The Tidy Guide to Writing, Editing, and Publishing Your Novel

Introduction

To write is to adopt an exciting, self-driven lifestyle where you have the opportunity to create characters that readers fall in love with and build worlds that readers want to live in.

Writing a novel can be both the most rewarding and the most intimidating experience you face in your life. To finish a novel is a huge accomplishment, and no major accomplishment comes easy. A novel is a layered symphony of worldbuilding, character development, dialogue, narrative, and much more. It's easy to get lost. Many people who start writing a book never finish. I've met writers who've been working on their first novel for years, some longer than a decade. I've talked with many more who have bits and pieces of a novel sitting in a drawer, collecting dust.

I find these unfinished dreams a tragedy. It's one thing to decide that you no longer wish to write a book, but if you still dream of writing one, having an unfinished manuscript will always weigh on your spirit and confidence. It's time to finish that novel.

I spent years dreaming of writing a novel. I'd written plenty of short stories when I was a child, and I continued to dabble in short fiction into adulthood. I'd jot down story ideas, but I never started a novel, not even a few words. Writing a book was this colossal mountain that I had no idea how to climb. How in the world could I write a 300-page tome when I'd never written more than fifteen- or twenty-page stories in my life? Then one day, I grabbed my laptop and typed a scene that had kept going through my mind. I'd first thought it'd be a short story, but after reading my words, I realized the scene would fit perfectly with an idea I had for a book.

On that day, I began my first novel, Knightfall. Some days, I'd write a few pages. Other days, nothing. I got stuck a lot, and I had to rewrite a lot. Writing a novel was exhausting, but it was also fun. It wasn't until after I'd written two more novels that I realized how much time and energy I'd wasted on my first book by not applying any kind of structured process to my writing.

I spent sixteen months writing my first book. Now, after having over a dozen novels published, I can write a novel in a month. I've certainly improved my craft, but what's made the biggest difference is that I apply a repeatable, decluttered approach to each story.

I'm now a full-time writer, but I wrote the first twelve books while working full-time as a continuous improvement consultant. I helped companies declutter their processes by cutting anything that didn't bring value—i.e., the unnecessary work—and then devising plans to ensure that they'd see continual improvements in how they worked.

The funny thing is that I'd applied these concepts to all facets of my life except writing. At home, I'd decluttered my house using a blend of my training and the KonMari Method, which also applies the same concept of cutting everything that doesn't bring value (with KonMari, you cut everything that doesn't bring joy). I considered myself an efficiency expert until I looked at my writing habits and saw that I was anything but efficient. I had convinced myself that decluttering rules didn't apply to a creative endeavor like writing.

I was so very wrong.

When I applied decluttering concepts, such as cutting time-wasters and planning my work in advance, I discovered that I was writing faster and producing higher quality books. Now, I never have to go back and rewrite a scene because something I wrote in Chapter Twenty-Three contradicts what happens in Chapter Three. I write with more enthusiasm and self-assurance than ever before.

In this Tidy Guide—three parts at just thirty minutes of reading each—I'll show you clutter-free steps to planning and writing so that you can confidently write your novel right the first time. And, I'll show you how you can avoid hitting walls, such as the ultimate procrastination excuse known as writer's block, by achieving Little Ups every day. Once you write your novel, in the second part of this guide, I'll give you a step-by-step self-editing process that you can use to make revising and polishing your manuscript easy! And finally, when you feel really good about your novel, in part three of this guide, I cover ways you can take in having your novel published. 

Embrace the adventure!