Category Archives: Writing

Freedom 25! (Wherein I Divulge Some Cool News)

Posted on March 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

You’ve heard of Freedom 55, right? It refers to the idea that one can retire from work at the age of 55 instead of the more probable age of 65 (or older, depending on financial situations and pension). But what if I told you I was aiming for freedom at the age of 25? I’m 23 now, and 25 is in reality only one and a half years away, so have I lost my mind?!

Not really. I’m not looking to retire at the age of 25. Not only is it entirely NOT possible unless I win the lottery, but I’m not even sure if I could just stop being productive altogether (but sometimes it’s a nice thought though, isn’t it?)

For me, Freedom 25 means that I will be at a stage of my life when I am happy with where I’m at, what I’m doing professionally, and where I’m going at the time I am age 25. I’ve been struggling with this a bit lately, but I can finally say I’m on track. So, without further ado, I have something to announce.

Along with having my first novel The Black Oracle released in the spring (official release date to come!), I have also been taken on as an Acquisitions Editor by Curiosity Quills Press!

Starting within the next few days, I’ll be on the front lines tackling the slush pile and looking for gems that are suitable to be published. Curiosity Quills Press, publisher of my novel The Black Oracle, is a small hybrid press that specializes in everything from science fiction and fantasy to contemporary romance and everything in between. They’re a legitimate publisher (no reading fees), and my experience with them has been amazing! You can check out more information about them here.

But what does that mean for you? Well, if you have a finished manuscript and you’re looking to have it published, consider sending your query to me! You can do so by going to this website, reviewing the submission guidelines, filling out the webform, and marking the submission “For Michael Cristiano“. So, would your project interest me, you ask?

First and foremost, I like reading anything that’s good, and by good I mean well edited and well thought out and polished. I generally read fantasy, so that includes but is not limited to epic fantasy, magic realism, urban fantasy (I’d die for an awesome urban fantasy — think The City Trilogy by Darren Shan). I dabble in science fiction, especially dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction. Some of my favourite sci-fi/fantasy authors include Patrick Rothfuss, Terry Goodkind,  JK Rowling, Suzanne Collins, and Lem0ny Snicket. I also like horror and paranormal novels, but I’m more into a slow creepy build than blood and guts and murderers. Not big on romance, but I am a fan of literary fiction — I adore Margaret Atwood, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Kurt Vonnegut. As for age groups, I’m open to all age groups from upper middle grade to adult fiction (as per Curiosity Quills’ guidelines).

In doubt? Send it along. If it’s not something I’d read but I think the premise is good, I’ll send it to another Acquisitions Editor.

Happy weekend and happy writing, everyone!

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Why is Writing the Ending so Hard?!

Posted on February 27, 2015 | 3 comments

So, I’ve been blogging about this for a while. I was writing something that I didn’t feel I was ready to write yet, so I jumped ship for another project, a YA paranormal novel that I’ve written in record time (so far). I completed 40,000 words of a first draft in two and a half months. Maybe most write faster, and that’s cool, but for me, that’s an amazing feat. It took me almost two years to complete a first draft of a project I finished last year, and that word count came in at 50,000 words.

But now I’m left with the task of writing an ending. I have 13,000 words left to go, and all the events are planned out and ready to be committed to paper. Perfect, right? Well, that’s what I thought. But why is this becoming so hard? I’ve chalked it down to one thing:

The honeymoon period is over.

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I hate to say it, but it happens in every relationship, especially the special kind of relationship that an author has with his or her work-in-progress (WIP). The initial impulse for a piece is like falling in love. There’s passion and excitement and obsession. With my current WIP, it was all I could think about. I’d develop the plot in the shower, daydream about scenes while sitting in traffic, have pretend conversations with characters while I was at work. This kind of mania made me really productive for the first two weeks. But then something happened.

