What I Learned From Writing 50,000 Useless Words
By: Lena Barrett
Tags: Self Improvement, Practice, Novel Writing, Writing, Creativity

I’ve wanted to be a published author for as long as I’ve been able to conceive of what that meant. My dad used to read me stories before bed every night and imaginary worlds swirled through my head all day. As a kid, the idea of being able to tell stories that would allow other people to feel that way seemed like a dream job.

The trouble is, as we grow older these kinds of dreams become overshadowed by internal and external voices that tell us be realistic. I heard discouraging stories of how hard it was to make a living as a traditionally published author. I learned how hard it is to make your voice heard in the saturated self-publishing market.

There are tons of talented writers out there, all competing for a slice of the publishing pie and a piece of attention. Who was I to think that I could write a story that was worth telling?

Besides, I’d never finished anything. My laptop is littered with stories that were inspired in the beginning but typically trailed off around the 3,000 word mark. The farthest I’d ever made it was 12,000 in a piece that I cringe reading today. Life always managed to get in the way of finishing, or at least getting close.

I was sick of giving up.

So I gave myself a challenge: Write 50,000 words of a first draft by the end of the year and committed to this like I’d never committed to anything before.

I read about indie authors that wrote upwards of 5,000 words a day and managed a monthly publishing schedule. I figured if other people could do that I could at least manage half that. I resolved to write 1,200 words in the morning, break for lunch, write 1,200 words in the afternoon, and then go to work in the evening.

It worked. Most days I parked myself in a coffee shop or library and hammered out as many words as I could. My word count ballooned and my goal inched closer every day.

It took two months to finish the first draft. This is much faster than some write and much slower than NaNoWriMo participants write.

And honestly? I don’t like the story. The pacing has issues. My secondary characters aren’t as fleshed out as they should be. Some of the motivations behind plot events are a stretch. I may use bits of it for a different novel or I may never touch it again. For now, I’ve left the draft to marinate in the depths of my computer.

So I spent two months of my life writing a novel for no apparent reason. Along the way I learned some pretty valuable lessons:

First Drafts are Ugly

I wrote my draft with reckless abandon. Whenever a scene or bit of dialogue was slowing momentum, I would write a quick description in brackets of what needed to happen and move on. My draft is littered with asterisks where I need to fix things. The first draft should never be about making the writing pretty, only making it exist. Writing is rewriting.

Sometimes the stuff that slows you down one day will be the stuff that strikes you with inspiration the next.

Just make it exist. You can’t fix something that doesn’t exist.

Inspiration is Fickle

If I had a word for every time I was inspired to start writing I’d have maybe 25 words. I can’t tell you how many mornings I woke up tired from working till 2am and feeling completely unwilling to write.

Most days I would just start typing whatever nonsense that came into my head and then inspiration would come once I was working. It rarely worked the other way around. A nice bonus was that the more I was working on the story the more inspiration would come to me in random bursts. Because it was constantly in the back of my mind, new ideas kept cropping up during mundane activities like working or showering.

Consistency is Key

Writing can be hard, but it’s the kind of hard that is worth doing if you truly care about it. It took me about 2 months to finish my first draft, which, if you’re better at math than I am, means I didn’t hit my 2400 word goal every day. I had days where I went over and days where I went under. I’d miss a day occasionally but never more than two in a row.

Consistent small actions can create something big.

It doesn’t even need to be 2,400. If you can only manage to write 100 words on your lunch break, you’ll hit the 50,000 word mark in a year and four months. If you can add another 100 words in the morning and at night, you’ll get there in under six months.

Practice, Practice, Practice

You may have heard James Clear’s story about the photography class that was split into two groups for grading. One was told they’d be graded on quantity of photos produced over the semester, the other told they only needed to produce one perfect image for the semester.

The result was that the best photos came from the group who produced the larger quantity of photos instead of the group that spent the semester ruminating on perfection.

I don’t think of myself as an exceptional writer by any means but I know that practicing is the only sure way to get better. 50,000 words is less than the length of the average novel, but it’s better than 0.

Proving It

Most big things in life are abstract and unachievable until you’re actually doing them. Finishing a draft seemed like an impossible task to me because I’d never done it before. Now that I’ve done it once, I know I can do it again.

Sometimes the chorus of be realistic is just fear.

I may never be a published author. Achieving my one small goal doesn’t change the nature of the business or the fact that I’m years away from even attempting to send a query letter. Or I may get lucky and write something worthy of being published.

What I do know is that writing makes me happy and I’ll continue to do it even if the only person I’m entertaining is myself.