To make this happen, I know that I have to treat writing as a learnable skill grounded in the experience of a fully lived life. After all, I learned to run marathons, travel with just one bag, prevent the death of houseplants, paint portraits that look like their subjects, succeed in a day job, raise two kids to adulthood, and stay married to the same man.

It shouldn’t be so hard to learn to write. It would be like threading beads of words with a fine needle and creating necklaces of light and color.

This is an image I can hold in my imagination: not a manifested outcome, but the quiet consistency required to keep going forward. Each bead in the necklace is a crucial component of achieving a goal. It’s like running a kilometer, discarding one item of clothing I don’t use, adding a pitcher of water to dried out potted soil, applying one stroke of paint from a loaded brush, reading one page of academic text, keeping a family fed and reasonably clean day after day.

There are five big beads in the necklace, and many smaller ones between them. Let me explain how this relates to writing a novel.

Reading with intention

Since mid-2018, I’ve kept a log of every book I’ve read outside of work. I arrange thumbnails of book covers on a blank digital canvas and save the jpg files in folders titled by year. That’s it. No reviews. No stars. No quotations or reflections. These are the books I finished reading. I don’t agree with all of them. I don’t like all of them equally. What they all did was to hold my attention for several hours, and to teach me something about the world I cannot experience for myself. I’ve posted these images on Facebook to see if my immediate circle is reading the same things or are up for sending recommendations. But this step is optional. I don’t read to get likes on Facebook. My reading logbook is here.

Finding mentors

I search for online courses and tutorials. I’ve enrolled in some, completed a few, appreciated fewer. I also read books about writing. The idea of a creative writing degree crossed my mind but must stay on the sidewalk. I have no time for an academic commitment I can’t ace, and no extra resources to fund tuition.

I figure the internet must be good for something better than doomscrolling, so I search for useful content and often find what I need.

Writing despite fear

I’ve had decades of false starts; stories that start out fresh and promising but quickly lose their juices. So in November 2025, I sat down every morning and wrote something. I started with one seed — 4,000 words of an unfinished story — and cared for it patiently, plotted more loosely, and persisted until the story’s end. I woke up at 4 a.m. to write, and quit social media in the evenings and weekends until my first draft of 50,002 words was done at the end of the month.

I have only one firm rule.

Academic writing flushed out plagiarism from my system. I’ve learned to cite properly and acknowledge peers. I see AI as a corporate entity that generates information distilled from measurable data, subjective human observations, and creative output. I won’t steal its work and claim it as mine in the same way I won’t steal from an undergrad gathering data for her first research paper. What would be the point of calling myself a novelist if my real core skill is writing prompts? That’s like buying a marathon medal on eBay.

Revising and sending

I spent December 2025 editing while on holiday in one of the settings of the novel. On December 29, I sent the edited first draft (by then 54,215 words) to my sister. I chose a few close friends to share my work with. My husband and daughter got the pdf file too.

I hesitated many times with the SEND button. That unfreezing process can generate enough material to launch another book.

By the end of February 2026, I had gathered enough comments to begin the painful revision process.

I didn’t sideline AI completely. I asked it to comment on chapters and it returned high school level book reports that were supportive and encouraging. What AI can’t do is tell me which section made it cry. It can’t catch the reference to Eswatini that should be changed to Swaziland if I stick to the timeline. It doesn’t have a favorite passage or most memorable scene. It also doesn’t tell me what sucks. I need real people for that; people who read and feel what they’re reading.

Working with a publisher

The version I sent them in April 2026 was 60,242 words long, a significant increase from what the beta readers got. About six weeks later, I received an offer to publish. I’m excited and thankful. I’m now editing and revising again based on comments from the publisher and two beta readers, friends who didn’t have time to send comments during the first round.

I wish I can say the process of writing a book is linear. It’s circular as necklaces are. I’m happy to be back working on bead 1. For bead 2, I’m designing a creative writing course for myself, sorting and archiving golden nuggets from years of haphazard treasure hunting. This sets me up for bead 3, which is to keep writing, including reflections such as this one. In this particular format, there’s an orange NEXT (or Update) button I have to contend with for bead 4. It’s just as terrible as the SEND button on my email.

I’ve set my own deadline for the next submission to the publisher. They’re not pressuring me with a timeline but I have other things to do. Bead 5 must be allowed its space. Otherwise it will be crowded out by either a packed schedule (not prioritized and therefore not done) or self-doubt (not believed and therefore not accomplished).

Until next time,

L.S