A first post about a first (failed) book

In the fall of 2011, I was a senior in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at the University of Michigan, and despite a full load of coursework and an active social life, I made the head-scratching decision to start a writing a novel.

The result was terrible, and I don’t plan to ever share it with the world, but it also feels fitting to start my author blog with the beginning of my writing journey.

Why did I spend a not insignificant amount of time writing alone in my room when my roommates were outside my door, laughing at the latest bad horror movie they’d queued up from Fearnet*? Honestly, I can’t tell you. But it felt important at the time. A first step, if you will.

I want to say my foray into authorship was the result of a burning passion for the written word, but in reality, it was more of a curiosity. I’d come up with a central conceit — people powering machines using their own body heat — and I wanted to see if I could finish a complete story, like the ones I’d devoured growing up. A fantastical setting. A magic/science system. A hero’s journey. All that good stuff.

So, whenever I felt motivated and didn’t have much studying to do (or nothing worth studying), I would plunk my butt down and churn out some words. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it. No routine. No grand outline beyond a vague plot and some character archetypes. Halfway through, I decided to add another viewpoint. Honestly, I did everything wrong, and I never even finished the book. It topped out at 80,000 words with some big gaps in the third act.

In any sense of the word, this first novel was a failure. An incomplete jumble of words sitting on a hard drive, never to be read by anyone except my too-kind brother. Certainly not my new girlfriend at the time.

And yet…(and I’m sure you knew this was coming)…

In the grand scheme of things, it WASN’T a failure. I learned so much from that first book. I learned that I needed a basic outline. That my characters needed arcs and motivations, not only plot and battles. I learned about dialogue tags and formatting. I even learned what it meant to “shelve” a manuscript. Not as an embarrassment, but a learning experience.

I wrote 80,000 words that no one will ever read (not even me…*shudders*), and I don’t regret it for a second.

After all, you have to start somewhere.

*Author’s note: For those unfamiliar with Fearnet, I pity your life from 2006-2014. For those who weren’t born or old enough at the time, I’m sorry we all failed you.