It was my senior year of high school, and I was super nervous about starting a new job at Head Start. What did I know about working with Early Childhood kids? I wasn’t trained for this!
Instead of panicking or running in the other direction, I took some calming breaths and said to myself: “There’s only one first day.”
Since that time, that has become my mantra every time I’ve approached a new situation. New jobs, new committees, new conferences, new volunteer positions — even as an adult, there are a lot of “first days” and unfamiliar settings. But for each new challenge, there is only one “first” day. After that, there’s at least some level of familiarity in which I can take comfort.
I’m applying that same mantra to my writing. There is only one first day. There is only one first page. There is only one first novel. After that — just get through that, by the grace of God — the second one will be easier. I’m finding, quite happily, that this theory is holding water.
I made a lot of mistakes with FINDING SETH. The first, of which I was completely unaware at the time, was just sitting down and plowing through and writing the thing without regard for pacing or character development or, really, anything besides getting words down on paper. I’ll probably never be a 100 percent outline-type author. But pretty much anyone can tell you that it’s a lot easier to get from Point A to Point B if you have some sort of map in front of you. Or at least a general idea of which roads you’ll take.
The second was that I fell victim to the info-dump, which is essentially spoon-feeding the reader huge mouthfuls of backstory without grace or eloquence or even waiting for them to chew. Like taking a bowl of lumpy oatmeal and feeding it rapid-fire to a fussy baby. You’re going to wind up with a mess on your hands. These are big errors that took a lot of time and energy to fix. I don’t plan to repeat these mistakes.
My two new novels are coming along slowly — mainly because I spend half my mornings trying to decide which piece to work on that day. And then I see something shiny on Facebook and, before I know it, it’s time to pick up the kiddos. But working on my latest magazine assignments (which have been incredibly interesting, by the way) have renewed my discipline for this craft that I love.
With that being said, I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned from my first novel. No matter my future, SETH will always hold a special place in my heart as being my first completed work of women’s fiction. Because there cannot be a second or a third without there having been a first. And I’m already more comfortable on this path moving forward.