Ever dreamed of writing a novel but didn't know where to start? Now's the perfect time to pick up your pen (or keyboard) and dive into the world of storytelling—no experience needed, just your imagination.
In a new series, author and critic Aimée Walsh offers some tips for the budding novelist.
Since my debut novel Exile came out in May 2024, the most common response I receive from audiences is a desire to write their own novels. I'm told they have: No time. Not enough hours in the day. There’s not a story in me. As I say to each and every one of them: don’t get in the way of yourself, do it! That’s all writing a novel comes down to really. It’s all hinges of committing time to sit down and actually do the work. Years ago, a family member gave me the advice that 'the best time to plant an oak tree is a hundred years ago, the second-best time is now.’ It reminds me, and hopefully now you, to not put off the things I want to do, to not compare with anybody else’s journey no matter what that may be.
If you spend your time aiming to write the perfect sentence first time around, you'll never get the book done.
I will reason with you, that making time to write is difficult. There’s no two ways about it. Throughout the drafting and edits, I worked full time in various jobs, so my routine was fairly unscheduled. I would grab every moment that I could to write scenes in an email and send it to myself to edit later. I had to purge the protagonist Fiadh from my mind; I began to see this character as if she was real. Every weekday, I would get home from the London commute, eat dinner at my kitchen table, and then sit at that very same table with my laptop for several hours. My schedule is different now. I have whole days in the week set aside for writing. It’s a wonderful luxury that I’ll never tire of being thankful for, for as long as it lasts. Across both patterns, the first thing I do is start with a blank document and write as if I can just scrap the lot if the scenes don’t flesh out.
Untether your mind from perfection
The little time you have at your desk should not be spent pulling teeth to try and get words down on the page. The approach I take to writing is to treat the initial process as if I am being chased by a pack of wolves, who just so happen to be satiated by an increasing word count. The adrenaline will get me through, even if the fear of a blank page tries to put me off.
If you spend your time aiming to write the perfect sentence first time around, you’ll never get the book done. You have to trust that the next stages – particularly the editing process – will involve polishing the text by removing the work that no longer fits in with the story. This can be the hardest thing to grasp as a new writer. We all have a desire to be good at everything first go around. But free yourself by granting yourself the grace to get it wrong before it comes right.
Routine is your friend
Now, I am not a believer in writing every day, but I do think it’s important to aim to keep time aside every day for your manuscript. Creativity – for me at least – comes in waves. Just like cooking, a chef doesn’t arrive in the kitchen with no preparation and expect to make a Michelin star meal. Coming to write your manuscript having done the reading and research is so important to a successful manuscript. Some weeks I’ll write thousands of words, others I’ll spend my ringfenced time with my head in a book. Inspiration comes from anywhere, and it just takes one clever image or sentence in another book to unlock something in your own imagination that could lead to a scene in your manuscript.
Aimée Walsh's novel Exile is published by John Murray Press - read an extract here.
