Eight years ago I sat down to write a novel, because my knees are lousy, so I couldn’t do it standing. The book’s setting is San Francisco, and its inciting incident is the earthquake of 1989, which flings together—in often unseemly ways—three characters who otherwise would have remained on the periphery of each others’ lives. The work proceeded at my standard brisk pace: I started it, stopped, muddled about, felt guilty it wasn’t going anywhere, took it up again, outlined and pretended that was actual writing, blamed the characters for not fully investing in their fates, paused, dribbled and paused.
Before I’d gotten very deep (well, the deepest part of the shallow end of the scribbling pool), I’d decided I wanted a multiple point-of-view perspective from the three central characters: one first person, and two in close third person. That felt like the best way to tell the tale, and had a writing challenge in it for me. Thus, I perspectivized thusly. Doing the math: I added up the characters, setting, murky-but-sketched-out story arc, two substantive subplots and the opportunity to write. The sum of the figures: Zero, because I kept pausing in the work. Long pauses.
For a couple of years, I fiddled with correcting the first six or seven chapters, outlined some more, thought about it and then not, and called that all writing. (And when I’ve had enough bourbon, I call a rosebush a horse too.) After about two and half years, because I am slow on the uptake, I shamed myself into writing a mere half-hour a day, on weekdays, and was able to finish the damn thing in a few months. I’d read several bushels of novels (even self-pubbed an earlier one) and I thought this resembled one. Four beta readers agreed, and after revising from their considered comments, I sent it out to agents. This is a good way to get some yard work done.
A Chorus of Nos
There are a lot of ways to say “no”: many are gracious, some blunt, some are merely the answer of no answer at all. Even the maybes (a fair number of partials, a few full manuscript requests) ended with the shade drawn slowly down. Notwithstanding that 50 or 60 agents could be plumb crazy or boorish philistines, there seemed to be a clue that perhaps the work was wanting in some way. The work needed more work. I attacked this challenge vigorously: I put the novel on my hard drive’s shelf, to breathe.
So the thing slumbered for another long while, while I blandly pondered self-pubbing. Having spent a couple of years here at WriterUnboxed, where the tutelage of eagle-eyed savants like Don Maass, David Corbett, and Lisa Cron can’t help but inflict one with exquisite writerly pain, I began to see that there might be a couple of rips in the novel’s fabric that might necessitate some sewing. With a whaling harpoon.
[pullquote]I began to see that there might be a couple of rips in the novel’s fabric that might necessitate some sewing. With a whaling harpoon.[/pullquote]
I employed my own editing edification again, printing the creature out (again), reading it out loud (again), making trifling changes (again) and even sending it out to a small publisher—after vowing (again) to not send it out to anyone. There’s that old saw, often attributed to Einstein, that says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But hey, the shoes they gave me at the asylum fit well, so I plodded on.
No Bone Structure
Last week I heard back from the publisher, who (and very kindly) told me that while the book is well written and interesting, the lead, first-person character is annoying (wait, is this my sister talking about me?), and that the first-person perspective shared with the other two thirds might not work structurally. Yeah, that’s worth considering. I’m still considering.
Interestingly, I won a fellowship (minus the lodging fees) to a writing conference a few months back, based on the first 20 pages of this blasted book. The conference will be in two weeks, hosting four days of workshop sessions, where authors’ ideas (and heads) are tossed about, cheeks pinched and hair fluffed. I have a masters in creative writing, so I know from workshops: there can be much good in them, and some bad, but when I shop, I never buy the bad avocados anyway, so that’s all fine.
[pullquote]All this has been a long-winded way of me getting to wondering if, after eight years, I have the stamina to make the necessary—and still to be determined—changes to enliven this work.[/pullquote]
All this has been a long-winded way of me getting to wondering if, after eight years, I have the stamina to make the necessary—and still to be determined—changes to enliven this work. When I heard I’d won the fellowship, I considered sending them pages from the novel I’m working on—slowly—now, because its characters are the ones I’ve been mulling, in my mind and on the page. The last time I read the old book, I still liked it, still thought it resembled a novel, still thought it had a heart. (Of course, like a snoring relative, I still resented it too, and thought it lacking in ways, but hey, that’s a writer’s life.) This love/hate thing has me thinking my own opinion is worth a composted potato.
