So, over the holiday, I did something crazy. It was drastic. I regret nothing.
Way back in 2015, which seems like just a short period but was now almost half a decade, I released my very first novel The Travelers. It was the first in a series, and I had huge plans for it.
Flash forward nearly five years later, and I realize this book was incredibly problematic, not just for who I currently am as a human and a writer, but also for the genre.
The top ten reasons why my first novel is no longer in distribution.
One: It’s no longer in brand.
As an author, or any sort of content creator, I have to have a brand. And that means that the things I have out under this pen name all sort of go together. Or, at least, go together well enough I’m not embarrassed by them.
My current brand is queer f/f books, which means I write about girls who kiss girls. The Travelers was very much a straight romance with very unhealthy heterosexual issues. Which leads me to my next point.
Two: Jaze (my male protagonist) was a total Edward.
If you’ve read Twilight, whether you love it or hate it, no one can deny that book Edward was a little (a lot) creepy. Even movie Edward was a stalky stalker.
And like the 17 year old I was when I started writing The Travelers, I made Jaze just freaking like him.
Jaze is a traveler. He’s invisible to the human eye unless he reveals himself, and he follows Alex around for months before he does that. And when he does, he’s unshaven, dirty, and he’s presented like a homeless man is stalking her.
But she falls for him anyway. She reasons out that it’s a-okay because he didn’t mean to be a creepo stalker. (I was young and dumb okay).
Three: Just bad writing.
Alex is bullied for no reason. She’s called a loser, and then when she let’s her hair down and changes her clothes, people don’t recognize her and think she’s beautiful. That happens in real life. Shy, introverted girls hide behind baggy clothes and get made fun of for it. And I could have worked with that. I could have written that in a healthy way. But, I didn’t.
Jaze buys her gifts to win her affection. It’s not even secretive. She’s grown up pretty poor, and having nice things excites her. And this leads her to think creepy stalko master is not so bad.
She’s a secret princess. And it’s not even hidden well.
They fall in love for no reason. There’s no romance arc. There’s no chemistry. They sort of just tumble together. She goes from this guy is creepy to I’m going to dress up and change everything about myself to impress him within like four chapters, and nothing happens in that time to motivate that but him buying her gifts.
I’ll be the last to admit I can write pretty. There were aspects to this book that were gorgeous, but the overall story line was terrible.
Four: The format was hard to read
I wrote this book with a split point of view (POV).Which is to say that one chapter is from Alex’s POV, and the next from Jaze’s, and so on and so forth. This back and forth format has become rather normal in romance in the recent years, but I did it wrong.
I didn’t have enough plot to actually make a full length novel with both of them having entirely different experiences. So I repeated myself.
Some of the chapters are a literal recap of what just happened from the other character’s side of things. And, looking back as a reader, I imagine it was rather annoying.
Five: It needed more time.
The truth is that I should have waited to release this novel. How long? You might ask.
Long enough to realize I shouldn’t have ever released it.
I don’t regret writing a heterosexual romance. I regret writing a heterosexual romance that is toxic. And, had I worked more on the novel and romance arc itself, or even known what a romance arc was at the time, I would have seen that.
What I regret is writing a YA novel, no matter the sexuality, and presenting love to teens in a toxic way.
Six: It was full of typos
Now, I let my mom do the editing on this book, and I don’t regret that. She did a fantastic job. Back before my brother and I were born, my mom wanted to move to Chicago and edit books.
So, my dream brain thought we could both live out our dreams with this novel. I had big dreams, y’all, big dreams.
I don’t know if it’s because I did my formatting after her edits were complete. Which is entirely possible because that happened with another book of mine.
But the final product had tons of typos, and it drove me crazy.
Seven: I wrote the book as a coping mechanism
When I was writing this book, I was in the beginning, middle, and end of what was possibly the most toxic, abusive, and down right horrific relationship of my entire life. And my writing reflected on that.
For most of my life, writing has been an escape. And that’s exactly what this story was for me. It was an escape from that toxic relationship.
But just because it was a good escape from the horrors of real life, does not mean I should have actually published it.
Eight: I had no motivation to finish the story
Because this was a series, and because it was awful from the beginning, I had literally no motivation to finish it. I’m out of that relationship. I no longer need to cope with that pain on the daily. And there is no way to turn this story around.
Plus, my wife (and muse) is pulling me in other directions.
Nine: The story started out as a nightmare
I literally had a nightmare about Jaze the stalky stalker following me. In my dream, I was Alex. And it was terrifying.
Why would I write that as a romance novel? Who knows.
Oh wait, I do. I wrote it as a romance novel because Twilight told me it was okay.
Ten: Taking it down made me feel more confidence as a writer
It’s not just because of the brand. It’s not just the bad writing or the tropes or any of the above. Having this book still selling to people who read YA, having it leaving a nasty coffee stain on my pen name, having it out there for more people to get their hands on, made writing hard.
If it was for sale, in my head at least, I needed to finish the story. But, I didn’t want to.
Taking it down meant taking away the pressure to finish an awful story I no longer have a connection to. It took away the guilt of not writing it. And it gave me the motivation and confidence to work on stories I actually love, with characters who aren’t toxic monsters from my literal nightmares.
Here’s the takeaway from this blog post. You are not defined by the worst thing you’ve ever written. As a writer, you’re meant to grow, get better, and learn from your mistakes.
And lastly, don’t feel pressure to release the first full length novel you ever write. You have something better in that wonderful writer brain of yours, and you’ll get there.
Release something you love, something you’re passionate about, something you won’t regret later. Heck, you may love it and be passionate about it now, but still regret it later. But, hopefully, you can give yourself the time to make it not…quite this awful.