As an aspiring writer or someone who’s thinking of writing, you might be wondering what it’s like to be a writer or to expect.

I’m might not be a successful published author or anything close to, but I’m aspiring to be one and with my published short stories and the drafts currently sitting on my hard drive, I have learned a few things.

Some of the things I have done, written, and anything in between might be different from what you are thinking and that’s alright.

This isn’t meant to be me telling you how to do things, but rather me giving you a sense of how things can be done.

So, if it seems like I’m just trying to show off my work, it’s actually not. I want to inspire and motivate you to start.

What do you say? Ready to get a bit insight into my writing and what it’s like to be an aspiring writer?

Grab your favorite drink and let’s go.

A brief insight into what I’m working on

I’m currently working on a novel about a pair of siblings, Amalia and Antonio, who live in Catania (a city in Sicily). The story is set in a post-war environment and the reader follow the siblings as they try to navigate the warm-torn city.

The main idea: The country has been divided between criminal organizations and the siblings try to fit in while honoring their parents and staying true to themselves. Which they learn is difficult when life keeps throwing them curve balls.

Now, the novel is still under development.

But this is what my folder currently looks like:

(I don’t put too much effort into titles, so if something doesn’t make sense, don’t think about it.)

As you can see, I finished the first novel draft about a year and a half ago before I took a break for 6 months before I started on the second draft. There are two reasons for this:

• I wanted to let go of the story, so I didn’t see myself blind in the details
• I wanted to work on another novel draft.

Generally, I’ll always advice you to put your drafts to the side for about a month or two after you finish them to give yourself a fresh new perspective for when you have to edit them.

Overview of files in my novel folder (with stats)

It might seem like a lot of random documents and that’s because it is.

I like to separate my thoughts into separate documents as it allows me to keep things in order and it’s a thing I would definitely advice you to do as well.

Now, should I have done it before writing this post? Probably.

Why haven’t I? To give you an honest insight to what’s it’s like to be a writer.

But let’s be honest, most of us won’t structure our folder nicely, because we know what each document contains.

However, I highly recommend it, because once you find your way of working, you’ll start having a cluster of files.

With that being said, let’s look into some of the important files:

As you can see there’s 3 “Italia drafts”, these are the main story.

The first “draft 1” is the original story before any editing.

And I keep it as a backup, so I can go back and compare some of the chances I write.

For those of you who are curious, here’s the statistics for the 1^st draft:

From here, I took a 6 months break to free my mind from the story. 6 months to let the details go and myself the chance to “experience” the story for the first time.

Overview of the editing phase (so far)

Now, before I start editing, I create a document for my notes. This is the document: “editing pass through”.

This document contains my thoughts: The things I need to improve or change.

I’ve found having a separate document, with your notes, open as you work is a godsend gift to productivity.

I usually keep them side-by-side like this:

This gives me a perfect overview of things:

What I’m currently working on (upper part of document) and what I need to work on (lower part of document).

This might be frustration for someone, but the point is you just need to find something that works for you.

But having a separate document is a gamechanger compared to planting hundreds of notes inside your draft.

After creating the document, I read through the novel draft and write down all my thoughts, ideas, and notes.

I try to follow this order of importance:

• Overall story/plot
• Character development
• Dialogue
• Formatting
• Grammar
• Miscellaneous stuff

This means, first time I read through my draft, I focus on the overall story in mind. I make notes if something is off or doesn’t feel right. (Of course, if there’s something that stands out, I’ll add them as well.)

Once, I’m done, I go through the document and start on the notes one at a time.

Usually, I’d pick the “least resistance” task, but because I started to struggle with some procrastination, I knew I needed to find a way to fix it and so I recently started to take the task that has the biggest impact.

But to actually fix the procrastination, I needed a way to make editing easier, and so I discovered it helped if I broke the complex tasks into smaller tasks and simply do them one at a time.

This mean I have to go through the story additional times, but it is it worth? Heck yes.

Some thoughts about editing

Because this is going to be the first real novel I’m publishing, I’m taking my time to make sure everything is alright.

This means going through the notes and reading the story over and over again.

I think I have read through the drafts 50+ times.

At first, I thought it was time consuming, but once I decided to break down the process to just enjoy the story, everything got better.

This is such an important thing to learn: When you edit your work, you need to enjoy it like you are the intended reader.

If you don’t, then it’s a sign something needs fixing.

Sometimes this can be frustrating, and I understand if it’s something that’s triggering or scarring you away from starting your own novel, but it really shouldn’t.

You learn so much going through these edits and even though I don’t write a lot (at least not as much when I wrote the actual draft) I think my writing has improved much more from doing the editing.

For those of you who are interested, here’s the statistics for the 2^nd draft:

“But Jack, is it really necessary with so many drafts?”

Probably not.

But I think it’s a matter of personal preference.

The way I like to structure my editing drafts is to make a new draft every time I have gone through a massive editing phase.

This can be if I have made lots of changes, some chapters have gotten a massive overhaul, or if I have reached a point where it makes sense to make a backup.

Both have been the cases here as I’m working on my 3^rd draft, but probably will go to the 4^th draft soon.

For those of you who are curious, here’s the statistics for the 3^rd draft:

Okay, this is kind of crazy.

I didn’t even know these statistics before writing this.

9888 minutes or 165 hours.

This is how much I have spent working on this novel so far.

Yes, this is a lot of time for something that’s still far from publishing, but to those of you, who are scared of this, I’m having the time of my life, and I can guarantee: You won’t regret starting your own journey.

Plans moving forward and how I see the novel improving

Currently, my main focus is editing the draft. This means I don’t get to write as much as I like. (This is also one of the reasons why I really enjoy writing this blog for you guys!)

“But Jack, why don’t you just edit one novel and write another separately, daily?”

I could, but I don’t want to overwork myself and burn out.

Think about it like this: Writing is like a constant balance battle, and you need to stay in balance to keep moving.

If you do too much you might get a lot done for a couple of days, but you’ll also guaranteed burn out. And if you don’t do enough, you’ll get nowhere and stop because you’ll feel like you’re wasting your time.

I have tried both with a few drafts and since I’m still somewhat new at editing my work, I’m still trying to figure out the correct way of doing things and how I like to edit my work.

A small, but important tip about editing

Keep a file that contains the vision of the story.

I usually call it “history details.”

It contains the unshakable idea that made me write a blind draft and now serves as the guide for the novel and I like to open it whenever I feel lost.

Now, let me emphasize something: This doesn’t mean I’m trying to fit my story into a single box.

The document is there to remind myself of the story. It’s there to help me get unstuck, but most importantly, it’s there to remind me to let my imagination fly free and to let my mind write the story.

“But Jack, what exactly are the plans with the work?”

That’s a great question.

Because I don’t have a massive company behind me, ready to help with the editing progress, marketing and selling of the book, there’s still lots of things to do and learn.

But that’s the whole point of the journey.

To do the things by myself and inspire you to pursuit the self-publishing route, even if you have no experience. (Hopefully my blog can help change that fact.)

But for now, the main focus is to work through another phase of editing with the aim to finish in a few months.

My to-do looks something like this:

• Finish the draft
• (Get a grammar editor)
• Find beta readers
• Explore marketing
• Explore and pick method of self-publishing.

The plan is to publish the novel no later than 31^st of December 2025.

It would be amazing if it was a success seller, but I’m not holding my breath.

As long as I have the chance to impact someone like my favorite stories have impacted me, then I’m going to keep working on creating the best possible product while I learn how to make the next one even better.

That’s a wrap for today

I hope getting an insight my writing as an aspiring writer has helped motivate you to get started, but if you have any questions don’t hesitate to leave them below or send them a message my way.

Important note: Don’t get caught up in the small details or the mistakes you experience.

Writing is a way of expression creativity, and you only get better the more you do it.

Besides the mistakes you make form the path you need to take and guide you to the product you’ll need to publish to give your audience the best possible experience.

If you’re looking for a guide on how to write a novel, I’ve shared a few insights of my best tips in a previous post.

If you want to be a writer, but don’t know how to start. One of my biggest advices is to build a writing system that works for you.

Until next time – Hope you have a productive and creative day.

Your writing buddy,

Jack

Authorbytrade – Time to take control of your creativity.