I really don’t know where I’ll go with this; the novel I self-published a few years ago is a slight work, even though it has some merit. My book of short stories, published by a small press, has some decent stories. That’s not quite good enough this time. I’m not the same guy I was eight years ago, though some of my pals might say that’s an advantage. I do think of Mark Twain, who wrestled with Huckleberry Finn for seven or eight years, tinkering forever to its eventual publication. The book is a masterpiece, but yet, it has that cockeyed ending that doesn’t quite taste like the last, lingering bite that a grand banquet should. We should all be so flawed.
I could always tinker for a few more years, and then I can simultaneously write/publish the sequel to Don Maass’s book: Writing the Breakout Novel (at 90). I’ll get an ear trumpet for my cell phone for all the congratulatory calls.
So, ye of WU, do you have a novel that’s been on your back for a while? Does it resemble a hunch? How do you feel about your work that has something, but perhaps not enough of it? Slash and burn? Slash and create? Leave the smoldering ashes and move on?
About Tom Bentley
Tom Bentley is still trying to figure out what flavor of writer he is, but so far he’s a short story writer, novelist, essayist, travel writer, journalist, and business copywriter. He edits all that stuff too. His new book, Think Like a Writer: How to Write the Stories You See is available as an ebook on Amazon. His singing has been known to frighten the horses.
Yes. My 2nd book is, dare I say it out loud? 12 years in the making, still to be completed! It went into a deep slumber for 8 years while I was busy with the rest of my life being a therapist, travelling and a million other interesting things that occupied me. It woke up a year ago. Yet I still struggle with half an hour a day writing. I asked a friend how to start writing again and finish the book. The direct answer was, “Start writing.” Funny that. Your post strangely inspires me so thank you.
Sherry, a mere 12-year-old? But a callow youth (though it will eat all the cereal in the house). Your friend’s “butt to chair” advice does have merit, and I’m witness to the fact that a mere half-hour a day (which, on “characters on caffeine days” can often stretch to more) can result in substance, and perhaps even satisfaction.
Your book still phones you after 12 years. You answer, though the substance of the conversation has undoubtedly changed. It does sound like you need to carry the conversation to the end, to see how it turns out. Could be a novel.
By the way, I’m delighted that I strangely inspire you; my cat remains unmoved, but at least someone’s listening.
I hope your novel is a comedy, because I’m chuckling into my first Diet Coke of the day, while I listen to the roofers who showed up at 7:30 (instead of 8:30, as promised) with my industrial strength ear protection on, which just barely mutes the clomping going on above my head. It would be a shame to waste your ability to be funny (trust me, not that common).
My first novel (which I intend to rewrite some day) sits where I can easily run it through a scanner and OCR software (or retype it – might take about the same amount of time).
The one I’m almost finished with has taken 15 years (so there, Mark Twain).
The first one sits there, rather than being quietly discarded, because I love the characters, and did NOT do right by them, not yet. That novel badly needs structure, which I have some idea how to do now.
But, starting at this late date, and having two other 160K novels to write first, I don’t know if I will still be alive – and/or want to rewrite – the trunk novel. Ask me in five years.
Best of luck with yours – and may some of that be skill, rather than blind luck.
Alicia, from your well-composed comments I’ve seen from you here, I have no doubt that your novel is warm and richly threaded. And it has to be a foundational satisfaction that you’re nearing completion—good one!
As for that straggler in the archives, yes, I’m with you on having good characters that perhaps weren’t clothed exactly as they should have been. There are other clothes, but do you have the time to do the shopping? I wonder that about myself.
But man, Diet Coke at 7:30? You have a strong constitution, good lady.
Other people drink coffee, which has WAY more caffeine, first thing in the morning. My First Coke and Second Coke, suitably spaced over the morning’s working hours, are 1/4 of the caffeine – and yet no one tells coffee drinkers they have a strong constitution.
Discrimination, I call it!
Now, let me make a note somewhere to take those characters of mine shopping for new clothes – theirs are over 15 years old.
