This year, I finally started and finished writing a romance novel. As a neurodivergent writer, this is a major accomplishment – I’ve started plenty of novels, but this is the first I’ve ever completed.
Writing can be difficult for anyone, but neurodivergent writers tend to struggle even more. This is usually due to a lack of resources, support, and encouragement.
To help others, I’ve chronicled my writing journey here from the planning stage up to finishing. I’ve also included some tips that I found useful.
Note: I won’t be disclosing what book I wrote, whether it’s published or not, for my own privacy and mental health.
Preparing to write a romance novel
After getting the idea for a contemporary romance, I started by outlining the characters, their character development, and key events.
I had a publisher in mind, so based on their word count expectation I wrote down approximately how many chapters I’d need – assuming each chapter would be between 2000 and 3000 words, I ended up with 20 chapters for a minimum of 40,000 and a maximum of 60,000 words.
I then used the key events and character development arc notes to fill in the chapters, ending with a Happily Ever After. With the chapter outlines, I managed to add some more details about their personality and added this to the character notes.
Finally, I did some basic research on their jobs, as everything else in the novel I felt confident about. For more character inspiration, I used BorrowBox to look at some magazines for an idea of what the protagonists might be reading about or experiencing. Because a specific industry was a major part of their intertwined plot, I even subscribed to a magazine via my library.
Thanks to my hyperfixating, I ended up with two things most people don’t: an idea of a publisher and the ideal literary agent to contact. I didn’t need a literary agent in order to submit to the publisher, but I wanted the comfort of knowing that someone else would be involved and handle legal, financial, and logistical things for me.
Writing a romance novel
This isn’t my first time trying to write a novel. But what was different about this time, other than the genre, was simple: I was using my hyperfixation on writing to do as much as possible before I either burned out or hyperfixated on something else.
I started writing on 29 March 2024, and finished writing 11 August 2024.
When writing, I suffered from the usual kind of imposter syndrome around my writing not being ‘good enough’, which slowed down the process. When imposter syndrome struck, I repeated an affirmation to myself: “There’s a place for everyone’s writing, including mine.”
To keep me in the mood, I watched a lot of First Dates on Channel 4. I really wanted to channel the contemporary feeling of dates, so having it in the background helped me come up with and refine some of the dialogue.
One of the first things I watched was the Barbie movie – not because I thought it was romantic. I wanted the feminist, girl power vibes to rub off on my writing.
When I didn’t have the TV on, I was listening to romantic, sapphic music. I put together a playlist so I could keep it on repeat and go back to it when it was time to edit as well.
A lot of writers are asked, “How many words do you write a day?” I answer it more below, but I don’t like to focus on this. I still did for the first day, which I regret, because it meant getting back into writing after getting ill was more difficult than it should have been.
On my first day of writing this novel, I wrote three chapters and roughly 6000 words. I’d hoped to do more like 10 000, but I was happy with this number. It was more than a tenth of the novel! On the second day, I did another 6000 words.
And then I got sick, and spent 2 weeks unable to write at all. I did a lot of daydreaming about what success might look like for me, ranging from just finishing the novel to having it published and being asked for a sequel. Once I was well enough again, I hopped on my laptop and continued writing.
I wrote 5000 words on the first day back to writing. The worst part about tracking my word count here is how much I compared my progress to the first two days. Having a 100-word minimum was a great way of reminding myself that it was still a massive chunk of progress.
At this point, I was about to start chapter nine, and was almost halfway through the book. My motivation had waned a bit, but I put that down to still being ill. Still, after a few days of only writing a few hundred to a few thousand words, I realised I needed to revise my writing routine.
After hitting 20k words, I put my new writing routine into action:
- I would write with my headphones on, listening to the playlist I made for the book.
- I would start by repeating a second affirmation: “One more word today is still one more word than yesterday.”
- When I needed a drink, I made chocolate milk – this took care of my hydration and helped me associate a treat with writing.
- When I got stuck, I browsed Pinterest, flicked through a magazine, or went searching for new music to add to the playlist.
I didn’t set a time to start writing, because some days I would wake up and feel like writing. Other times I’d work first, then have dinner, before transitioning over to writing.
Some people have dedicated writing spaces. For me, I had two laptops. Once I closed my work laptop, I was cutting off my working time, and opening my personal laptop meant I was starting my writing time.
The writing routine worked really well for me. I dedicated a weekend to writing, where I hit the halfway mark, then wrote 8000 words the next day. I started getting caught up in the thought that I could just send queries as soon as I finished this draft, which I recognised as impulsivity (thanks, ADHD!).
And then I came to a stop. For two months, I really struggled to write anything, but eventually managed to get to the final chapter. I stopped again. I wasn’t doing my writing routine – a mistake I wish I’d rectified sooner – and despite thinking about writing I rarely opened my laptop to look at the manuscript.
