Elle Houston

Adventures of a New Writer

April 10, 2020

7. Putting Together a Game Plan

I am inherently a planner. I need to know what comes next or I start to get a little anxious. As I started writing, I realized I really wanted to figure out what my next steps should be. A friend told me about GoHighBrow, a site that encourages people to learn something new every day by signing up for “courses” that are delivered by email (every morning) for a quick, 5 minute read. They also only allow you to sign up for one course at a time, as they want to encourage productive daily habits and don’t want to tire out your brain from too much information at once.

I found they had a number of options to choose from and through their free trial, I ultimately ended up signing up for two courses: “How to Self-Publish” and “How to Market Your Book Online.” Both were actually really helpful and included more resources for additional information. What I basically learned was I needed to build a whole brand as an author. This needed to include a website, blog and social media presence. Great, I already had a full-time job, how was I going to make time to figure out how to build a brand, oh and also write my story?!

I decided I wanted to see if I could go the traditional publishing route. But doing this meant I would need to try and find a book agent. I know that’s a competitive field, and if I wanted to try and find an agent, I would need to make sure my book was as good as I could make it, which would also mean finding an editor.

I started to explain all of this to my husband and he told me to just focus on my writing and finishing it first. While he has always been supportive of me, the way he said it made it sound like he was questioning that I would actually finish this project. I was still going through the outlining stages in The Novel Factory, but I knew deep down that I was going to finish this story. It was hard for me to explain to my husband that I needed to figure out these next steps to feel excited and keep pushing myself forward.

Initially, I started doing some research on how to find a good editor, and went down a lot of rabbit holes in the process. I found myself getting overwhelmed by all the options. Ultimately, I decided to take my husband’s advice and just focus on writing my book. But I was glad that I had done this initial research, because it helped me understand additional areas I needed to focus on and I was excited that I now had my next steps.

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January 10, 2020

4. Creating the “Write” Space

When I first downloaded The Novel Factory (TNF), I was using an old computer that I had bought on sale at Best Buy for $300 as part of a bundle. It was so slow, it took forever to power up and open any application. I used to have to sit patiently waiting for The Novel Factory to open and then for updates to save. We had a bedroom in our house that we nicknamed the “catchall” room because anything we didn’t know what to do with, we stashed in this room. You could barely move in it because there were piles everywhere (but it made the rest of the house look nice!). When I realized I wanted to start writing more and that I needed a place where I could shut the door (instead of the dining room table), I moved a few piles around in the catchall room and brought in a folding table from outside and a chair from the kitchen. I created my own little space.

When I found myself starting to consistently write in the evenings and on weekends, I decided it was time to upgrade my computer to something that ran a little faster. I also wanted to have two monitors so I could have notes open in one program while I also had TNF open. With the help of a friend, I purchased a new computer and two monitors and suddenly it felt so much easier! I felt like I had “space” with more monitor real estate, and all the programs running so much faster felt like a luxury. I kept on writing.

After about a year of writing like this, I thought, this room isn’t used for much, I wonder if I cleaned it up and started saving, if I could make this an inspirational space that encouraged creativity. I asked my husband if he would mind if I took over the catchall room, and he said if I could find an area for a wine fridge in my new office, then I could have the room. A wine fridge didn’t seem like such a big deal, as I was picturing one of the smaller mini fridges that could be concealed in some cabinetry. I decided to order the wine fridge he wanted first, so we could make sure we physically had it when we were ready to start building out the space. I didn’t want any wrong measurements.

Well, when the fridge was finally delivered, it came up to my chest! It was huge! I couldn’t believe what it looked like in person! Clearly, I did not pay close enough attention to the measurements. In my defense, I saw the tall fridges online and understood we were ordering a shorter one, but I didn’t realize the short was still tall! Ugh. I should add that the way the bedroom was laid out, there was only one usable wall because the others had a door, a sliding glass door and a closet. Adding my husband’s wine fridge looked like it would take up a third of the usable space! Also, it occurred to me we would need to actually design around the fridge because it was so large. Sigh.

Well, I had to keep saving anyway, so in the meantime, the fridge went in the guest bedroom where we had the space for it and at least I had a better computer and a room to write that was officially mine. This helped keep my motivation up.

My writing desk

My writing desk

My new computer on my folding table.

The small usable space by the closet

The small usable space by the closet

I did not have much room to expand out.

The back wall

The back wall

This was the only uninterrupted wall and it's really high.

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December 10, 2019

3. Now, How do I start?

I am someone who really likes organization. I feel at ease knowing there is a plan. When I had taken my screen writing courses in college, they provided me with great structure. My classes had been broken out into two: the outline and writing the script. It was there that I really learned the value of an outline. I found it’s the best way to figure out the structure of the story, while still being able to  easily make structure changes.

Realizing I’d had success with completing a screenplay using the outline method, I wondered if I could find something similar for writing a novel. One night, when my husband was out with some friends, I decided to watch ME BEFORE YOU. I think it was around 11pm when the movie finished, probably 11:30pm by the time I had finishing sobbing and my breathing had returned to normal. I found myself inspired by the slow development of the relationship between the two main characters. Suddenly I had this strong urge to start writing. Like, I needed to start writing in that moment.

I went over to my computer which was set up on a folding table in a spare space we called the “catch all” room, because it held piles of things we didn’t know what to do with. I started to google novel writing software and something called The Novel Factory came up. My eyes started to get misty again; it was EXACTLY what I needed: a step by step guide that started with a one sentence description and built from there. I purchased and immediately downloaded it, and that night I officially started to write.

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