While The Passion of the Titans will be my first published novel—something about which I’m very excited—it is far from the first novel I’ve written. It comes in at number four. Nestled between my master’s degree and doctorate was my first completed novel. Written while I was largely unemployed, trying to help my new wife make ends meet, I plunked out a clunker that I only ever very briefly considered sending out to publishers. I’ve still got a copy somewhere.
I find that it is important to keep copies of even failed writing attempts. My first attempted novel dates back to about seventh grade. I was a sickly child and while home from school with one bout of flu or another, I began writing a somewhat developed, multi-chapter story. As a somewhat more mature writer, years later I ripped the pages in half in embarrassment. As an even more mature writer, years later I taped them back together.
I began work in ernest on a novel while teaching. My experience seemed to be crying out for fictionalization and the creative urge had been stultified by years of dull academic writing. This novel I still hope to finish.
While unemployed I wrote a massive 240,000 word novel only to discover that publishers are frightened by premiere novels that long. They want to see what you can do, but not that much, thank you. The publishers who saw it in their slush piles deftly tipped it into their nearby wastebaskets.
My writing partner Fantasia told me about Nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month, some years back. Every November both amateur and professional writers are encouraged to write a novel of at least 60,000 words. Two years ago I completed a novel of 68,000 words in two weeks. I was working two part-time jobs at the time. Novel number three.
My word of advice, for what it’s worth, is to keep ahold of past attempts. I’ve had more experienced writers, some of whom have written best sellers, tell me to do like most publishers and trash past failed attempts and move on. I’m a believer in reinsurrection, however, and one of my unassailable doctrines is that if it was worth writing down in the first place, it is worth keeping.
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