Take Your Time

I know for certain that when you finish a story (especially a novel) that you get so excited and you want to get it published. Publishing is a noble thing to aspire to, but it's not a good thing to rush into.

When I was a young teenager, I finished a first draft of a fantasy novel and was so pleased with my accomplishment that I started looking up publishers. I was urged not to do that so soon, and I'm glad I was told. About a year or two later, I discarded the novel for its steadily-increasing bizarre nature and general disappointment in it. I looked it over a few months ago, and my, did my hairs stand up on my head. Absolutely horrible. I couldn't even finish reading it, even though years before people had said they liked it (though they may have been being polite, which is never a good thing when you want to take your story seriously).

But here's my point: take your time. Don't finish a novel and then work on it for a year or two then seek to be published. An important thing that I have learned from about eight years of story-writing is not to rush. The reason is, writing, especially for young people, is rarely well-written but has potential. But to reach to higher levels of quality, you should practice a lot and take your time, even years. And don't be afraid to let your story change as you keep writing new drafts of it. The evolution of a story is half the fun of writing as you discover how to make better characters, how to solve plot problems like inconsistencies, and in general how to write something better. So don't be afraid to spend years on a particular story. In reality, the fantasy novel series I am working on at the moment is the product of eight years of story evolution from Tolkien rip-off fantasy world to something hopefully far different.

So, as I say: take your time. Don't rush the writing process to gain fame for something poorly written that has a lot more potential but was never exploited. And keep this in mind: I heard somewhere that Tolkien spent over ten years (not sure of the exact time) working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy (someone correct me if I'm wrong) before publishing it. All that time, and look at the masterpiece we have today.

So take your time and make a masterpiece that will be remembered for all the right reasons.