It’s a story that I’m actually pretty embarrassed to share.
Yet it’s one you absolutely need to hear because it will reveal more about how to write a novel than anything I know…
Now, I was not always a novel writing and publishing expert. Having dozens of best-selling books published across several genres, both in print and digital, wasn't always a reality.
And certainly not living the writer’s life like I am today!
In fact, my real life at the time was far from it! I was a complete novice.
I’ll share some of my successes with you later on in this letter… but first, let me continue sharing a rather shocking story with you.
Thinking back, it was April 1999…
I was on a writer’s retreat with some friends just outside of Phoenix.
We were all camping out in the desert, working on our novels, while hoping to get some inspiration.
I spent the entire week writing, revising, editing, and pouring my soul into my novel.
And then it happened. It was the end of the week, and we were all reading what each other had written. Each of us was supposed to give one piece of feedback for each writer in the group…
We also assigned a number score from 1 to 10, 10 being the best, for how much we liked what we read.
Most of the stories and novels by the other writers were excellent, full of exciting characters, thrilling plot lines, romance, suspense.
Each of these easily deserved a, 8, 9 or 10…
(and in fact, some of them got published very soon after this retreat!)
I was excited to read my feedback, too! What happened next would change my life forever!
I got my feedback from other writers and when I began to read their notes… I was simply shocked!
No one liked what I had written!
To say I was crushed was an understatement.
I had been writing my novel long before this retreat, spending over a year writing, revising, and trying to make it great and I’d even spent a small fortune on writing books trying to learn what makes great novels great.
I had worked so hard on making the characters interesting.
The plot compelling…
The climax exciting…
But none of the novel-writing “tricks” I had learned seemed to do any good.
Let's face it...my novel was simply a flop!
In fact, one of the other writers said i should “give up” on writing!
Sadly, I almost took his advice.
I was ready to quit my writer’s group, sell my writing books, and give up the dream of publishing a novel entirely. I was beyond depressed, feeling borderline worthless and completely unable to create anything that mattered.