Two Years Writing a Novel. Seven Months Begging Strangers to Read It.
From the outside, a writer’s life looks glamorous. Sipping coffee in an exotic locale. Inspiration flowing like fine Bordeaux.
Ha! If only.
Here’s the story of writing my sixth novel, Ritual, which spent two years diligently trying to kill me. At times it felt like wrestling a Komodo dragon in the pouring rain: slippery, dangerous, and I was losing.
On paper, the setting was lovely. A villa in Bali, geckos chattering, scooters humming in the distance. In reality, I was a hermit in yesterday’s shorts, shuffling out each morning to my favourite warung to stare at the ocean and wait for a plot twist. The waves never delivered. The ocean, it turns out, is a terrible co-writer, and it doesn’t even return emails.
Some days, the words poured out like a monsoon. Other days, a drought. I paced the veranda, muttering to the geckos, who, to their credit, never offered advice. I wondered why I hadn’t chosen something easier, like lion-taming or quantum physics.
I’m used to quick hits: travel journal pieces, Substack, a bit of Medium and the occasional Bebee post. A novel, as I should have known, is running a marathon in flip-flops, uphill both ways.
Then came the edit.
My first editor and I weren’t the perfect fit, and we parted ways. I was left with a manuscript like a man whose GPS has just sent him to the far side of a rice paddy.
Salvation arrived in the form of two new editors, sharp as tacks and twice as pointy. One was a seasoned literary pro who cut the dead weight and stitched up the wounds. The other, a fresh voice, brought energy the book had been missing.
We bridged time zones with late-night Zoom calls (Bali is not exactly in sync with the rest of the planet), egos clashed (mostly mine, mostly wrongly), and finally, Ritual began to breathe.
My advice to new writers: find your editors early, treat them like royalty, and never argue with someone who’s right. In my case, that was everyone.
Then my publisher printed it, listed it for distribution, and said, in effect, “Over to you.”
I had assumed promotion was a team sport. It is. I was the team.
I am no digital native. My idea of networking was swapping stories over arak in a Flores village or chatting with strangers in a dusty African lodge. Now it was Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter, for those keeping score). I dove in headfirst, armed with enthusiasm and no clue.
What’s a hashtag? Why does it feel like shouting into a void? I posted moody sunsets with cryptic quotes and got four likes, one of them from a bot selling replica watches. I filmed myself reading excerpts against the ocean, and the wind did most of the reading. My first Reel made me look like a hostage reading a prepared statement.
But then something odd happened. A post took off, and my phone pinged like a slot machine. Reviews trickled in. “Gripping!” said one. “Your best yet!” said another. I’ve read each one of them roughly four hundred times, which my doctor tells me is not a healthy number. One of my daughters agreed, as one of the reviews was hers.
Within a month I was a gambling addict: pull the lever, check the phone, repeat. A like from a stranger halfway across the world who actually gets the story? Better than coffee, and I take my coffee strong enough to strip paint.
The cost: in seven months I’ve barely written a thing. My Substack lay fallow, and Medium is gathering digital dust. Somewhere out there, a travel writer is tragically not travelling.
Light eventually pierced the gloom, though. Ritual was chosen to launch at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, moderated by the incomparable Erin Woodward of the Gloss Book Club.
None of my earlier novels has had a spotlight like it. In a way, it was a chance to step out of the digital shadows and watch readers’ eyes light up (or glaze over; fingers crossed for the former). For weeks I rehearsed my humble shrug in the mirror. It still needs work.
Have I cracked it? Not yet. However, I’m now fluent in the word “engagement,” which sadly does not pay the rent.
So why tell you all this?
Because if you’re hammering away at your own manuscript, or lost in the promotional maze, you’re not alone. The road is lonely and paved with doubt and detours, but now and then, everything clicks.
If Ritual sounds like your sort of trouble, do have a read. https://books2read.com/Ritual-Paul-V-Walters-
And remember the words of a weary wordsmith: if you don’t go, you’ll never know.
Bali, Indonesia, October 2026
