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Reflections on Writing My First Novel

What’s the longest you’ve spent working towards something you really cared about? For me, it was writing my first complete novel. If you count false starts, abandoned projects and chucking whole notebooks of half-finished manuscripts into the trash, I’ve been trying to finish a novel since I was about fifteen. That makes roughly eighteen years. Almost two decades of rewriting and reworking before I finally completed a start to finish first draft. I’ve burned through innumerable plots and characters, scrapped a dozen ideas that I was ultimately unhappy with. My stories were always too derivative or too complicated, my plots too confusing or too unusual. I knew if I let anyone see my writing I’d be laughed out of the room in a heartbeat. I just didn’t have the talent, plain and simple. 

Then again, even when I did manage to write something I could stomach showing another living person, I never actually finished it. Those few first drafts that did show promise were sentenced to live on my desktop in a state of semi-purgatory. For reference, I currently have about twenty unfinished novels and short stories floating around on my harddrive. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll get to some of those some day. But until then those unfinished stories stand as a private monument to the years of unrequited effort I’ve spent grinding away at the empty page. Suffice it to say it was a very long road getting here.

But what took so long? You would think I’d have finished something before now, even if it was by accident. If you give a monkey a typewriter he’ll fix the broken clocks or however that saying goes. Unfortunately, there is no one to blame but myself. I had the time. As the father of two small children I can say with certainty that I had the time before now. I often daydream about slapping my younger self across the face for wasting so much of the stuff now that I’m scraping out my writing in the precious moments when I’m not under the tyranny of my tiny terrors. Despite being at a loss as to how my younger self wasted so many good opportunities to sit down and do the work, if I’m being honest, it just never seemed that pressing. 

I always knew I wanted to write. But I also always felt there would be more time for it. I submitted a few articles over the years, but I never really tried. I never committed. Somehow, there was always an excuse. But then, a couple years ago something changed. Around the time my wife and I were expecting our first baby, come to think of it. When you become a parent, you and your spouse talk a lot. We did at least. You talk about the finances and the nursery, schools and hospitals, babysitters and daycares and how the dogs will react when you bring your new screaming bundle of joy home. But you also talk about your plans. Your dreams and your hopes and your goals and the type of parent you want to be. 

We talked a lot about encouraging her to follow her dreams. About how we wanted her to be the type of person who never gave up on herself. We talked about being the best versions of ourselves for her. Around that time I remember feeling the looming weight of unfinished projects on my conscience quite a bit. It suddenly seemed like the kind of thing I would have to explain one day. It wasn’t an instant change. It still took me over two years and another kid to finish my first draft. There were still times when that trash can icon seemed more appealing than sitting down to work out the kinks in the latest chapter. But I made it. I know nothing is guaranteed. Maybe I’ll never even get it published. Maybe my first novel will fall flat. But at least I committed. If I can tell my kids I gave it my all, I can live with that.