A Writing Story: A Complete Mess

I began writing fiction in the summer of 2009. A couple of flash fiction pieces–one of which I published in Writing on The Walls 1: A Collection of Very Short Stories, called Their Love Could Follow Moonstones.

In late October of that same year, I suddenly decided that I was doing NaNoWriMo. No plan, no outline, no notes. (By the way, check out this post by author and writing coach Lauren Sapala on “pantsing” for an interesting take on the subject.) I did have an idea though and I was pretty sure I could stick it out for 50,000 words and write something resembling a story.

And that is exactly what I did. By the end of November I had gone just over 50,000 words (on the very last day) and had written a novel.

Now, it was sort of a mess, or more accurately, a huge mess. But that was okay because I had completed it. I had really taken the idea that this was about quantity, not quality to heart and I was satisfied with a mess, but a mess that was complete.

And anyways, I was going to revise it and hopefully make it less of a mess. And then I started actually doing that, and realized that it was probably better to just let it go. The mess couldn’t be cleaned up, not without a lot of effort.

And, I had a better idea. I would take some things from this novel and write a whole new one. I already had one novel under my belt and this one could only get better, right?

Actually, yes. And that novel was Uncover.

When I started writing, I had something of an idea to write a YA thriller similar to the Christopher Pike books I had read while growing up, so that was something of a model I was using. Also too, I outlined.

Yes, I know. Odd, huh? Uncover is actually the only novel that I have written fully from an outline. But it was my kind of outline, meaning not overly structured. It was really just a list of things I wanted to get to in the story, written in order. And I would just write to the next one in line.

But, despite my outlining, at the end I had something that was not a mess. And in fact, I thought it was pretty decent. Certainly decent enough to share. And so, in January 2012 it became my first self-published book.

And for the month of October, it’s free. It’s a good month to do it because of Halloween and autumn. Uncover takes place early in the fall and involves a group of teenagers getting lost in the woods overnight. There is plenty of suspense.

So that’s the story of how Uncover came to be and I can’t believe it’s almost been ten years since I started writing it. I think back to that first NaNoWriMo I did and I’m really glad that I was satisfied with the completed mess I got from it, because ultimately that’s where Uncover came from.

So here’s to those messes. Especially as we get closer to November.

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Amanda Linehan is the author of North, about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller, about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels. Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter.