The First Novel

It is very neat, in the course of this blog or at conferences or whatever, to meet writers at every single stage of the journey, from grizzled veterans (can I call him grizzled?) to total newbies and everything in between.

But I have to say, there is a particular line in the sand that I "think" sometimes marks a completely new writer from those with a few novels under their belt--sold or unsold--and it has to do with that "drawer" novel. (The one you stick in a drawer never to see the light of day.) Because most people I meet working on their first novel expect to sell it. They have a lot of questions about how to sell, how to get an agent, and so on. And they are filled with the kind of fantastic excitement your first novel SHOULD be full of.

My first novel was written and completed when I was twenty-two or twenty-three. I sent out exactly ONE query, to Ruth Cavin at St. Martin's. She requested the full. She kept it six months or so. She sent back a very detailed letter of how she bought mainly mysteries and my novel was a psychological thriller--a good one, but not right for her line. I never sent it anywhere else. I didn't research editors looking for psychological thrillers. I think at that point in my life, I was content to have written "The End" on something. I stuck it in a drawer. I have it here. Printed out on my old dot matrix printer!

So I wrote about 100 pages of another novel--a romance. I abandoned it because my heart really wasn't in it. I sold a couple of short stories with an edgier voice.

And then I wrote about 100 pages of a third novel, which remains unfinished, a love triangle about a priest, a guy in the IRA, and the granddaughter of an Irish-American with deep pockets who funded some of the IRA's doings. And then . . .

Into my head came the very insistent voice of Cassie Hayes, and I wrote Spanish Disco inside of a few months, and it sold to the fifth house it was sent to, and now I'm 25 novels later. Which sounds like a fairly straight line, but it was anything but, I suppose.

But here's the thing.

Along the way I learned some things that I didn't know when I wrote my first novel. Like, when I wrote my first novel, I assumed you thought up this fabulous first sentence, something like "It was a dark and stormy night . . ." :-) And then you just wrote your novel until you got to "The End."

I didn't realize that very often your beginning in at Chapter Four after you regurgitate all that back story you thought was so important. I didn't realize EVERY page had to be a page turner. I didn't realize, most of all, the art of storytelling. Because I knew how to dream up some really cool characters--three-dimensional at that. And I knew how to place them into a plot. But I didn't realize that's not enough to tell a story. That there is an art to picking and choosing scenes, moving ahead in time to advance your story, and not telling EVERY single little character detail that happens to pop into your brain. I am STILL learning that lesson, as last week, my critique group told me to cut a chapter--and they were totally right. It's completely out of place.

I realized, bottom line, since that first novel, that not everything that flies from my head to my computer is publishable. That some books are really learning tools, because all the writing teachers in the world can tell you things, but there's nothing like that Ah-ha you have on your own.

So what have you learned from your first novel? Finished or unfinished--doesn't matter. What are your lessons?