So I Wrote My Debut Novel
Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday! How are y’all holding up? I am elated to write this blog as you must have already guessed from the headline that says that I wrote my debut novel. This is something that I mentioned in my previous blog yesterday as well. Actually I guess it’d be prudent to state that not only is the novel written as the headline mentions, it’s published and launched as well.
Yes, as I did mention in my blog yesterday I am going to take you through the entire process of how it worked and the steps following it after. First off, it started with a dream. I don’t know, to the reader it might sound like something which can be regarded as superfluous — but to me, the one writing this, it sounded like a great deal.
There was this image in front of my eyes that said Gairika Mitra — author, and then there was this hard cover of my book, not with any particular design, but with something that carried the title of my book with my name on it. There were countless voices inside of me that said things like “Is it at all feasible? Is it at all worth it?” “Why am I wasting my valuable time writing a novel?” “Will I ever be able to pull it off?”
And countless such thoughts that were encircling me, but perhaps there was this spirit within that refused to surrender, it chose to stay put and continued writing and writing. It travelled from far off oceans, to cliffs, to various skyscrapers and finally rested on my computer screen, beautified by my fingers on the keyboard.
The liberty to write whatever you felt like, to work when no one is following up with you, none to guide you is insane. I was insane too, insane in my dreams of becoming an author, insane for getting my work published. To be honest, at the beginning and even now, I wasn’t even thinking of the results, it was a process, a beautiful process that needed to float along and I needed to float too.
As a debutant, I’d be so engrossed in the process that I’d hold myself accountable and even be depressed every time I failed to make a plot exciting. Believe it or not, everyday throughout the week, I’d be writing around 2K words, weekends excluded sometimes. It was not like I was held at gunpoint or that someone punished me that I have to complete these many words within this time frame, but I guess the process was very very enjoyable and I was smitten by the writing bug.
I’d begin writing, edit some portions of it, and delete the chapters all over again, as they didn’t seem to match my imagination, and some days I’d be so infuriated with myself that I thought no one is going to ever read my novel and I stopped writing for two days. I’d have to admit that these were the toughest days of my life when I’d see myself sitting idle and not doing anything about my dream project.
I’d cry a little, let myself vent and then dust myself up and get set to writing again. And no matter what, I kept the mojo going and finally it was that point in time when I was almost done with my novel.
This was where I could mention — The end or something like “A novel by Gairika Mitra.” I have to say that I felt happy, ecstatic, delighted, but that lasted for a short while as I had to pull off my socks and prepare for the second draft again, as this was just the first draft. There were many more to come, but I knew that I had to pull this off, as this time I wasn’t accountable to anyone else, but me… As promised to y’all before I shall be very happy to take y’all in this journey of becoming an author and shall keep publishing more.
