Why a Novel?

Two quotes from Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print by Lawrence Block explain it all.

If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass. If it persists, you probably ought to write a novel.

Writing a good poem may be as difficult as writing a good novel. It may even be harder. But any clown with a sharp pencil can write out a dozen lines of verse and call them a poem. Not just any clown can fill 200 pages with prose and call it a novel. Only the more determined clowns can get the job done.

Aspirin did not help so I resolved to become a determined clown.

One Day at a Time

Not sure if I ever finish it, nevertheless, tracking my lousy progress here... Couldn't resist using this progress meter.

November 2013: crawled over the 50000 words of the first draft. It looks like 60000 words may not be enough.

January, 8th, 2014: it took me almost a year with all the delays and procrastination -- I finally got to 60000 words of the first draft. But the story is not over: I may need another 20000 words to finish it. Resetting the goal to 80000 words.

June, 14th, 2014: I'm at a bit more than 80000 words, and the story is still going on.  Resetting the goal to 90000 words. Not sure this will be enough but the end is nearing...

August, 19th, 2014: I'm past 90000 words. The end may be nearing, but it's still not here!  Resetting the goal to 100000 words. This is a critical limit. Time to wrap the story up. Not sure it will cooperate.

October, 31th, 2014: I'm past 100000 words and the story is still not told. It's almost there but not quite. Am I wordy, long-winded, rambling, or what? But the worst thing is that I'm less and less sure the story needed to be told at all. Still, I'm crawling to the finish line, now primarily out of stubbornness... Changed the goal to 110000 words, just in case.

And perhaps I should rename this page from A Novel in the Writing to Perpetuum Scriptum...

Another progress tracker, click on it to see impressively depressing (or depressingly impressive) progress chart on StoryToolz :

 What StoryToolz displayed in 2013:

April, 23rd, 2015: Finally finished the first draft. The  manuscript has swollen to 120000 words. I managed to commit all the classical errors of first time writers, even though I studied tons of writing advice manuals beforehand. Even so, I learned a lot, and perhaps I have not ended up with 120000 words of total crap. This remains to be seen.

September, 2015: Finished reading the first draft. After a couple of chapters I could not resist fixing the weakest places along the way.

October, 14, 2015: I'm rewriting for the second draft. Currently on chapter 10 out of 40, the manuscript contracted a little bit and is now about 119000 words. Still no major polishing in this draft. Rewriting certain parts and doing preliminary polishing for the rest.

December 2015 -- October 2016: After my mother's sudden illness which quickly developed into a desperate fight with the terminal disease, I stopped working on the manuscript. Had neither time, nor wish for writing. My mother passed away on September 21st, 2016. She would have loved to read my novel so much, but this was not to be.

October 2nd, 2016: Today, on the last day of 5776 ( by Jewish calendar), I'm getting back to editing the manuscript. I'm starting all over again, from the beginning -- the second attempt at the second draft, whatever.

April 28th, 2017: Today I finished editing the second draft, which feels more like the third, due to the long time it took. I still need to polish the manuscript and add a couple of fixes, and then I'm going to give it to a few friends. So far only one trusted friend, the long suffering victim of my literary efforts, read it, and this was at the middle of the second draft, when I didn't have much hope to finish it in observable future.

October 20, 2017: I finished the third draft. Now I'm facing a dilemma: bullshit or not bullshit? Should I bury my never ending novel in a dark corner as a family relic? Or maybe it is good enough for other people to read and like? The more I think about it the further I am from the answer.

October 19, 2018: Finished editing, at least for now. Beta readers to the rescue. Wow, it has been a year! After a long-suffering (from my writing) close friend read my novel yet again and pointed lots of typos and glitches, I did another editing pass, this time also using an editing software -- ProWritingAid. Now I'm sick and tired of editing although of course I have not reached the perfection. Neither I am sure this particular novel deserves more editing efforts. I'm going to ask a few people to read it and base my future actions regarding this novel on their feedback.

January 07, 2020: For better or for worse, after receiving feedback from five readers, I decided to  try my luck in looking for a literary agent. At least I'll learn how to write a query letter and a synopsis, so it will not be  a total waste of time. It's hard to believe more than six years have passed since I started my novel. It's high time to start a new one...

Later on in 2020: One of the literary agents mentioned in her rejection letter she didn't represent novels longer than 100,000 words. My previous research made me think 110,000 would still be OK, but actually the industry rule of thumb is indeed not longer than 100,000 for a fiction novel from an unknown author (unless it's a fantasy novel). So I made another round of polishing with the goal to cut some 10,000 words. As this was my fourth or fifth cutting and polishing draft, it seemed quite a formidable task at first (to kill 10,000 darlings!) but as usual, the more you cut, the better the end result. 

Spring/Summer, 2021: Received feedback from a few more beta readers for the latest draft, quite positive so far. Those who didn't like the book probably preferred to keep the truth to themselves, although I would very much appreciate if they shared their thoughts with me, no matter how negative. A friend in the US proposed the manuscript of the Blind Driving to her local Book Club. They read it and had "varied" opinions. I'm still waiting to hear about the details. I'm currently actively querying literary agents, after the first short bout of a few unsuccessful queries in 2020. Also, finally started working on a new prose project.

September/October, 2025: Can't believe I haven't updated this saga since 2021! Well, the querying for my first novel was unsuccessful. A few paid consultations with literary agents about my query and my first 10 pages, about 35 queries sent out and not even one request for a full manuscript. Some would say 35 queries are not enough. Perhaps, but by now I arrived at the conclusion that this novel written by this writer is not what market wants, now less than ever, and not because of the quality of the writing (yes, I'm this arrogant).

I learned a lot about book publishing along the querying way though, so I don't regret spending time on this predominantly depressing experience. I still sent out an occasional query once in a while, although without much hope.

A few more friends and acquaintances have read my book by now and gave some interesting feedback. I'm also waiting for a few more opinions to come in. All in all, Blind Driving seems too good to be buried on my computer drive, so I'm now seriously considering self-publishing as an option. Watch out for it in 2026.;)

Also, since April 2022 I've been working on the first draft of my second novel, on and off. Gosh, I can't believe it has been so long -- 3.5 years (!), and I'm only at the middle of the first draft! Well, life hasn't been kind to me, to put it mildly, especially this year, when it dealt a crushing blow. But I'm back on the writing track now, crawling ahead, until further notice...