I didn’t fall out of love, but I didn’t feel maddening passion anymore either. And then when I thought about it, I realized that this happens to a lot of my projects — all of them, actually. I get two thirds through a WIP, and suddenly, I just don’t feel the same. I get a little bored and the haze of the high fades away. Because of this, I get over critical and insecure. I start rereading earlier scenes, and when I find one that I don’t like, I get nervous. I start feeling like maybe my idea was stupid or maybe I won’t get my good ideas on paper in a way that *actually* makes them sound good.

All of this leads to slowed progress. I’ve written a grand total of 2500 words in a little less than four weeks. I used to write that in a couple days when I was on the writing high.

So, what do I do? Do I take a break and wait for the inspiration to return to me, or do I keep trudging through, knowing that if I get all my ideas out I can spit shine them later? I’m leaning toward doing the latter, but I won’t lie when I say that I’m ready to move onto another project for a while. I think being invested in something for a long time makes it easy to burn out, and I already have a short attention span. I honestly don’t know how some authors do it. Committing yourself to a series as expansive and time consuming as Harry Potter or A Song of Ice and Fire must be exhausting.

How do you keep yourself going? How do you feel about writing endings?

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Music to Write By: “We Slept at Last” by Marika Hackman

Posted on February 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

I may be back to freezing my butt off here in Toronto, but if I’m honest, I have a new distraction that’s got me thinking warm weather and springtime. My music tastes are rather eclectic and they range from neo-classical music to industrial, electronica to symphonic metal, and what I listen to tends to shape what I’m writing –regardless of whether the music is sad or happy, aggressive or manic. And lately I’ve been expanding my horizons into neo-folk.

Following my discovery of SoKo last year (check out “First Love Never Die”!), I decided to foray further into neo-folk where I discovered Marika Hackman. She is a 22 year old from England, and her cover of Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers” had me snagged immediately.

So imagine my delight when I discovered that her debut album would be out in 2015. Well, now it’s out, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s amazing. And not only that, it’s an amazing album to put on while I write my current work-in-progress. Marika’s full album is available for streaming on her soundcloud.

thPU9NOVACWhen I say that the album is one of the best I’ve heard in a long time, I honestly mean it. I am a big consumer of music, but very rarely do I listen to an album on repeat for long — and this is looking like I’ll be listening to this one for a while. Hackman not only nails atmosphere and tone with her neo-folks riffs and droning synths, but her songwriting is enough to make any writer or music geek excited. Half the time her lyrics sound like poetry, and the depth of her words offer new interpretations with each listen.

The album opens with “Drown”, the lead single. Though I like this song, I won’t lie that I’ve listened to it so many times now that I skip it. The second track is called “Before I Sleep” and I almost wish it was the album opener. Hackman’s soft guitar, droning synths, and soaring voice make this song ethereal and almost otherworldly and is definitely one of my go-to tracks when I’m writing a scene in my young adult paranormal WIP.

The third track is one of my favourites from the album and it’s called “Ophelia”. I had heard it in complete acoustic previous to the album’s release, but the rhythmic drums in the official recording make the tracking haunting and a perfect complement the melancholic lyrics: “But did you hear the sun go down? | Silent as a child I found | Hiding in the midnight of my soul | I am ready now to let her go”.

The next two tracks are also big highlights for me. “Open Wide” is reminiscent of a Nirvana track and both the guitar and low singing keep with the melancholic feel of the album. “Skin” is a slower duet track with English singer Sivu and the dichotomy of the two voices in the bridge is heavenly: “I’m a fever in your chest | The burning sun I’m west”.

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Did I mention the artwork was stellar?

“Claude’s Girl” is the sixth track on the album and it’s a more stripped down, folk track. The vocal work in the outro is fantastic too, and I think it really shows how well Hackman is at creating musical atmosphere. “Animal Fear” is the second single off of the album and it’s probably the most uptempo song on the album.  The personification of savage animals makes for a pretty sick music video too. It’s downtempo again for “In Words” and there’s also some pretty interesting, haunting guitar work while Hackman sings about feeling lost and homesick.

