I’m Writing a Novel

One of my favorite writing jokes is about the writer who finally finishes his novel after three years.

He tells a friend who doesn’t write, and the friend says, “Three years? What took you so long?”

Then he tells another writer, who says, “Three years? How did you do it so fast?”

Hi, I’m Tarek, and I’m writing a novel.

This video series is going to follow the process—what I’m working on, what I’m struggling with, what’s going well, and all the moments when I realize that the thing I thought I fixed last week is, in fact, not fixed.

I’m making this series with three groups of people in mind.

First group: readers. If you love books but don’t necessarily want to write one yourself, I thought you might enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at how a novel actually gets made.

Spoiler: very slowly.

The second group this is for is other writers. Writing can be isolating and lonely, and I hope this series can offer some sense of community—a chance to see how another writer works, what I’m learning, and which strategies are actually helping me move forward.

And if you’re currently dealing with writer’s block, plot holes, sagging middles, or one of the many other joys of writing a novel, you can at least take comfort in knowing that I’m probably dealing with one too. Misery loves company!

And lastly, this is for myself. This series will be part diary, part accountability mechanism, and part record of the emotional journey of writing a novel.

There’s also a practical benefit to creating this record. As of this video (September 2026), accusations about writers using generative AI are everywhere. I do not use generative AI to write my novel, so I hope these videos will also provide a dated record of how this book actually came together: one draft, one problem, and one questionable decision at a time.

About once a week, I’ll post an update covering what I set out to do, what went well, what went wrong, and where the manuscript currently stands. I’ll talk about everything from word count to plot and structure, and by the end of it, you should have a comprehensive list of all the things not to do.

One note about this project is that this is actually my second novel. My first is finished but not yet published, and while I’m still working on getting it there, starting something fresh will be a nice change of pace.

This novel will be an upmarket satirical thriller. I’m aiming for about 90,000 words, which works out to roughly 300 printed pages. If I can write 2500 words each week, that’ll get me a finished first draft by May 2027. I wrote the first pages on September 7, 2026, and I’ve added to the manuscript every day since. As of filming this, the streak is still alive.

But more on that in the next video. For now, this is just an introduction: who I am, what I’m doing, and evidence that I am, in fact, doing this of my own volition.

So thanks for watching, and if this sounds like your kind of journey, I hope you’ll follow along. Happy reading, happy writing, and I’ll see you in the next one.

Tarek Writes a Novel is a writing vlog following the behind-the-scenes reality of writing a full length manuscript. I’ll be posting updates roughly once a week, talking about what I wrote, what worked, what didn’t, and the craft problems I’m trying to solve.