Writing Your First Book Will Teach You More Than Any Writing Advice Ever Will

Why writing a full novel is the best education you'll never find in a craft book

Welcome to Chronicles of the Craft, the corner where I leave all the thoughts, musings, and emotional outbursts of my journey as a writer. Don’t mind the mess.

Forget the "Right Way"

No one tells you how to start your first novel—not really. Sure, there are books, courses, online guides, endless writing advice about three-act structure, save-the-cat moments, and character arcs. But when you’re staring down that blank page with an idea that’s haunted you for years, all of it flies out the window. You just write. Or at least, you try to.

For me, that novel was A World Beyond the Unknown, the first book in a sprawling, magical series I’ve been slowly brewing in the back of my mind for nearly two decades. It’s a story about destiny and adventure. About female friendship and fairytale legacies. A tale I’ve carried so long, it feels like it grew up with me.

I finally sat down to write it the summer of 2023. Just weeks later, I learned my mom had been diagnosed with ALS.

Grief is a strange co-writer. It made everything feel urgent—Alora’s search for a cure became more than fiction, more than fantasy. It was survival. It was a way of making sense of the senseless. And while I wouldn’t wish that kind of heartbreak on anyone, it broke open something in me that made the writing matter more than it ever had.

And here’s what I learned: there is no perfect process. No ideal starting point. No “correct” way to pour your soul into a story.

There’s only the idea burning a hole in your chest—and the mess of trying to get it out.

So if you’re sitting there wondering how to begin, forget doing it “right.” Forget polished prose or perfect outlines. Dump the story onto the page however it wants to come. Write what happens—not how it’s supposed to feel, not how it will eventually sound. You can fix the shape later. For now, just give yourself permission to begin.

The First Draft Is Supposed to Be Chaos

Nobody walks into their first draft with a map—they walk in with a match and pray something catches fire.

This is where most new writers get stuck: they think the first draft has to be good. But it doesn’t. It just has to exist. You’re not writing literature—you’re excavating a story. Digging through scenes you’ve imagined a hundred times and connecting them with wild guesses and hopeful transitions. The prose doesn’t have to be beautiful. The dialogue doesn’t have to be sharp. You’re building the skeleton, not the soul.

The best advice I can give? Write what happens. Not how it feels. Not how poetic or cinematic or emotionally resonant it might be someday. Just… what happens next?

If you get stuck, skip it. If you don’t know how a scene plays out, drop a placeholder:
→ [Insert argument here]
→ [This is where she realizes he’s been lying]
→ [Big reveal moment with terrible dialogue—fix later]

Nobody sees the first draft but you. It’s allowed to be ugly, inconsistent, overdramatic, underwritten, full of clichés and moments that don’t work yet. You’ll sort all that out later.

Your only job right now is to find the story. To get to the end. That’s the whole point of a first draft: figure out what you’re trying to say. The shaping, the structure, the artistry—that comes after.

So let it be chaos. That’s what it’s for.

Skip Ahead. Often. Shamelessly.

There are scenes that show up fully formed—ones that have been living in your head for years. Write those first.

That heartbreaking goodbye? The first kiss? The moment she finally steps into her power? If it’s burned into your imagination, that’s where you start. You don’t owe your story a linear path—not in the first draft. Chronology can wait.

Momentum matters more than order. If you stall out trying to write the scene in the tavern when what you really want to do is write the epic duel three chapters later—skip the tavern. Put a line that says [Tavern scene here—maybe someone gets stabbed?] and jump to the part that excites you. Your job right now is to keep going. To follow the fire.

Skipping ahead isn’t laziness—it’s strategy. When you chase the scenes that already live in your bones, you stay connected to your excitement. You stay in the story. And later, when you go back to stitch the pieces together, you’ll be surprised how much easier it is to fill the gaps once you know where you're headed.

Write the vivid moments first. Figure out the route later. Your novel doesn’t need to be written in order—it just needs to get written.

Forget Structure, Routines, and Rules (For Now)

Writing your first novel is a caffeine-fueled fever dream—and honestly, that’s exactly what it should be.

There’s no perfect outline to follow. No bulletproof method. No “one true way” to write a book. You’ll read craft books that swear by Save the Cat, or the Hero’s Journey, or Three Acts with Midpoints and Pinch Points, and you’ll think, Shouldn’t I be following a structure?