Hmmm. On the other hand, I believe by the time I get to it, and because it is set in 1975-1985 (I wasn’t too specific at the time), it actually qualifies (and will be marketed as) that rarest of creatures, a historical physics mystery. See, meanwhile, I have re-imagined is as a frame story – with a setup and epilogue in the present to explain why this was not information available when it happened, and…
No. I will not let it highjack the present. But we will see.
Alicia, I truly like the sound of “historical physics mystery”—back to the future, presently. And yes, those coffee drinkers are discriminatory (and their eyes bulge).
Hi Tom.
You tell a tale of woe that I am sure will find many sympathetic readers, people like yourself–people like myself–who have struggled to see what remained hidden.
“Where did it all go wrong?” is the lament. “Why should it be my fate to become a latter-day Job sitting in front of this thing with keys?”
But reading over your post raises a question for me. You enlisted beta readers for your manuscript, you sent it to agents, you sat at the knees of Writer Unboxed resident gurus.
But: “I employed my own editing edification again….” Nowhere do I see any reference in your piece to your having shopped around for a reliable professional editor (easy to do at Writer Unboxed), and dug into your pocket for this irreplaceable help.
Am I wrong? Did you submit your novel to the trained eyes of a professional editor? The good ones do not come cheap. But painful experience has convinced me that re-employing “my own editing edification” without first getting a pro’s cold, hard take on my work is a mistake. It results in something like those hapless tethered horses plodding in a circle to power a millstone. Except nothing is getting produced. Another analogy has to do with deck chairs on a certain large, doomed cruise ship.
Please advise.
Barry, thanks for weighing in, and weightily. Inarguably, novel-length works need to be looked at by a professional editor. Trying to fill the cracks and pull out the splinters is best done by licensed crack fillers and splinter pullers. But the expense really can be a hurdle. I should know: I’ve been editing books for years (though probably only 15-20 percent of them have been fiction), and I sometimes wobble in guilt when I send an invoice, even when I think I pulled out a lot of splinters.
I’ve given myself that metaphorical slap a few times: have someone edit this, dunderhead. But then the furnace needs to be replaced, the suspension on the car fails, and the latest, a complicated dental problem. But that’s like the lines from that old Dylan song, “… every time you turn around, there’s another hard-luck story that you’re gonna hear. And there’s really nothing anyone can say.”
So, agreed. Editing, from outside eyes, needed. Could happen.
Jeez, I don’t feel so bad about the seventeen months I’ve spent on the nearly complete rough draft of my first novel. I imagine what I could have done if I did not have to work full-time and tend an infant through his first year of life. Of course, I would have starved and been homeless and missed out on the current love of my life. Part time writing has been enough.
Then I look the thing over and realize that what I have so far is a big, fat, bloviating, self-indulgent heap of yeah-yeah that’s going to have to be slashed, burned and turned inside out once I decide on whether it’s going to lean literary or flap ’til it flies as a commercial, plain brown wrapper beach read. The words are all there. The thing that keeps me going is that some of them string together like a rope of perfectly matched natural pearls. Now all I have to do is make those decisions firm, stay my hand from diddling with it, and make order from what I already have. Like now.
How tedious.
Deb, “a big, fat, bloviating, self-indulgent heap of yeah-yeah”—wow, why are you holding back? Tell us what you really think. (By the way, after I’ve had a few shots in a bar, I’m going to jump up and shout that to the bartender, just to see if he’s awake.)
You struck the tender place I’m talking about, where some portions (and they might be significant portions) of a work do compel, but some of the furniture needs reupholstering. And you can argue a lot in your head (I always win) about what needs doing, and even do it, well.
But there might be a good time to look at outside parties, like beta readers or an editor who you trust, to see if your arguments aren’t just part of a solo dance performance with a captive audience—that being you. (Me, guilty as charged.)
Good luck with the book!
Thanks, Tom. When I started writing it, I started a coin jar so I would eventually be able to pay for line editing at least. Lies, all lies, but I fully intend on buying whatever professional help I can afford. What are a few weekends working on the pole down at the Cheetah Club?
I’ve already hooked a handful of beta readers with the odd chapter here and there; one who is a writer, editor and long-time friend and the rest of them a mix of readers and writers, all strangers except for the web. What keeps me going, besides those strings of pearls? Not one of them has yet cursed me for a fool and vomited on my doorstep. Life is good.
