WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.260 Speaker 1: Welcome back to Second Draft, the podcast about writing and rewriting. 00:00:05.260 --> 00:00:10.130 I'm Nora, and today, my guest is Sam Okafor, who spent four years turning a 00:00:10.130 --> 00:00:14.156 self-published novel into a book that a real publisher bought. 00:00:14.156 --> 00:00:15.156 Sam, welcome. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:16.739 Speaker 2: Thanks, Nora. 00:00:16.739 --> 00:00:20.000 It's good to be here and slightly terrifying. 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.376 Speaker 1: Let's start at the beginning. 00:00:22.376 --> 00:00:25.168 The first version of the book came out in 2019. 00:00:25.168 --> 00:00:26.168 What happened? 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.596 Speaker 2: Honestly, almost nothing. 00:00:28.596 --> 00:00:34.582 It sold about 40 copies, mostly to my family, but one reviewer wrote that the first 00:00:34.582 --> 00:00:40.495 50 pages were a different book from the rest, and that sentence stayed with me for 00:00:40.495 --> 00:00:41.495 a year. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.000 Speaker 1: Was she right? 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:44.391 Speaker 2: Completely. 00:00:44.391 --> 00:00:49.259 The opening was a thriller, and the rest was a family story, so in the second 00:00:49.259 --> 00:00:52.230 draft, I cut the first three chapters entirely. 00:00:52.230 --> 00:00:54.000 That was about 20,000 words. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.316 Speaker 1: That's brutal. 00:00:55.316 --> 00:00:57.000 How did you decide what to keep? 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. 00:00:59.116 --> 00:01:00.116 I only kept scenes where somebody 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.778 Sam Okafor: He wanted something and didn't get it. 00:01:02.778 --> 00:01:05.000 My rule was simple: no desire, no scene. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:06.722 Speaker 2: No desire, no scene. 00:01:06.722 --> 00:01:07.722 I like that. 00:01:07.722 --> 00:01:09.167 Let's talk about feedback. 00:01:09.167 --> 00:01:10.167 Who read your drafts? 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.807 Sam Okafor: A writing group that met in a library in Leeds every second Tuesday. 00:01:14.807 --> 00:01:15.807 Six people. 00:01:15.807 --> 00:01:19.292 They were kind, but they were also honest, which is rarer. 00:01:19.292 --> 00:01:24.000 I also read Ursula Le Guin's book Steering the Craft three times during that period. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:27.000 Speaker 2: And then the publisher, how did that happen? 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:30.896 Sam Okafor: Through an agent who found me in a short story competition. 00:01:30.896 --> 00:01:34.518 She said the novel was almost there, and asked for one more draft. 00:01:34.518 --> 00:01:36.000 That one took eight months. 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 00:01:42.019 --> 00:01:44.000 thing you would tell them? 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.412 Sam Okafor: Finish the bad version first. 00:01:46.412 --> 00:01:49.000 You can't fix a book that doesn't exist yet. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.667 Speaker 2: Sam Okafor, thank you. 00:01:51.667 --> 00:01:55.061 His novel, The Salt Year, is out in March. 00:01:55.061 --> 00:01:58.535 That's it for this episode of Second Draft.