{"id":4643,"date":"2016-05-23T16:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T20:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/?p=4643"},"modified":"2016-05-23T16:00:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T20:00:05","slug":"how-to-write-a-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/how-to-write-a-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Write a Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-4644\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6798.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_6798\" width=\"180\" height=\"336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6798.jpg 321w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6798-300x561.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6798-250x467.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 180px) 100vw, 180px\" \/>Get a fairly decent idea.<\/p>\n<p>Write a few pages.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing to see what happens.<\/p>\n<p>Be convinced this will be a bestseller.<\/p>\n<p>Discover you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Resist the urge to go back and revise.<\/p>\n<p>Get a small new idea that might be slightly helpful.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing.<\/p>\n<p>Delete the last ten pages.<\/p>\n<p>Delete ten more pages.<\/p>\n<p>Take a cookie break.<\/p>\n<p>Sigh.<\/p>\n<p>Get back to writing.<\/p>\n<p>Claw your way forward through the worst pages you\u2019ve ever written.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing.<\/p>\n<p>Discover you still don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p>Get another small idea that might make some sense.<\/p>\n<p>Write some more.<\/p>\n<p>Discover that seasons have passed.<\/p>\n<p>You maybe have thirty pages.<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t believe how slow and useless this is.<\/p>\n<p>Give up.<\/p>\n<p>Discover you can\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n<p>Moan.<\/p>\n<p>Gnash your teeth.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing.<\/p>\n<p>Discover that you still don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, but somehow, you\u2019re invested, even happy.<\/p>\n<p>Happy, that is, in a tortured, ridiculous sort of way.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing.<\/p>\n<p>Fall in love with your book.<\/p>\n<p>Fear that nobody else will like it.<\/p>\n<p>Or understand it.<\/p>\n<p>Fear that you\u2019ll never finish it.<\/p>\n<p>Accept that you\u2019re a fool for trying to write this novel.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing.<\/p>\n<p>Delete some more, lavishly.<\/p>\n<p>Keep writing.<\/p>\n<p>Discover that you have an entire draft.<\/p>\n<p>Be stunned.<\/p>\n<p>Discover you have no clean clothes or food in the house.<\/p>\n<p>Read your draft over and discover that most of it is horrible.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s yours.<\/p>\n<p>Be kind to yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Do some laundry.<\/p>\n<p>Revise.<\/p>\n<p>Keep revising.<\/p>\n<p>Be too afraid to show it to anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>Revise some more, for ages, until it\u2019s full.<\/p>\n<p>Until it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n<p>Take a breath.<\/p>\n<p>Send it off.<\/p>\n<p>Try not to hope too much about where it might end up.<\/p>\n<p>Hope anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Begin again with a new idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get a fairly decent idea. Write a few pages. Keep writing to see what happens. Be convinced this will be a bestseller. Discover you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing. Keep writing anyway. Resist the urge to go back and revise. Get a small new idea that might be slightly helpful. Keep writing. Delete the last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-4643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4647,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643\/revisions\/4647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}