Deb, that, that was YOU at the Cheetah Club? Nice panda fur platforms.
Hope those beta readers and willing writers give you good stuff to work with. And I’ve got my coin jar (with its open mouth ajar) for my editing effort too.
Great post! I loved the candor and the voice. Now I am going to read your fiction too. Keep going! You have a new fan in Brooklyn, NY. :-)
Yona, ha, the subconscious command I put underneath the surface words in this post is working, it’s working I tell you! Really though, that’s quite nice of you. Give my regards to Broadway. (Uh, that’s not in Brooklyn, though, right?)
Yep Tom – I have one of those manuscripts too. Just when I thought I’d finally decided to shelve it, I was reminded that, because it involves human trafficking and the sex industry (although in 1907), it is very relevant to current events, and my characters’ stories deserve to be told, and read. So….back to cut, move, paste. But agreed – I’m all queried out. I think this will now be a self-pub.
Thanks for the great post. Nice to be reminded that my manuscript’s not the only one wallowing in the revision pile. It’s nice to know there are others out there who can empathize.
K.L., dangit, “wallowing in the revision pile” does seem to say it, however it smarts. If you do believe in your book, and feel with conviction that it’s the best it can be, I do think you should bring it into the world.
There are many reasons (and a lot of them aren’t related to the depth of the story and the cut of its characters) why some books can’t attract industry support; self-publishing is a reasonable option, if your efforts have been thwarted otherwise. But again, only if you (and perhaps some astute outsiders) think the work has the beating heart that it should, and one that will touch others.
Great post. I should hold it up to a mirror and see myself in it. I’ve been struggling with a WIP for a couple of years. First person singular POV. Female. Psychopathic serial killer. Not a likeable character but interesting and compelling.
The opening didn’t work. I was using a frame that was pretentious, but I couldn’t find the right opening. Do I start by addressing the reader directly? Do I start with the first kill in a flashback and work forward? Do I start before the first kill and work forward, building character complexity, conflict and cause and effect?
I workshopped the opening at Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop in June. The first twenty pages were savaged by the workshop leader and the members. They were right. It sucked. In the last 25 pages of the submission I found the character’s voice, letting her be vulnerable and make mistakes while she learns her craft.
Betsy, sometimes it’s boggling to make those kind of structural decisions you list: And making one certainly ensures there will be consequential other decisions (sometimes unforeseen) that slide from the slopes of the first. So many ways to address plot and character, setting and voice. And so many ways to draw a reader in. Or make them say “meh” and turn to the Cheetos.
I’m glad the workshop gave you something meaty to chew on. (But my goodness: your psychopathic serial killer is vulnerably learning her craft? She sounds like a dear, but I hope she doesn’t shop where I do.)
Tom – great post, and I definitely can relate!
The book that became my debut novel started out as a meandering short story idea, for which I had no clue where to go with the story. I ultimately shelved it for that reason, and let it age for a while – several years, if I remember correctly.
I then turned my attention to the incredibly lucrative literary niche one might call “mafia comedy.” The battered 12-year-old car I’m driving should let you know how that worked out for me.
While banging my head against the “what to write next?” question, I stumbled across that aborted short story I’d begun years ago – and fell in love with the voice. THIS was how I wanted to write, digging deeper emotionally, exposing more pain than cleverness with the humor. Suddenly I had a mission.
That book challenged me more than anything I’d written, but was also the most rewarding writing I’d done.
So I guess my advice would be to look for something to love in what you’ve written. If you don’t find it, move on, and write something you DO love. But if you do find it – even though it might need a lot of work – I’d say it’s worth it to do the work to bring that thing you love to light.
As beautifully (and hilariously) as you write, I suspect you’ll find something to love. Either way, good luck!
Keith gets the advice-of-the-month award here, don’t you think? “Look for something to love in what you’ve written.” Yes. Not an expendable darling, either, but the story’s true center.
Tom, I have admired your way with words since I first came to know you online. You have a distinctive, engaging style that simply must exist and be heard. Whatever you do? Never quit.
Therese, I’m touched that you say that, because I value your regard. Thanks.