I haven’t listened to the final four tracks too intensely just yet, but my general impressions are great. For me, the tracks “Monday Afternoon” and “Next Year” were a surprise because of the Celtic and almost medieval feel. Definitely a good tracks to write scenes set in the 1700s to. “Undone, Undress” is probably the slowest on the album. It’s reminiscent of Hackman’s cover of Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers”, and I can’t say I mind.

The album closes with “Let Me In” where the lyrics “we slept at last” are finally heard. It’s at this point that the motif of sleep and drowning comes to fruition, especially after all this talk of vainly searching and being lost: “I chanced into the lake to hide my tears, conceal my salty fears | She could be the light | Help me base a trail and they’ll follow | To a cruel, hard heartland”. It’s actually at the end of the album that you can best appreciate what Hackman has created: she hasn’t just written a bunch of songs and thrown them together for better or for worse. She’s created a cohesive mood, a complete unit, consistent from beginning to end. I find this very rare in modern music. I find that a lot of artists as of late just release albums with 12 songs and call it a day. Rarely do these songs work well together or complement each other in the way that the songs on this album do. It’s a welcome change. If you’re a fan of appreciating albums as a whole, I definitely recommend this one.

What are you listening to lately?

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Writerly Updates + Mid-Manuscript Inspirations

Posted on February 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

I thought I’d just do a quick post before I leave tomorrow. Oh, yeah? Did I mention that I’m off to the Dominican Republic for a week? No? Well, I leave tomorrow and I’m extremely excited and I shall make a post about it when I get back. In any case, I thought I’d talk a little bit about a project that I’ve been working on the past couple months.

In the beginning of December, I cheated on a work-in-progress with another work-in-progress. One thing led to another, I became invested with WIP #2 and slowly stopped working on WIP#1, and BAM! I have 40,000 words. I’m proud. This is the quickest I’ve ever written anything, and I’m thinking that my vacation will clear my head and rejuvenate my creative juices enough to power through another 15,000 words when I get back so that I have a completed young adult paranormal/horror manuscript first draft by the spring!

In fact, besides ditching WIP #1, this writing process has been very typical for me. I became enthused with the project from the beginning, wrote 25,000 words in no time, slowed down in the middle, the scenes leading up to 40,000 becoming more difficult to write, and now I’m taking a two week break before writing the climax and the end.

The one difference this time, however, is that I have a blog.

I’ve never had a blog while I was writing and completing a first draft before. Think of all the feelings I could document! Think of all the goal-setting I could do and then fail at! Well, instead, I thought I’d talk about what was inspiring me.

New Tunes!

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Like all of my other manuscripts, this one has a particular feel to it because of the music I’ve been listening to. This manuscript has been inspired by recent albums by BANKS, FKA Twigs, and Bjork (trip hop and electronica for a paranormal/horror novel?), but also by the new Marilyn Manson album and the singles that have been released by Marika Hackman for her upcoming debut neo-folk album. And as usual, I’m really into neo-classical music (AKA. the best writing music). I’ve written a lot of scenes to Ludovico Einaudi’s Nightbook. It’s haunting and creepy and wonderful. I definitely suggest checking it out.

Horror Movies

What can I say? I’m writing a paranormal novel. No, I’m not aiming to write the next Twilight or romanticize vampires or werewolves or zombies. I wanted to move away from all of that, move into a little bit more of a traditional sphere. So, I decided on ghosts and spirits and hauntings… And I’m happy about it! I love traditional horror, and I’ve been inspired a lot by its revival in the film industry lately, most notably Annabelle, The Conjuring, the Insidious movies. To me, those things are always a little bit creepier than vampires or werewolves, and to be honest, I really don’t want to write a paranormal romance. Amendment: I will never write a paranormal romance.

Ahhh! So creepy!

Ahhh! So creepy!

Books… Okay, Maybe Not Quite

Books have been inspiring me in a weird way this time around. In fact, I’ve been finding it really hard to get into any of the books I’ve been reading. Sure, the books I’m reading are well-written enough, but I’m just not passionate about them. I’m not lost in them. I’m not obsessed with them. (Got a good book? Get at me… I’m in a lull).

