1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,260 Speaker 1: Welcome back to Second Draft, the podcast about writing and rewriting. 2 00:00:05,260 --> 00:00:10,130 I'm Nora, and today, my guest is Sam Okafor, who spent four years turning a 3 00:00:10,130 --> 00:00:14,156 self-published novel into a book that a real publisher bought. 4 00:00:14,156 --> 00:00:15,156 Sam, welcome. 5 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:16,739 Speaker 2: Thanks, Nora. 6 00:00:16,739 --> 00:00:20,000 It's good to be here and slightly terrifying. 7 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,376 Speaker 1: Let's start at the beginning. 8 00:00:22,376 --> 00:00:25,168 The first version of the book came out in 2019. 9 00:00:25,168 --> 00:00:26,168 What happened? 10 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:28,596 Speaker 2: Honestly, almost nothing. 11 00:00:28,596 --> 00:00:34,582 It sold about 40 copies, mostly to my family, but one reviewer wrote that the first 12 00:00:34,582 --> 00:00:40,495 50 pages were a different book from the rest, and that sentence stayed with me for 13 00:00:40,495 --> 00:00:41,495 a year. 14 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:43,000 Speaker 1: Was she right? 15 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:44,391 Speaker 2: Completely. 16 00:00:44,391 --> 00:00:49,259 The opening was a thriller, and the rest was a family story, so in the second 17 00:00:49,259 --> 00:00:52,230 draft, I cut the first three chapters entirely. 18 00:00:52,230 --> 00:00:54,000 That was about 20,000 words. 19 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:55,316 Speaker 1: That's brutal. 20 00:00:55,316 --> 00:00:57,000 How did you decide what to keep? 21 00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,116 Speaker 2: I printed the whole thing and read it in one weekend with a red pen. 22 00:00:59,116 --> 00:01:00,116 I only kept scenes where somebody 23 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,778 Sam Okafor: He wanted something and didn't get it. 24 00:01:02,778 --> 00:01:05,000 My rule was simple: no desire, no scene. 25 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:06,722 Speaker 2: No desire, no scene. 26 00:01:06,722 --> 00:01:07,722 I like that. 27 00:01:07,722 --> 00:01:09,167 Let's talk about feedback. 28 00:01:09,167 --> 00:01:10,167 Who read your drafts? 29 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,807 Sam Okafor: A writing group that met in a library in Leeds every second Tuesday. 30 00:01:14,807 --> 00:01:15,807 Six people. 31 00:01:15,807 --> 00:01:19,292 They were kind, but they were also honest, which is rarer. 32 00:01:19,292 --> 00:01:24,000 I also read Ursula Le Guin's book Steering the Craft three times during that period. 33 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,000 Speaker 2: And then the publisher, how did that happen? 34 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,896 Sam Okafor: Through an agent who found me in a short story competition. 35 00:01:30,896 --> 00:01:34,518 She said the novel was almost there, and asked for one more draft. 36 00:01:34,518 --> 00:01:36,000 That one took eight months. 37 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:42,019 Speaker 2: So for listeners who are stuck on a draft right now, what is the one 38 00:01:42,019 --> 00:01:44,000 thing you would tell them? 39 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:46,412 Sam Okafor: Finish the bad version first. 40 00:01:46,412 --> 00:01:49,000 You can't fix a book that doesn't exist yet. 41 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:51,667 Speaker 2: Sam Okafor, thank you. 42 00:01:51,667 --> 00:01:55,061 His novel, The Salt Year, is out in March. 43 00:01:55,061 --> 00:01:58,535 That's it for this episode of Second Draft.