It Took Me Two Years to Write A Novella: Introduction

Over a year ago I completed the first, full-length piece of work I’ve done in a long time. It took me two years to write, and it helped me grow. When I first wrote the novella, I was in a place of anger and depression, and when I finished I was was in a place of peace.

Writing has been something that I’ve always wanted to do. Like most authors, I started writing young. I’ve always been fascinated with fantasy, and writing allowed me to escape into a world that was entirely different from my own. Over the years I’ve written so much and had so many ideas, but when I went to college, I completely lost the motivation and imagination to write. When I graduated, I wanted to write something but I didn’t know what.

And then my aunt suggested writing something about myself. Something that wasn’t fantasy.

Of course, I wasn’t going to write a biography–I don’t have a lot of memories of my childhood–but I realized that I could pull from what I was feeling at the time and create a character that was like me. And I did.

Her name is Kaya.

Kaya was the culmination of everything that I was feeling at the time: anger, a sense of failure, and depression. Like me, she didn’t want to go back to her small town, but she did. And that’s where Kaya and I branched off. While I was spiralling, she thrived.

So here’s the thing about healing: it’s not linear. Kaya’s journey throughout the book is linear, even if she does suffer from bouts of anxiety. My journey isn’t. I’ve struggled so much since graduating college and I’m still trying to figure myself out, but Kaya pulled herself up by her bootstraps and grew. She created a career for herself, found love, and found friendship. I’m still staggering behind. But, as I’m writing this, I’m realizing that me and Kaya never branched off. We’re still the same, but my journey is still slower than hers. I’m still pulling myself up, but things are looking a bit better for me.

So, I finished the novella. I finished Kaya’s journey.

After writing the novella, I dived into edits. I realized that I wanted the novella to become a novel, which meant I had to add ~50,000 words to complete it. As I reread the novella from beginning to end, I decided to keep a list of things that I needed to fix, add, and expand on. I formatted this list and placed it into my story’s encyclopedia, a Word file containing all of the facts and notes for the novella.

From this list, I divided everything into five categories: Characters, Plot, Setting, Issues, and What I Aim to Fix. Each section had subsections and I realized that I wanted to share what I’ve learned in the process of writing the novella. I’ve already done a video on the subject, but I realized that a video wasn’t as in depth as I wanted it to be, so I decided to come here and make this a series. Over the next few months, there will be a blog post regarding what I’ve learned while writing the novella, and what I continue to learn as I continue to write.

I’m still in the process of editing, so I’ll probably share my current experiences as well. It’s going to take a while to finish this, so I hope that you join me on this ride!