How to write a novel

It took me a long time to write my first novel. I’d guess around thirty years. That’s because, in my teens, I was convinced that I would write one. One day. Too bad it took me three decades and hundreds, if not thousands, of pages to figure out how.

Once I finally wrote it, I got lucky. After eighteen rejections (or thereabouts – I lost count) my manuscript was one of the 2% or so of unsolicited manuscripts received by SA publishers every year actually to get published.

It's pointless to try to describe the feeling when you finally hold the finished thing in your hands, crisp and virginal and un-dogeared and smelling of paper and ink. Who was it who said that writing a book is the closest a man can come to experiencing childbrith?

It gets better when the reviews are flattering, and when O magazine chooses it for its Father's Day picks – and when the sales figures creep beyond the amount of people in your immediate circle of friends and family. But from the day I’d heard of its acceptance by my new publishers, I began to worry that I only had one in me. So I started the second while we were editing the first, and finished the manuscript (“ms” in the jargon) before the first went to print.

It took so long to get an opinion from James, my publisher, on the second one that I started and finished the third. Then I went back and read the second, and realised that, other than the first nine pages and the last eight, it was rather poo. No wonder James, usually so energetic and optimistic, had been dragging his feet. I put the thing down and rolled my eyes and mailed him and asked him to forget about the second and to look at the third instead.

Now my third attempt, Wasted, is being published as my second novel in August this year by a surprisingly excited publisher.

I’m excited too, of course. Especially as James strongly suggested we find an international agent for me asap. But more than anything, I’m relieved. Because I’m no longer a once-off – which, I’m led to believe, is what 90% of first-time authors are. Relieved because the thirty years I spent dicking around weren’t completely wasted.

It's said that everyone has a book in them. I'd guess that most of them have no idea how to get it down on paper.

If you’re one of them, here’s an idea.

Over the next while, I’m going to share my experiences and the lessons I learnt while writing my three manuscripts on this blog. The plan is to structure it pretty much chronologically, moving from the pragmatic to the more abstract as we go. Of course, writers all have their own strategy to slay the dragon, so you're not allowed to sue me if my methods don't work for you.
 
But who knows – they might just end up short-cutting the process by a few decades.