So, I’ve done some soul-searching–or rather, bookshelf searching. What YA books did I absolutely love? Which ones was I obsessed with? There’s Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Demonata to name a few. I’m not looking to recreate those series, I just want to understand what made them so good and then apply that logic to this piece. I may not have figured it out yet, but I’m trying.

How’s your writing going? What are you working on? What’s inspiring you?

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Featured Interview on Katie Hamstead’s Stories

Posted on January 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

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Check out an interview I did for Katie Hamstead’s Stories where I talk about writing, my first novel, travel, and more! Katie was actually my Acquisitions Editor for Curiosity Quills Press who picked up The Black Oracle when it was still being passed around for potential publication. Speaking of which, The Black Oracle now has a release date! Stay tuned for those details and *perhaps* a cover reveal in the not-so-distant future.

You can read the interview here. While you’re at it, stay tuned for the month of January where Katie will be interviewing other authors and editors from Curiosity Quills Press.

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15 Thoughts Every Writer Has When They Aren’t Writing

Posted on January 6, 2015 | 1 comment

Not being able to write is a sad fact of life for a writer. There’s laundry to do, there’s food to cook, there’s sleep to be had. Worse, I have this pesky illness that eats up a lot of my time. I toil day in and day out to keep it at bay and under control. Sometimes, it creeps into my evenings, just when I think I’ve escaped. Worse, the horror of it all often keeps me awake at night and the dread fills my dreams with terror and sadness.

Oh, I’m not sick… I have a 9-to-5 job.

In any case, the truth is that my job isn’t that bad. I love the people I work with and to be honest, the job in and of itself is mostly an enjoyable and painless experience. But what I’m getting at is that I often feel like I don’t have a lot of time or energy at the end of the day to do what I really love: writing! Instead, I’m left repeating the same thoughts over and over again in my head as I toil through things that I would rather not do if it meant I had more time to write.

Here are a few of those thoughts:

1. “Today is the day. I’m in the mood to write, I’m excited for where story is taking me. I just have something to do first. But if I get through it quickly, maybe I can squeeze in a half-hour of writing.”

2. “And I’ll have to remember to work in this new development I’ve just thought up. It’ll completely change everything and set the story on the right track!”

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3. “Ahhh! This task is going to take longer than I thought it would. Guess I should write this idea down before I forget it.”

4. “Okay, I have no pen. I guess I’ll just have to remember. Repeat something three times and it becomes a long-term memory, right?”

5. “And I’ve forgotten this life-changing development…”

6. “Task done. Time to sit down and write. Oh, wait, I should probably do this other time-consuming task while I have a little free time.”

7. “It’s okay. No need to get stressed out. Just relax. You can finish this quickly and then get to writing.”

8. “I think I just did this task wrong. Ughh.”

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9. “Okay, seriously. Just relax. On-the-ball Olivia said it wouldn’t take long. Just focus and get it done and then all the leisure time shall be MINE!”

10. “Wait. I think I’ll watch some Netflix first. There’s that new movie I’ve been so excited to see. It’ll get me back in the creative mood.”

11. “Time to download some new music. I can’t write without some fresh inspiration to get the juices flowing.”

12. “And I’ve just received the email I’ve been dreading. Writing. Delayed. AGAIN.”

13. “Done. Now I’ll creep a little Facebook to calm me down. That email got me a little worked up.”

14.

"Such a cute kitty. Whose little cute kitty are you?"

“Such a cute kitty. Whose little cute kitty are you?”

15. “Okay, plug in the USB, open the manuscript I’m working on, and…

I don’t even feel like writing any more.”

