How I wrote a book in 60 days.
I’m willing to bet you saw the title of the post and had one of two reactions: 1. HOW do writers do that??? I sit in front of the computer and stare at the screen and type and delete the word “the” thirty times while sipping three cups of coffee. Or, 2. That is complete and utter CRAP. No one writes a book in 60 days.
I was both of those people. I’ve clicked similar stories a few times over the years either looking for a few pearls of wisdom or out of complete disgust—interested merely in scoffing at the absurdity of such a preposterous claim. I worked on the same book for ten years… Ten. Years. And then I wrote Bella in two months.
True story. I shit you not. And I was working full-time during the day.
How, you might ask? (I would have probably said, BULLSHIT, but for anyone that might actually be curious, this is how it happened for me.)
I got pissed off. REALLY pissed off. Heartbroken and disappointed and indignant, yet still oddly hopeful that it was all just a bad dream and the faith and commitment I’d demonstrated and the energy I’d exerted had indeed all been worthwhile and I would suddenly wake up and find myself in the midst of the beautiful life I had worked so hard for and imagined for myself. In other words, I had ALL OF THE EMOTIONS brewing and stewing and competing for headspace, and I got to the point where it was either start walking like Forest Gump, my sight determinedly set on the opposite coast line, or take up kickboxing (in which I’d probably break my foot because I have weak-ass ankles), but at the moment I reached the infamous boiling point I was stuck in bed with my first bout of Covid and my options were sadly limited to reaching distance and low exertion, so I started writing on my phone. It was just me, myself, and my iPhone 12 mini, propped up on two pillows, doped up with a cocktail of Tylenol Cold & Flu, Vicks salve, cough drops, and nasal sprays. I did not want to relive some of the hardest moments of my life, but one way or another I had to get them OUT. The pain was poisoning me. I may or may not have fantasized other more satisfying options, but writing allowed me to focus all the rage and hurt I felt into a story that other people could experience, and if one person reads my story and feels less alone or even slightly less pained by the hurt they have encountered, then I have managed to make some lemonade out of the freaking tractor trailer load of lemons that got dumped in my proverbial hot tub.
For those of us that know that writing a book in 60 days is absolutely impossible, I will clarify and state that I completed my first full draft, clocking in at 133,000 words. Did I happen to mention that I was REALLY pissed off? Yeah. I was harboring the energy of a supernova.