Thanks, Tom. You are also valued, very much. For what it’s worth, I’d like to +3 Barry’s suggestion; maybe it’s time for fresh editorial eyes? Because you have voice nailed, and you obviously have the perseverance and love-of-craft that you need to succeed. Keep on keeping on, friend.
Keith, wise words to look for what you love in the writing, and then work that damn thing until it’s the bright sky (or moody cloud) it’s meant to be. I do think we need to resist the tangled urge—whether formed on insecurity, fear or sheer cussedness—to keep tinkering, tinkering, tinkering, and not take the leap of saying, “I wrote the ding-dang hell out of this thing and it’s done.”
But I have so many tinker toys …
One thing I liked about what you said is that in coming back to an old work, you heard its song more clearly. Something like when you read some books they don’t touch you, but years later, you’re swept away. Some things mature, some rot.
I wish I could say it better or more wisely than Keith, but I can’t. He said exactly what I was thinking.
Before you return to any writing or tinkering, find out what you love about the book, the thing you feel passionate about, and write from there. This biz is just too brutal for half measures. Swing for the fences, mean every word, find a way to love the characters (again).
BTW: Took me about 10 years to get my first novel in publishable shape. Then I learned the standard line: They give you 10 years to write your first book, then 10 months to write the next.
Thanks David. Write from the heart of the book and meaning every word is good, because that shucks the complacent feelings of “well, that’s pretty good”—can’t settle for bites of just pretty good, unless the whole is damn good.
Story. Of. My. Life.
Laughed with wry recogntion!
But determined not to make it come true – at least not the part with the ear trumpet. Back to work I go…
Marina, hey, some of today’s ear trumpets are quite stylish. All the hipsters are wearing them. (Uh oh, reason enough to go for the helmet-style ones instead.) Keep working that work, and thanks for writing.
It’s supposed to take a long time to write a good book, isn’t it? Usually? That’s what I tell myself, anyway. My first book took 17 years to get into print. I have five other projects that have been under construction for 5-10 years now. They’re getting there.
It seems to me the one edge you have left as a writer is time. It’s a go-go world where video, screens and eye-candy of all sorts just come flooding into our souls whether we like it or not. Books are all about slowing things down — reading and writing them. The beauty of letting something percolate for eight years (or 17) is that you grow and develop and, hopefully, bloom several times into a new being. Your vision gets stronger, and hopefully more defining.
I write all of this knowing full well that five thousand partials have been mailed to agents and editors this morning. Another five (maybe ten) thousand novels have been posted to Amazon’s KDP system, or Smashwords, or wherever — and perhaps 1% were ready to be seen by the world at large.
Getting the extended written word right is a freaking nightmare, for sure, and usually means mind-numbing trial and error, eye strain, and too many late nights of self-doubt for anyone to remain sane. It sucks. The worst part of it is you can listen to agents, betas, editors, workshop peers, even your mother, but none of them make the call in the end. It’s all you.
The question probably isn’t “Do I have the stamina?” More like, “When will I finally have the right cojones?”
David, that’s a lovely—and to me, true—thought that, “Books are all about slowing things down — reading and writing them.” Yeah. I’m reading Louise Erdrich’s Round House right now, and the story pace has accelerated (in a skilled way), but I have read a few sections over, because I want to let the honey drip.
And yes indeedy, it is all you in the end, careful conferences with your confederates (and agents) notwithstanding. Clutch the work close to your chest, but cut it loose when it’s ready to climb fences.
As for the cojones, I think everything’s in place, but thanks for giving me a reason to check.
An interesting and welcome post, Tom. It’s one that I’m sure resonates with every writer who ever lived. We all have WIPs that sit in the proverbial drawer and challenge us to do better, dig deeper, and figure out what’s missing. Oh, wait, I think that applies to life as well.
As I see it, the real writer doesn’t give up, even when he/she has to give up (perhaps temporarily) on the current WIP and move on to something else. Each trip back to the drawing board brings something new, so there are valuable lessons to be learned, which is a good thing. I think the key is to have faith in yourself, and not worry about the words – they’ll come. Besides, writers have our own brand of crazy. All art forms (some don’t even call writing art) are subjected to rejection and ridicule. What I know for sure is that failure is just another stepping stone on the path to success. Can’t have one without the other. Plod on, and good luck.