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Three Writerly Goals for 2015

Posted on January 2, 2015 | 1 comment

Well, hello there. How you doing? It’s been a long time… In fact, it’s been almost two and a half weeks since I posted any content. I know most bloggers will take a break over the holidays, but my break was rather unintentional. Besides all the craziness of Christmas celebrations, I got the flu… Oh, it was oodles of fun, let me tell you, bed-ridden for two full days and then too lethargic and fatigued to do ANYTHING. Needless to say, my goal of writing 20,000 words over my 16 day break from work isn’t going to happen. So, I’ve settled on 10,000 words instead and I’m a little more than halfway there. Now just to remain healthy…

Anyway, enough about me… Let’s talk about me! I’m normally a person who is very goal oriented so the new year is always awesome because I get to quantify my goals and track my progress. This year I’ve settled on three resolutions and *surprise, surprise*, they’re related to writing.

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Publish The Black Oracle

Well, I guess I’m kind of cheating… The Black Oracle was picked up by Curiosity Quills Press in June of last year, but I can finally say that we are on the final stretch of seeing it in print! We’re currently finalizing the cover and we just set a release date (but, shhhh, I can’t say when just yet!)

The goal then is a successful release. I’ve been working on a marketing plan and I’m excited to begin. In fact, I think some things *may* be beginning within a month or so. So, stay tuned! And if anyone has any work coming out this year, whether traditionally published or otherwise, get at me. Let’s link up and have successful releases together!

Edit Next Published Novel and Finish Two Work-In-Progresses

Yes, I know… The Black Oracle ain’t even published yet and I have a second novel lined up and (almost) ready to be published. I spent the first six months of 2014 editing it and my goal for this year is to take another look at it, pump another 10,000 words into it and then get it ready to take on the world. It’s a new adult speculative fiction novel (think soft science fiction) and I am extremely excited to get the publishing process started.

Also, in my final post of 2013, I talked about how I was cheating on my first work-in-progress, an LGBTQ+ YA novel, with a second one that would end up being a YA horror/paranormal. Now I’ve got both manuscripts hovering around 15,000 words but I’ve decided I want to complete the first draft of the YA horror/paranormal first, hoping to have it finished around mid-February when I got to the Dominican Republic (wooo! Travel and sun!) As for the LGBTQ+ YA novel, I want to finish it over the summer. I started it last summer, it takes place in the summer, so maybe my lack of inspiration comes from the winter.

Blog More and Read More

I have been slacking so hard in these areas the past little while. Okay, maybe not as bad as my slacking in going to the gym… In any case, I want to blog more. Instead of only blogging four or five times a month, I want to try and blog twice a week. At first that’s daunting, but with an impending book release, that shouldn’t be hard. You like being spammed, right?

…I’m kidding. I won’t spam you.

And then there’s reading. I did so well in 2013. I FINALLY finished all the books on my bookshelf, a backlog of almost 40 titles, and only bought 2-3 new books at a time. And then in 2014, I relapsed and bought way too many books. My birthday and Christmas came and now I have a backlog again. What with being busy and sick I’ve managed to read 50 pages of A Clash of Kings since Christmas so I’ve read about 200 pages since the beginning of December (…yay.) So, catch up, Michael! Read all the books!

Got any resolutions, writing or otherwise?

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How I Kept the Fire Burning

Posted on December 16, 2014 | Leave a comment

This is a response to my previous blog post about getting in the mood.

Well, let’s just say I got in the mood. I tried to push myself to keep up with a manuscript that just wasn’t coming. I was getting frustrated and a tad depressed that I was making time for writing and then feeling like I was wasting it because nothing was coming out. And if I did write something, I didn’t like it. I just couldn’t get the mood right.

But then it hit me. I was in the shower one morning and I was tormenting over another writing “session” where I managed a whopping word count of 110 in three hours when I had a stroke of inspiration: a new story idea waltzed into my head. Angels starting singing and music started playing and I couldn’t get dressed fast enough so that I could get back to my damned laptop and write some of the stuff down.

So, humans of the planet Earth, I have a confess that I’m excited to share but I’m also a little ashamed of: I kept the fire burning by, in essence, having an affair. Yes, I have started a second manuscript: a young adult paranormal novel. Now, I know that is a touchy field. Young adult has been a little over-saturated lately and any mention of young adult paranormal automatically screams Twilight (bleh!) but I can assure you, I have something that I am happy with and I am excited to be writing it. In fact, I managed to hammer out a little over 8000 words in two weeks. How’s that for a fiery romance?!

