Before reading reference books on how to write or not write and after learning to ignore the inner critic or self doubter or whatever the creative writer in you wishes to call the evil hater voice inside of you, as an aspiring novelist, a writer, you need to WRITE!
Instead of reading advice on how to write a novel you need to write one, or at least start one. Certainly writing can be learned from books, but the practice of putting letters together to create words to create sentences to create paragraphs to create, ah, well, whatever the creative writer in you wishes to create from words, that is a skill, a craft that needs hands on experience.
Another novelist can write about writing a novel. Can write the absolute truth, Can describe the process step by step, but until I wrote everyday, in my journal, until I had written more than a hundred poems, until I had started three novels and finished several short stories I had no hope of writing a completed manuscript. A novel is a process, but a personal one, and another novelist's step by step instructions, blueprints, were meaningless until I had my own measuring tape,hammer and nails. Until I had my own tools. I read Deborah Macomber's essay on the topic of a writer's tool belt in 2008 or 2009 Writer's Market. She is a very good creative writer.
Check out her words after you write!!!
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