Debbie, I think “do better, dig deeper and figure out what’s missing” is bumper-sticker worthy, and does indeed apply to political wranglings, breakfast, and yes, writing. I hope I didn’t seem to imply that the fussing, reassessment, withdrawal and return are all Sisyphus rolling the rock. There IS something of value learned, even if it applies to the next novel, and not this one. (By the way, if you have time, do you mind rewriting my novel too?)
Plodding on, and wishing you luck in return.
So I’ve got this manuscript I’ve recently rewritten. Seems like folks think it has potential. The good folks in question have even supplied me with the whaling harpoon for the necessary sewing. I’m not sure why, but I can’t seem to really stitch. I’m stitchless. And have been for a couple of weeks. Oh, I’ve done my share of Barry’s deck chair-shuffling, and called it writing over that evening’s IPA.
But, as it often does, particularly at such times of stitchless denial, a weird thing happened to me the other night. I woke up from a dream about Donna Summer. And no, I’ve never particularly been a fan. I saw her once, in about 1980, at Pine Knob (large outdoor venue in suburban Detroit). She was at the height of her vocal powers, which were considerable. I was duly impressed, but still not exactly a fan (she was, after all, the Queen of Disco, which was sort of the opposite of what I was listening to at the time).
Anyway, Donna comes to me in the night, and she sings Dim All the Lights to me, a cappella. I thought it very strange when I got up, but then I realized she’s passed away. And she passed away too young (at 63). It made me sad. Then it gave me a feeling of urgency. Life’s too short. And shorter for some than others. Not fair, but true.
I thought all of this while still in bed, with the Donna dream-hang-over lingering. I got up and googled Dim All the Lights, and found these lyrics in the song:
“Love just don’t come easy
No it seldom does
When you find the perfect love
Let it fill you up…”
I’m like you, and have a love/hate relationship with my work. I’m taking this very odd disco diva visitation and message as a reminder to turn up the old Victrola and dance – to embrace the love again, “let it fill you up”, before it’s too late. Wanna join me under the mirrorball? (After one obligatory Donna song we can each put on a tune more suited to our taste. As log as we pay our respect, I’m sure Donna won’t mind.)
Wonderful essay. Wishing you the best at relocating the love and embracing it, Tom!
Vaughn, you’re killing me! Haunted by Donna Summer, still working hard for the money, after all this time? That is excellent, in the maddest of ways. No need to turn to the Faulkners or Austens for our literary lessons, but instead disco-queen succubi, fertilizing your dreams. (Confession: though I was more into listening to the Dead with my head inside-out from blotter acid at the time, I did secretly enjoy Donna’s stuff.)
Relocating the love, baby, and thanking you for shooting an arrow pointing to it.
Oh V! You’re Slayer-ing me here. You just gave me the idea for a story about a Heavy Metal singer haunted by the ghost of a Disco Diva… Wanna co-write?
Toot, toot! Ahhh…beep, beep! Oh, you bad boys. Talking bout the sad boys. Yeah. Spin that vinyl until you’re telling your manuscripts “I feel love — love to love you, baby.” Then you’ll really have some hot stuff on your hands.
Mike, and I thought it was MY singing that scared the horses. Stampede!
If your novel writing is anything like your blog writing, I’d totally read that book! The points you make hit a little close to home, but I could ignore the sting of the truth because your voice is so entertaining. I’m subscribing to your personal blog now so I can read your witty wisdom regularly. And I’ll stay tuned to hear when I can get my hands on your novel. Thanks for sharing!
Chris, that’s a happy sandwich you’re served me up here—thank you!
Let’s just say I’m into double digits in the number of years I’ve been working on what may turn out to be the only novel I’ll ever write. The good news:
It’s a historical novel, so it’s not going to be outdated once it’s finally in print.
I’ve had time to pick up plenty more historical details.
My characters have become more familiar to me everyday. Heck, they’re family now.
The best thing for all the time I’ve spent – the more I learn the craft and do the work, the more my writing has improved. (Though in the end, I may have to say ‘this is as good as it gets.’)
So, cheers to novels that take a long time to write! I say, don’t give up on them!
