Yesterday I attended a presentation hosted by the Vancouver Writers Fest. The speaker, Daniel Levitin — psychologist, neuroscientist, musician and best-selling author, told the audience that it was not unusual for him to write 50 drafts of a manuscript before moving onto the next step. 50 drafts! Hearing Levitin’s confession I was suddenly taken back to a writer’s festival in Richmond many years ago. One of the authors presenting told the audience that it took him 10 years to finish his book. I remember thinking how ridiculous. But, since then I have come across successful authors who have taken even longer from start to finish usually with years when there was no writing going on at all. I’m not that young and don’t have the luxury of taking 10 or more years to finish my book. But I am now feeling that it’s time to continue working on my manuscript. The challenge for me will be to make it messy and focus on getting the words on the page. I have been struggling to finish the first draft of my novel The Mexican Connection. This is the working title of course and I’m pretty sure it will change more than once before its published. Perhaps it’s an understatement to say that I’ve been struggling. After a pretty good start in which I wrote 45,000 words I stopped writing period. I stopped writing blog posts, I stopped writing articles and sadly I stopped writing my novel. Writing is a confusing venture at the best of times. But writing a mystery novel can be tricky. As with any novel you need an intriguing story that makes readers want to keep turning the pages. But you also need to keep the reader guessing. Who is the villain? What’s the story behind the story? You have to create a challenging whodunit but not so challenging that readers can’t solve the crime. Everyone has their reasons for hitting the wall. I think I was trying too hard to write the perfect first draft. In the meantime, I’m learning the craft of writing mysteries.