With only one chapter left, I was overwhelmed with the pressure of finishing it. I’d never finished a novel before, only ever short stories. It was a major obstacle. Despite accountability check-ins with the Queerly Written UK group on Facebook, I barely managed more than a couple of words.
I joined a queer, neurodivergent writers group. In my first meeting, I managed to write half of the last chapter, but once again I was stuck. The pressure was building up again.
Encouragement from some of my friends was a big boost for writing the last 2000 words. One friend suggested I query a literary agent they knew, and that was enough to push me from the idealistic fantasy world of querying into the realisation that very soon I’d actually be able to query agents.
When I finally completed the manuscript, it was an amazing feeling. I can’t believe how much weight lifted off of my shoulders. That also meant I felt really impulsive about entering the next stage.
Most advice says to put your manuscript to the side before you start editing it. I really wanted to find some literary agents to query, so I started looking into that as a distraction, but I also went through and formatted the manuscript too.
And that’s it. Writing a romance novel wasn’t an easy task, but I’m really glad I managed to keep going with it. Even if it took me longer than I expected too.
That’s my journey so far. Editing and querying are the next steps, and I intend to do them at the same time, but I’m also starting to look at other ideas for a sequel or next book.
Writing tips for neurodivergent writers
Based on my own experiences of writing, my top writing tips for neurodivergent writers are:
- Reduce the pressure to write – I only shared that I’d started a new writing project with two close friends and my counsellor, until I finished the whole manuscript.
- Set reasonable expectations – only after I saw how much progress I was making did I make a time-bound goal of completing the manuscript within a month (which was then ruined by getting sick).
- A writing routine is what you want it to be – be flexible and find ways that work for you, it can be about writing in a particular place, listening to a particular playlist or music genre, or anything you need it to be, it doesn’t just have to be when you write.
- Your manuscript can be arranged however you need it to be – I didn’t draft with Times Roman, 12-point font, I used Comfortaa, 12-point font, which looks more aesthetically pleasing. In my other writing, I use Merriweather, 12-point font. It’s only after the manuscript is finished that I format it for submissions.
Questions about writing a romance novel
How many words did you write per day?
This question has plagued me for years. I don’t write daily, and daily writing goals don’t help me. I feel demotivated when I don’t reach those goals.
If I need a goal, I aim for 100 words, because I can outperform this easily on most days. If I can’t manage more than a word, that’s okay. It’s one more word than yesterday.
Writing a romance novel is different to writing short fiction too – I tend to write short stories in one or two sittings. I knew I had to be as realistic as possible, so the mantra of One more word today is still one more word than yesterday. helped a lot.
Are you a planner or a pantser?
I’m definitely a planner. I had an initial idea, inspired from something I’d watched online, and then began to develop my two protagonists. Then I wrote a list of events in the book, which helped me plot out the chapters.
I ended up with 20 chapters in total, because I prefer to have an even amount of chapters for each protagonist. I knew that I wanted a fairly short romance novel, so this seemed pretty realistic.
I did go back to edit some of the chapters later, and they didn’t always work out perfectly in line with what I expected. Over the course of writing, I discarded some notes and added many more, but I kept my outline updated so that I could use it as a guide for writing a synopsis.
The main draw of planning for me is having an idea of where the characters begin and end up. It helps me write in character development without having to go back and edit more in later, which can disrupt the flow of writing more.
Did you set any writing goals?
I had a few different writing goals that helped me write.
The first, and most important in this case, was reaching and sticking to the word count I needed. This started at about 40k for the total novel (intending to flesh it out later), but halfway through I reworked the word count to 50k.
To split the word count through chapters, I used the outline I’d prepared and figured out that each chapter needed to be around 2.5k words. I wasn’t strict about that. For the first half of the novel, most chapters were 2k to 2.5k words, but at the halfway mark I added some longer chapters of 3k. It gave me enough room to add more when editing while still being realistic.
Personally, I prefer writing shorter fiction – I didn’t want to commit to more than 50k, but I would have been fine if I went over it. Thanks to having these word count goals for each chapter, I could track how much more of a chapter I had left. If I felt the chapter was coming to a close but I had 500+ words, I added in other details or a new scene.
My other writing goals were more around what happens after publishing, which gave me something to aspire to. But even just having a ‘Finish writing [book]’ goal in my journal helped me, because as soon as I finished I got to highlight it as completed.
Why did you write a romance novel?
I’ve never written in the romance genre before, aside one or two short stories. But recently I’ve been reading more romance novels and found a deep appreciation for the genre. LGBTQ+ romance fiction has been really uplifting for me in the past year, so I knew it was something I needed to experiment with.
It’s not the genre I thought I’d complete a novel in, but I’m glad experimenting has helped me accomplish this major goal. It’s not a good feeling, to have so many unfinished writing projects. Now that I’ve completed one major 50k-word novel, I know I can do it again. Hopefully for other genres too.