you lean toward naturally in your writing will be a huge timesaver. I am a discovery writer. How heavily I lean that direction is still to be determined, but I wrote my current Work in Progress (referred to as WIP for the rest of this article) doing worldbuilding along the way and coming up with story beats as I was writing. Not outlining proved to be one of the best things I could do for this story. I don’t know if that means I will struggle with writing an outline (though that was one of my biggest issues in my previous WIP – I struggled with getting my characters from Point A to Point C naturally in the storyline). If you know what works best for you, you can use that to great advantage as you write your stories!

Take Brainstorming Breaks

This was huge for me, and was incredibly important to my novel writing process. Since I started writing this book on February 28^th, it has been on my mind constantly. Even now, deep into the revision process, I am thinking about the novel constantly, or about my next book. It occupies a ton of space in my head, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because of this, there are times when ideas will suddenly come to me and I will have to write them down ASAP. This happens most often on drives (which I have spent listening to writer advice from Sanderson and Alyssa Matesic, who also gives a ton of great writing advice) and anywhere else where I have nothing to do but think.

When I was in an active writing session, I found it very valuable to take a break, slap on some headphones, and do chores around the house while brainstorming what I was going to next. Taking some space from the keyboard and giving myself the opportunity to do tasks that are more mindless while working a difficult problem or getting excited about the next chapter was incredibly helpful to reenergize myself. I found it necessary sometimes to take a break after writing a chapter, as I was writing two separate viewpoints and switching gears often in between.

Figure Out What Gets You Into Your Characters’ Heads

This is big. What excites you, gets your brain moving about characters and plotlines? Figure this out, and use it to your advantage. For me, this is listening to lyrical songs that I have specifically collected into a playlist for the book. I have done this for all two and a half of my books, and they are still excellent for getting myself into characters’ heads. Listening to these songs on a drive, or with headphones, can get me right where I need to be so that I don’t have to write myself into a character on the keyboard and I can dive right into prose.

For you, it might be something different. Maybe it’s easier for you to write a short journal entry in their voice, or read some of your previous writing with the character. Maybe you need to revise a scene you’ve already written with the character to get yourself into their head. Maybe it’s something else that works uniquely for you. If you can figure out what gets you in the zone, and how to get there in your time, your writing will be much more productive.

As a little bonus, here are some of the songs I used for my current WIP as character or scene themes.

Just Write

This is possibly the hardest one. I know it was for me. We all write at different paces, and a lot of this comes down to simply sitting down at the keyboard or in front of your notebook, and putting your hands to work at creating. Set a goal for yourself. How much do you want to write each day? Allow yourself a buffer – I did not work on my novel today because I had so many other things to do, and let myself take a break. But I try to at least revise a chapter a day in my current state of the project. Set a goal and stick to it as much as you can. Maybe this is a 1000 words a day. Maybe it’s 500. Maybe it’s a weekly goal. But try and keep yourself producing, because that is the only way, in the end, to write a book. It takes time, it takes energy, but with consistency and drive, you can pull it off.

You won’t want to write every day. But if you find yourself multiple days in a row without the initiative, you’ll need to push yourself. Just write. Even if it’s not the next scene or chapter, put something on the page. Keep yourself moving. And eventually, you’ll have taken that first step – you’ll have written that book you’ve been promising yourself you’ll get done for months or perhaps years now.

Get Out of Your Own Head

This was the piece of advice that changed my life. It was in Brandon Sanderson’s first lecture, and it shifted my entire perspective on writing. I have been so obsessed with making things that are original and unique and mind-blowing that I don’t write, because I don’t want to be generic. I get so into my characters and my plotlines, especially ones I have been workshopping for years, that I lose the plot, literally and metaphorically, and destroy my own potential as an author.

I needed to be told this:

• Your writing does not have to be the most original thing you have ever read. You have your own voice, and even if what you write has a generic backdrop, you will bring uniqueness to it.
• If you are so obsessed with everything you produce being perfect, you will never produce anything.
• Write a book. If it’s bad, you’ll have learned what to do better in the next one. You are the most important product of your early novels – with each thing you write, you gain invaluable experience as an author.

This is what started me on this journey. What made me put down my frustrations and my inadequacy and actually say “Alright, let’s give this a fair shot.” And now I’m plowing ahead, with goals and a plan for what I want to do in the future, a future that seemed unattainable just over two months ago.

What’s Next for Me?

So, I now have a completed manuscript. What happens now? Well, I’ll tell you my plan, and we’ll see if I can make it happen. Here are the next steps I have laid out for myself:

• Complete a Problem Pass (Complete) – Draft 1.5
  • The goal of this revision was to add foreshadowing to main events and fix problems that I noticed as I was writing the novel. As a discovery writer, sometimes things changed significantly and needed to be fixed retroactively. These things were fixed or incorporated into the rest of the novel here.
• Complete a First Readthrough Pass (21/36 Chapters Complete) – Draft 1.75
  • This revision focuses on line edits, rewriting clunky prose, and polishing events and characters so that the novel reads better when I send it to Beta Readers.
• Complete a Purge Revision (1/36 Chapters Complete) – Draft 2.0
  • This revision focuses on cutting around 10%-15% of the novel and streamlining exposition, something that was definitely heavy in the first draft as I was worldbuilding often as I was writing. There is a lot to trim here, and I plan on tackling this alongside my previous revision (working on already revised chapters).
• Send Draft 2.0 to Betas
  • I have a ton of beta readers lined up for this book! After completing both of these revisions, I send the book out to them and get feedback.
• Write my next book
  • While my Betas have my book, I write a new one. I’ll either take my second WIP and fix/finish it, or write a new WIP from scratch (I’m currently leaning towards the former).
• Receive feedback from Betas, Sort Through and Incorporate
  • Here, I’ll go through and tackle beta reader comments, and see how deep the revision needs to be. I will complete this revision likely after finishing the previously mentioned book.

After this, it becomes a mix of revision, and, when and if the novel is ready, beginning the querying process (which I am sure I will be talking about here), as well as doing a Draft 1.5, 1.75, and 2.0 of my next novel.

Someday, I hope to have books on the shelf. I might have a long way to go practically and in experience before I get there, but I would love to see my name on a Barnes & Noble shelf. I know that is not everyone’s destiny, and sometimes this just… doesn’t happen. If that is the case for me, I will simply keep writing, making books that I hope the people around me will enjoy and that I can continue to send to agents in hopes that one day I get a fish to bite and can jumpstart the next leg of my career.

Until then, I am satisfied to keep writing, and begin producing novels. I hope that this is something I will cling to and continue to do, because my goal of becoming an author has never been closer and has never felt more possible.

I might not post here for a while – I have a lot of work to do, and as you can tell by this article, this blog is now much further down on my priority list. But I haven’t forgotten about it, and still have a lot of ideas as to what I want to publish here in the future. For now, thank you for reading, and I hope to return as the years go by to talk about things like this from an even more authoritative perspective, having completed multiple novels and learned even more about how I write and how to help others tackle the monumental achievement of taking a novel that was in their minds and putting it onto the page.