How I Started Writing Novels: Suddenly There Were Stories Everywhere

suddenly there were stories everywhere

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Feeling all reflective today as I think about this time last year when I finished my first manuscript.

Well, technically it was my second manuscript, but I don’t think I should count the first one. I wrote it in the seventh grade. It was called Love Always & Forever and basically involved roasting some mean girls that I was forced to deal with at school, but in written form. The main character also DIED. Yes, I always was this dramatic. Turns out, I also have always loved a good grovel.

Anyway, I digress.

Last August, I came home from a wedding out of state. It was the first time Ben and I had left the state since our youngest had been born. I came back different. Just three days was all God needed to change my outlook on life. I came back with a word on my mind that could only have come from above… discipline.

Discipline in all the ways.

I went for it. The way I always do. All in. Balls to the wall. Can’t talk me out of it.

And man, have I had my ass handed to me. Turns out discipline is really hard, and focusing on it has shown me how little I have. But I have all of Jesus. I’m not alone in this undertaking. My sad human attempt just shows me my need for my beautiful Savior. And scraping my undisciplined butt off the floor again and again has never happened alone. Not once.

God’s got my back.

Writing, though. It seemed to click. It came easy.

I got home from that wedding, opened my laptop, and finished a book. It was one that had been on my computer for years with just three completed chapters. I did it with zero storyboarding, absolutely no planning, and every single idea crammed into one story. I had NO idea what I was doing (still don’t). I didn’t understand tense, point of view, tropes, or how to write what I know.

I just freaking wrote.

By the end of September, I had a completed manuscript. Honestly, the best part about it was getting it out of my system. It is terrible in the most spectacular way.

But through that process, I found out I have a billion stories to tell and realized that I actually could pull it off. I could write a book.

I wrote that manuscript and then immediately wrote three more.

Yeesh, and now I’m starting my fifth.

I have no profound statement to finish this newsletter. I just wanted you to know I’m following that nudging on my heart. I’m trying (mostly failing) to be disciplined. I’m writing my soul.

Thanks for following along. It means so much to me.

Tell me I’m not alone. What are you going after in this wild ride with God?

Love you, swoony friend, Katie