2 hawt.

2 hawt.

Now, I have no intention of abandoning the first manuscript, partially because I have 15,000 words there and also because I really do like the story. But I’ll be honest, I’m okay to put it on the back burner for a bit and take a break while I work on something else. It’s not you, it’s me, right?

No, it really is me…

I am somewhat of a planner, and by that I mean that I do a lot of romanticizing about ideas before I get the chance to write them. Needless to say, this is the first time I’ve been so struck by an idea that I’m willing to abandon another one mid-first draft so I can work on it. And to be honest, I kind of like it. It’s a kind of exhilaration I’ve been missing in my writing lately because I haven’t given myself the freedom to just go with the flow and write what feels right to me at the moment. I guess the motto strike the iron while it’s hot has some merit to it after all, huh?

But there is one downside that I didn’t anticipate: the worry. Since I’ve now left one project to work on another, I essentially have two projects on the go. I guess my fear is that if this second manuscript fizzles out like the first one did, I have two work-in-progresses that are not completed. I understand the notion of going where the wind takes me, but I’m also paranoid I won’t get either of them done. Publishers work with full manuscripts after all.

But I guess I can relax: with The Black Oracle coming out next year and a second book (hopefully) to commence the publishing process soon after, having two projects that are not yet completed isn’t so bad. The publishing process has so far proved to be a long one (though, definitely enjoyable) so I guess I do have quite a bit of time.

Have you ever left one project unfinished to pursue another?

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Getting in the Mood

Posted on December 4, 2014 | 3 comments

Excuse me for being a little forthcoming, but lately I’ve had a little trouble getting in the mood. I dim the lighting, put on the music, and get into something comfortable. I tidy the room and I make sure I’ve eaten (but not too much). If I really want to get into it, I may go for a glass of wine or two. I sometimes even even light a scented candle and disconnect my phone to maximize my focus.

Oh… no, that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about setting the mood for writing.

Getting in the mood, huh? Well, this is awkward...

Getting in the mood, huh? Well, this is awkward…

And in spite of all these aforementioned things, I’m having trouble. Legit. I get home from work or home from errands on the weekends and I’m just not in the mood. I sit myself down after dinner, open up the work-in-progress I’ve decided to focus on (I have two  manuscripts that are in a first draft stage and two in a revising/editing stage), and I just can’t do it. I just can’t.

If I try to write, it feels forced and unfocused. I’m lucky if I’m able to get down more than a couple hundred words at a time. If I try to revise or edit, it feels like everything I’m editing is crap and I should just toss it all and start over. I’m bitter and bored and the writing seems uninspired and bland. And it’s weird, I’ve never had that problem before. Sure, I go through ups and downs throughout the editing process, but I never reach a point where something feels hopeless or unsalvageable. And frankly, I know it’s not because when I’ve read through it before, I’ve had the complete opposite reaction.

And then it hits me: I’m having trouble getting in the mood in a much bigger sense. Sure, I’m able to set up my writing space for a couple hours devoted to writing, but I’m having trouble setting up my head space. I’ve recently started working full time and although I like it, it’s hard work and I come home tired and groggy and sometimes just downright grumpy. And even on weekends if I’m not grocery shopping, I’m getting car work done; if I’m not visiting family and friends, I’m running one of the 300 errands that I should have run last weekend (read: three weekends ago). And don’t even get me started on reading. I’m not gonna lie, I’m normally a slow reader, but hell, I’m like astronomically slow at this point.

So, that brings me to my present predicament: what should I do? I can’t quit my job. It’s a nice thought, but as a 20-something who JUST started working, I’m not quite at writing-as-a-full-time job just yet. I can’t ignore my relationships and groceries and errands either: I already tried and that resulted in having to replace my entire gas tank (if only I started taking that check engine light seriously!).

