If there’s one thing that Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Here, The Spare Room, and other thrillers, loves as much as we do, it’s helping writers fulfill their dream of finishing and selling a book. We’re big fans of her Substack, Get It Write, where she shares tons of publishing intel and writing tips—so we teamed up with her to bring you a regular dose of expert advice.
Every other month, we’ll choose a topic and share some of Andi’s top tips for honing your craft or making it in the publishing world—half here and half on her Substack. Read on, then head to Get It Write for the rest of the post!
(Pssst: Check out the earlier installments here:
- On crafting prose that sings on SheWrites and Andi’s Substack
- On creating characters that feel real on SheWrites and Andi’s Substack)
So many people tell me, “I would love to write a novel someday!” or “I wish I could write a novel!” I’m always reminding them that the only way to write a novel is to…write a novel. Annoying, right? Inconvenient, at least.
Here’s the harsh truth: I almost never feel like sitting down and writing, even though I love what I do. Yet somehow, I’ve written five books. For me, it’s all about mind games. Here are my go-to tricks for stopping self-sabotage and putting pen to page.
Break it down.
Writing a book is a huge endeavor, one that will take hundreds of hours and fill hundreds of pages—of course it’s overwhelming to look at the project as a whole. No one can bite off 90,000 words at once, no matter how excited they are about the idea or motivated they are to finish a draft.
The good news? You don’t have to bite it off in one chunk. Instead, break those 90,000 words into manageable daily (or weekly) goals. As a full-time author, I do this for every book. My publisher gives me deadlines, sure, but they feel a little abstract: This many months from now, we’ll need a 90,000-word manuscript. So I create my own mini-deadlines to stay on track.
I use pacemaker.press to figure out how much I need to accomplish every day and to record my progress, whether I’m drafting (say, 800 words/day) or revising (currently about 12 pages/day). The important thing is to build in a cushion at the end and to recalculate whenever I fall behind—otherwise I get overwhelmed if I miss a day.
Sort it out while you sleep.
Researchers say that procrastination has nothing to do with laziness; if you’re putting something off, it may be because you aren’t sure how to do it. In novel-writing, this often looks like not knowing what comes next…a problem we “pantsers” (those who write without an outline, vs. “plotters”) often face.
Here’s my trick: If you’re stuck on a plot problem, write it in a notebook right before bed. Your subconscious will work on it as you sleep, and the next morning you’ll find you’re much closer to the solution.
Shush the naysayer.
I almost didn’t write The Lost Night—I was so scared people were going to dismiss it because it centers on a much-maligned “hipster” subculture. (Remember how much everyone hated hipsters in, like, 2014? Gawker literally refused to use the word, instead referring to them as “Pabstsmears”, a fact that sounds made-up but is 100% real.)
My friend Leah Konen, who’s also a fiction writer, gave me the best advice in the world:
“Go all in on a shitty first draft. Take off your editor hat. Take off your what-if-people-make-fun-of-me-for-writing-about-hipsters hat. Just write!”
No one had given me permission to write poorly before. So freeing!
Head to Andrea Bartz’s Substack, Get It Write, for the last 3 tips!
The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz
In the height of the lockdown in 2020, Kelly’s life has fallen apart. She’s friendless, jobless and stuck in a tiny apartment with the man who called off her wedding. When an old friend, Sabrina, offers Kelly a spare room in her luxurious, remote Virginia mansion, she takes her up on the offer. What she doesn’t expect is a steamy threesome that leads to the couple opening their marriage. Soon, Kelly discovers she’s not the first and the last woman invited in went missing.
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