How I tricked myself into writing my first novel

Better writing through muscle memory

I’ve wanted to write a novel since I was six years old, and I’ve been attempting it more or less since then. I was frustrated when I graduated high school without my first manuscript, and then twice as angry four years later when I graduated college and still hadn’t written a single solid chapter. I jumped into screenwriting after that, took poetry seriously for awhile, but neither completely satisfied me. Part of me always suspected I was just putting off the novel.

And I’ve tried it all. I spent a year trying out the Snowflake Method, writing a hundred-page outline only to freeze two paragraphs into writing the actual novel. I tried Stephen King’s “excavation” method, jumping right into the writing of another novel only to get completely blocked after fifteen pages. Then that happened four more times.

Three years ago I realized that the only way to write a novel was to trick myself into doing it. And over the next few months I concocted a plan that ended up working better than I’d hoped. If you’re also stuck somewhere between an idea, an outline, page twenty-three or page 167, see if this helps get you out of the rut and back on the path.

Find Dead Time

The most difficult thing is finding the time. For years I thought I would have to dedicate at least 3–4 hours a day to writing a novel, or it would take me a decade to write it. There are so many full-time writers out there, how could I possibly juggle a day job and write a book? Then I stumbled onto Murakami’s story. When he tackled his first novel, he wrote for only an hour or so a night, and unlike most of what I’ve read, he didn’t find it too arduous — it was more a joy than torture. That simple anecdote completely changed the way I looked at writing, and finally gave me hope. An hour a day — that I could do. So now the trick was finding that hour.

In my case, I decided to try an experiment and write on my commute. A few years before I would have scoffed at that idea — how could you possibly write anything worthwhile on a train with people yammering around you, when it’s only a half hour each way? But I bought noise-canceling headphones and dedicated myself to writing every day on my commute, no matter how I was feeling. This was dead time anyway — what else would I be doing on the way to work? Spending the time writing instead was a no brainer.

So what’s your dead time? There’s a spare half hour somewhere. A friend of mine writes during his lunch break. Another wakes up a half hour early. Since I started writing my novel, I’ve heard of plenty of other writers who use their commute, a couple dictating into their phones as they drive. The time is out there, it just might take a bit of scrounging around to find it.

Develop Muscle Memory

Getting into the groove of writing daily started with a 30 Day Challenge. I challenged myself to write every single day on my commute, no matter the quality of my writing, no matter how I was feeling. The key was not getting angry at myself for writing pure garbage some days. This was just an experiment — nothing to lose. As you’ve read dozens of times, once you do something for thirty days it becomes habit — and I found that to be true. The most important aspect of habit, in my case, was muscle memory. As soon as I sat down on the train seat, my laptop seemed to magically appear, open, on my lap — I didn’t even notice the reflex to immediately pull it out of my bag most days. And once the laptop was open and ready, I felt obligated to write. (It’s worth noting that I made it impossible to access the internet on my commute, so that wasn’t an option.)

Go through the motions. Once it becomes habit, the fear of the blank page dissipates a bit. And the laptop (or notebook) appears magically in front of you, ready.

Write For Yourself, Not Your Audience

My other problem was abandoning my writing if it didn’t feel like it was worthy of eventual publication. Part of the 30 Day Challenge was accepting whatever I wrote and seeing where it took me. And it took me to some strange places. For one, the book I tricked myself into writing has a really uncommon structure — it’s fifty very short, stand-alone stories supported by ten longer chapters that tie them all together in a narrative. It’s also a strange blend of mythology, folk tales and poetry. In the past I would’ve abandoned the project immediately because I’ve only ever read one other book like it. But this was part of tricking myself into writing — to let myself intuitively scribble out whatever felt right for a month and see how I felt at the end of the process.

It turned out that after thirty days I had the beginnings of something that I didn’t despise and it got me excited enough to see it through. Now that I’m at the other end of the process, I’m thrilled that I’ve written my first novel, and by some miracle I don’t hate it. Even if it’s ultimately only read by a dozen people, I know I made the right choice seeing it through. Hell, maybe I’ll get slightly more traditional with the next one.

Lower the Bar. Now Lower It Some More.

If you’ve been struggling to write just about anything, I’m sure you’ve come across this advice before, but it’s so important it bears repeating. Never stress yourself out over a shitty first draft. If you can lower the bar to the point that you’re okay writing garbled sentences that barely make logical sense, you win. Writing is exorcism, rewriting is the art. I’ve written first drafts that are so bad I wouldn’t even let my wife read them because she would question my command over the English language. But patiently pruning and tweaking those drafts time and again got them to a place where I’m fine sharing them with the world. Trust yourself, most of the garbage you set to paper can be turned into gold after a few passes — just let it be garbage for a little while.

Learn to Meditate

I know, I know. As if every Medium article didn’t already have meditation shoehorned into it. I wouldn’t have included this if I didn’t think it was in many ways the most important ingredient to writing your first novel. I could have titled this section “Silence Your Inner Critic” but that’s about as helpful as asking someone to grow a tail.

The inner critic doesn’t necessarily go away; you just need to re-establish your relationship with it. You need to let the critic talk without paying attention to it. And meditation is the best way I’ve found to do it. If you haven’t tried it and you’re curious, here are my 1. three 2. favorite 3. ways to get started. Even ten minutes a day is a good start.

If you found this at all helpful, hit the heart to let me know and I’ll keep posting articles about my experience writing my first novel.