Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. To find other contributors, click here.
April’s optional question: Do you remember writing your first book? What were your thoughts about a career path on writing? Where are you now and how is it working out for you? If you're at the start of the journey, what are your goals?
An author with whom I am acquainted once wrote that she kept working on her first novel because after all her effort, she “didn’t want it to end up in the drawer.” Persistence paid off. Her first novel was published to much acclaim.
As I’ve written here previously, my first attempt at a novel occurred
ages ago, after I completed the lessons in The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path
to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron. While I was proud to finish a draft,
I had zero clue how to edit my initial mess. That dilemma led me to take a Grub
Street writing class, which inspired me to join a writing group. I took more
classes, started another novel, joined a different writing group and completed
two more novels. Somewhere along the line I came to believe that my first unfortunate
attempt had been lost due to a corrupt thumb drive.
That brings us to two summers ago when I was struggling. I’d
managed to get myself writing again after losing my sweet Tim, but for the most
part all I’d been doing was completing these blog posts and editing (again!) my two most recent novels. That
lasted until I queried them a bit more and ran out of gas.
I had (and still have) no desire to begin writing another novel from scratch, but that summer I was pawing through some files looking for something and I found a printout of that awful first draft from years ago in my desk drawer. It had been beside me all along.
Thankfully, the thing was as much as mess as I remembered because it offered a challenge when I needed one most. Almost
two years and several drafts in, I no longer shudder to read it.
So, do I remember my first novel? Well, yes. Technically, my
first novel is now my fourth. I worked on it this just morning, ever so grateful
to have pulled it out of the drawer.
What was your first book like? Was it published?
