I wrote the first draft of my first novel at Michigan, and then I wrote the first draft of 'Salvage the Bones' at Stanford. So I workshopped the entire thing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had already drafted the manuscript that would become my first book by the time I graduated from college, but I had no idea what to do with it.
Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft.
I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference.
When I began to write and used a typewriter, I went through three drafts of a book before showing it to an editor.
My first published novel, 'American Rust,' took three and a half years of full-time work to write. But I wrote two apprentice novels before that.
Unfortunately, there's still a lot of beginning writers who think you can just write your first draft and hand it in.
It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.
I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.
I had novels to write, so I wrote them.
I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript.
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