Hooray, he final edits are now complete and, if I am allowed to say so, I enjoyed reading my draft again, especially the moments of humor. The end-twist was a nice surprise and I hope you agree. Who doesn’t love a good novel – one that comes from the challenges of life? My first novel – 3 WISE MEN – was less polished than I would have liked but, at least with self-publishing, I had the chance to reprint and improve it. My father (pictured here) was an avid writer and taught creative writing. I can still hear the tap, tap,tap of his golf-ball typewriter as he plowed into another short story (with no Word docs in those days). He survived WWII and had lots of stories. I am sure his writing became cathartic for him. His library was full of interesting books and these gave me plenty to devour in my spare time. Now, back to finding my cover designer!
first novel
What I Learned from Writing my First Novel
First, let’s back up. My writing took rough shape when I won a writing contest at age 12, It was a short story about my cat, called Mog and it won me a year’s pass to our local movie theatre and a little publicity in our local paper. I don’t remember all the details, but the movie pass was wonderful, and opened my eyes to cinema, stories and characters. My next claim to fame was a high school textbook, co-authored and well received with several reprints. I wrote my first novel – 3 WISE MEN – following an idea about the power of perfume and the details fell into place after a trip my wife and I took to Europe. I self published and was able to revise and improve over several months. So, what did I learn from writing this first novel:
Start you second novel as soon as possible as it will always be better
I guess I need to qualify what “better” means. It can be summed up this way; a second novel will most likely have more nuanced themes and a more interesting/complex plot with improved conflict, characters with depth, and be a more fulfilling story for your readers. I can remember being quite angry at the thought that “your first book is always your worst’ but, in some ways, it is. In my case, I made several re-writes of 3 WISE MEN that improved it. However, even after several great reviews, I agree that first books are lacking the quality of subsequent ones. My second manuscript was built on the lessons of the first and, by this stage, I had a greater sense of my personal writing style. Yes, my first novel was not bad at all (based on reader feedback), but my second has a quality that I know is better, even before an editor gets his or her scissors to it.