So, I guess it comes down to state of mind. I think I have to be a bit more focused and start making more time to write (and read). On the flip side, I think I have to remove some of the pressure and let myself just enjoy the process again. Writing shouldn’t be a chore but I have to admit that it’s starting to feel like one. Ultimately, I also think that I just have to go with the flow for a bit. I know this is a period of change for me, what with the new job and moving out and having my first novel published next year. Maybe I just need to step back and focus on letting the mood set me.

If that makes any sense…

Any thoughts? What do you do to get in the mood? 😉

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4 Misconceptions About Writing a Novel

Posted on November 28, 2014 | 3 comments

When it comes to writing, there is nothing more daunting than writing a novel. Okay, maybe attempting to write a saga of twelve novels is a little bit more daunting, but let’s stick to just one for now. In my opinion, writing a novel is a little more difficult than say a short story or a poem. That’s not to say it’s more difficult than writing a good short story or poem, that’s just to point out that short stories and poems don’t generally run 60,000+ words — unless you’re Homer and write two epic poems that come in at over 200,000.

Wrong Homer...

Wrong Homer…

In any case, the enormity of a novel is disillusioning enough on its own, so while we’re at it, let’s disillusion some more.

Everyone Has a Novel in Them

To me, this misconception is the equivalent of saying that everyone has a music album in them. Sure, everyone has the capacity to make music, but does everyone have the capacity to make good music? Anyone who answers yes to that question has obviously never heard Friday by Rebecca Black.

The same is true for writing a novel. Sure, everyone has the capacity to physically sit down and hammer out enough words to write a novel, but does everyone have the capacity to write a good one? Even still, is novel writing something that someone can just wake up and do, or it is a learning curve of trail and error, observation and failure? By saying that everyone has a novel in them, we trivialize the skill of people who write for a living and chalk down writing a novel to simply reaching a word count. But for anyone who has written a novel, you know it’s more than that: it’s plotting and characterization and tone and theme development and atmosphere and so much more.

One Draft and You’re Done

This misconception is particularly cringe-worthy. I really feel for writers who think that they can get away with writing a first draft and then doing zero revisions or editing. Not only it is extremely advisable to read over your work at least once to catch any spelling, grammar or continuity errors, but first drafts (in my opinion) are meant to be the bare bones of a piece. Think you have an amazing first draft? Think of how amazing the second draft will be! Still not convinced to write a second? Well, give it to a beta-reader and come back in two weeks or so. Perhaps your judgement will be a little less clouded when the first-draft-finished high wears off.

You’re Getting Published so It’s Time to Quit Your Job!

Haha, if only that were true. I hate to break it to the hopeful, but a publishing contract does not equate to financial security — with or without an agent who’s got your back. That’s just simply not how it works. There are hundreds of thousands of novels published every year. You better believe that not every one of them is making $100,000 a pop.

That’s not to discourage anyone from trying — write if that’s what you were meant to do. But don’t think that you’ll complete and publish one novel and you’ll never have to work another day in your life. In fact, a UK study found that British writers made an average of £4,000 ($6252 American Dollars or $7140 Canadian Dollars) and only 1 in 10 professional authors were able to support themselves solely off of their writing. Kinda depressing, right? Yeah, but by now, I hope you’re not writing for the money. There are easier ways to make money that don’t involve perfecting tens of thousands of words, becoming an anti-social hermit, and potentially getting rejected hundreds of times.

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But wouldn’t it be nice to be the exception?

Novel Writing is Not Work at All

I once wrote an entire blog post about this, so I won’t rant and ramble again here. To those who think that novel writing doesn’t qualify as work, I have one word: No. Actually, make that two: f*ck no. Yes, don’t get me wrong, I have fun writing novels, but I wouldn’t say that it’s something I breeze through. It’s blood, sweat, and tears. Okay, maybe a little less blood, but there are sweat and tears. And yes, I write because I want to, but that doesn’t mean I’m not warranted in calling a spade a spade. There’s no reward without work, right? Well, think of writing as no different. 85,000 words don’t just arrive with a big gust of wind.

Got any misconceptions?

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