But the truth is, your first novel isn’t about getting it “right.” It’s about getting it out.

Forget the rituals. Forget the 2,000-word-a-day goal or the idea that you’re supposed to write every morning with tea and silence and a candle that smells like literary ambition. Most first novels are written in scraps—in furious midnight sprints, in notes jotted down during meetings, in weird stolen hours when the inspiration finally hits.

This is how you learn what kind of writer you are. Do you need outlines? Do you despise them? Are you a marathoner or a sprinter? Do you write best in silence or with thunderstorm ambiance and a playlist labeled “villain vibes”? You don’t know yet—but this book will show you.

Every novel you write after this one will look different. More refined, maybe. More intentional. But the first one? The first one is fire and chaos and creative survival. Let it be messy. Let it teach you.

Treat It Like an Affair

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about how you should treat your creative work like an affair: secret, sacred, consuming.

She says that when you’re passionately in love, you make time. You don’t wait until everything is calm and quiet. You take the 10 minutes parked in the driveway before you walk inside, the hour before dawn, the stolen seconds between meetings—because you have to. You’re obsessed. You’ll rearrange your life just to sneak in one more moment with them.

That’s how you treat your writing.

Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait until your house is clean, the schedule clears, or you finally feel “ready.” You’ll wait forever. Instead, steal time for your story like it’s a secret romance. Sneak out of bed early. Stay up late. Jot a line on a napkin. Email a scene to yourself from your work computer. Write in the parking lot. On your lunch break. In the five-minute window before your next obligation begins.

This isn’t about discipline. It’s about desire. When you protect your joy—fiercely, privately—you keep the flame alive. That spark will carry you when the structure fails, when motivation wavers, when the story feels impossible. Passion is the thing that gets you through.

And here’s the thing most people won’t tell you: don’t talk about it. Not at first.

Work in secret. Let the story be yours and yours alone for a while. Don’t post word counts or outlines. Don’t explain the plot over coffee. Don’t invite opinions before the foundation’s even set. Nothing will drain your excitement faster than someone casually asking, “So… how’s the book coming along?” or, worse, “You really think it’s gonna be good enough?”

Your early writing is a fragile thing. Exposing it too soon is like setting out a sapling in a windstorm. Keep it sheltered. Let it grow roots. Let you grow roots. Write like no one knows—like no one ever has to—and you’ll find a kind of freedom that makes the words come easier, truer, yours.

Because they are. Until you decide otherwise.

You Will Learn More by Doing It Than by Studying It

You can read every craft book on the shelf, follow a dozen author newsletters, memorize beat sheets and scene maps—and still feel completely unprepared the first time you try to write a book. That’s because no amount of studying can simulate what actually happens when it’s you at the keyboard, trying to bring a world to life one word at a time.

Writing a novel teaches you things no class or podcast ever could.

You’ll learn what pacing feels like in your own voice—when a scene drags, when a moment needs room to breathe, when you're rushing past the good stuff. You’ll find the spots where your characters fall flat or suddenly sound like someone else entirely. You’ll figure out what to do when a scene won’t cooperate, when a subplot collapses, or when the magic you imagined doesn’t quite show up on the page. And most importantly, you’ll start to learn which bits of writing advice actually help you—and which ones just don’t.

You will mess up. A lot. You’ll overwrite. Underwrite. Get lost in your own plot. Discover your middle is mush and your ending doesn’t land. You’ll lose steam. You’ll lose direction. You’ll lose confidence.

And that’s exactly how you learn.

There’s no substitute for experience—and writing your first book is an education like no other. It’s messy. It’s infuriating. It’s one long, stubborn act of figuring things out by failing forward.

But by the time you reach the end? You’ll know more about writing than you ever did before. And more importantly—you’ll know yourself as a writer.

Your First Book Is Your Best Teacher

But more than anything—it will show you what kind of writer you are.

You don’t need permission. You don’t need a plan. You just need to start.

So go write it. Finish the messy thing. And let it teach you everything it can.

Because the best writing advice in the world can’t teach you what your first draft will.

As Always. Happy writing.

Magnolia 🌿

---