I'm writing the first draft of my first novel. I've started novels before, but this is the first time I've written nor than two chapters and still felt that the narrative had enough direction and momentum to continue. I'm making very slow progress, but I'm okay with that.
Right now my problem is that I don't know who I'm writing for. I haven't regularly written poetry for a while, but when I did, there was no question who I was doing it for. It was for me. The poems mostly just showed up out of the blue and I wrote them down because it felt right. So far, writing my first novel has been a much more deliberate exercise. So I often find myself asking who I'm writing for.
A lot of the novel's events come from my own life or the lives of people I know. I've written about the experience of having to drop out of college because of an undocumented and unaccommodated disability. I've written about the experience of becoming acutely aware of global imperialism, and of developing a politicized worldview because of that. And I am beginning to wrote about the uncertainty of coming of age in a society where most emerging adults don't know how they will secure the means to house and feed themselves independently. So am I writing for myself, to make more sense of my own life? Or am I writing for other people who have had experiences like mine, to validate and encourage them? Maybe I'm writing for people who haven't had these experiences, to promote understanding.
Maybe I'm approaching this all the wrong way. While the first few chapters follow the trajectory of my own early adulthood, the subsequent plot developments I have planned involve an imagined political movement centered in current-day New York that mirrors events in May 1968 in Paris that led to one-third of France's labor force joining a general wildcat strike and to President Charles de Gaulle fleeing to Germany. So am I writing a political novel?
But 5,000 words or more of the initial chapters of my first draft has been devoted to building an awkward romance between two of my characters, so maybe I'm writing a novel for people who want to read about that.
I think I'm worried that all these elements are just going to add up to something that no-one would enjoy reading. (The specter of the word pretentious rears its head.) Or at least something for which there is no market. I self-published some poetry before, but I quickly realized that I am incapable of marketing my self-published work such that a significant number of people even know it exists. (And I don't have any money I can spend on making other people do that.) On one level, I'd be happy if even one person was entertained or comforted by my novel, or found that it enhanced their understanding of the world on some way, but I think it's not entirely reasonable to want more.
But so far I'm writing it anyway. Is all this normal?
Right now my problem is that I don't know who I'm writing for. I haven't regularly written poetry for a while, but when I did, there was no question who I was doing it for. It was for me. The poems mostly just showed up out of the blue and I wrote them down because it felt right. So far, writing my first novel has been a much more deliberate exercise. So I often find myself asking who I'm writing for.
A lot of the novel's events come from my own life or the lives of people I know. I've written about the experience of having to drop out of college because of an undocumented and unaccommodated disability. I've written about the experience of becoming acutely aware of global imperialism, and of developing a politicized worldview because of that. And I am beginning to wrote about the uncertainty of coming of age in a society where most emerging adults don't know how they will secure the means to house and feed themselves independently. So am I writing for myself, to make more sense of my own life? Or am I writing for other people who have had experiences like mine, to validate and encourage them? Maybe I'm writing for people who haven't had these experiences, to promote understanding.
Maybe I'm approaching this all the wrong way. While the first few chapters follow the trajectory of my own early adulthood, the subsequent plot developments I have planned involve an imagined political movement centered in current-day New York that mirrors events in May 1968 in Paris that led to one-third of France's labor force joining a general wildcat strike and to President Charles de Gaulle fleeing to Germany. So am I writing a political novel?
But 5,000 words or more of the initial chapters of my first draft has been devoted to building an awkward romance between two of my characters, so maybe I'm writing a novel for people who want to read about that.
I think I'm worried that all these elements are just going to add up to something that no-one would enjoy reading. (The specter of the word pretentious rears its head.) Or at least something for which there is no market. I self-published some poetry before, but I quickly realized that I am incapable of marketing my self-published work such that a significant number of people even know it exists. (And I don't have any money I can spend on making other people do that.) On one level, I'd be happy if even one person was entertained or comforted by my novel, or found that it enhanced their understanding of the world on some way, but I think it's not entirely reasonable to want more.
But so far I'm writing it anyway. Is all this normal?