Carmel, it sound like you’ve nurtured your baby attentively and carefully; as you say, the best part is seeing that your writing has improved. It might be time to burp that baby in public, but you are probably the best judge of that. My best to you and your writing.
Love your voice and writing, Tom. In a correspondence with editor Ed Stackler a few years back after he took a look at an early novel of mine, he told me that he and his New York editor colleagues have seen that, on the average, it isn’t until the third novel that a writer “gets it” and writes a successful manuscript. It’s all a part of the learning curve.
I’m engaged in the 10th or so rewrite of a novel I refuse to give up on thanks to insights delivered by WU friend Don Maass. Here’s the way I sign my book on writing craft:
Write!
Rewrite!
Enjoy!
And I mean it.
Ray, thanks for the warm words. The one I’m writing now is my third, and we do know that good things come in threes. And in your case, probably in tens too (particularly if Doctor Maass is in the house).
And dammit, I do enjoy the rewriting, even if I squawk about it. (Well, sometimes I enjoy it; sometimes I’d rather lick batteries.) Thanks!
This post resonated for sure. At this point I’ve got two of those manuscripts. One I’m going to forget about for a bit. The other I plan to exhume, perhaps later this year, and write from scratch, with a bit of Frankensteining thrown in to boot. I still adore the setting, am adding and tweaking characters, and the plot will be completely different. But there are good parts there worth using.
Erin, separating out those good parts and burying the bad is good writerly policy. And I hope that any Frankensteining you do doesn’t singe any editorial electrodes.
But I really do think that “forgetting about it for a bit” is a legitimate technique, and not just a dodge. Ideas ferment too.
Come to think of it, I wish that people who come brandishing a hatchet when they comment on sites (though never here at comradely WU) would let it hang loose for a bit until it turns into a hamster. It’s difficult to bludgeon with a hamster.
Uh-oh, I’m wandering. Thanks for the comment, Erin.
You really do have a novel worth publishing, but it’s not the one you’ve been struggling with. The novel you have worth publishing is about the novel you’ve been struggling with. Use your experiences and run with them.
Oh, I dunno, Ray. That would be a novel composed of grunts, screams, withering stares and protracted sighs. Perhaps good for psychiatric investigation, but for the general public, not so sure.
Thanks Tom! I’m on the same road and am also thinking about writing the Breakout Novel at 90 or above.
Excellent! At that point my punctuation might be a little shaky, but I’m still confident I can hit the hard return between paragraphs.
Tom-
This post is why WU is so invaluable. It’s real.
I think Keith nailed it, but let me see what I might add. Eight years is a long time to work continuously on one novel. The word “continuously” is important, though, because what allows one to see a manuscript as in a mirror, as it really is, and to re-envision it, is distance.
To put it differently, how long you’ve been working on a novel matters less than whether you can see it with fresh eyes. Falling in love with your story again the second (or tenth) time isn’t like falling in love the first time. It’s a deeper but wiser love, aware of flaws, aware of strengths, and most of all full of faith in the novel’s potential.
What I know, and can add, is that potential definitely exists. I know that because I see it emerge all the time in workshops. Take a break if it helps but many have told me that knowing where to look and asking the right questions have brought their moribund projects back to vigorous life.
Love this post.
Don, the fact that I’m going to bring this hoary book of mine to a workshop (well, at least a biscuit of the book) is good in the sense you suggest, because it’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, and I’ll be able to look at it with multiple pairs of eyes, those of the other participants.
I know there’s still good stuff in there, but I need to look at it with that wiser love (and probably not my glib wise-guy love) you encourage. And then see what’s what. Thanks!
Congrats on the fellowship, Tom! And you’re not alone. Often after a muse-crazed night of writing, I awaken sane from sleep to reread the feverish pap I wrote, and wonder what the hell I was tihinking. Sometimes I fear my epitaph will be: She’s working on the Breakout Novel.
Well, at least your epitaph won’t say what I saw on a gravestone in the Key West Cemetery: “I told you I was sick.”
You know what’s great about what you said, is that sometimes I (like you) say WTF? to stuff I’ve written, but sometimes I also say, without quibbling, “Hey, that’s pretty good.” My guess is that you do that too.
Here’s to feverish pap busting its chrysalis into booky butterflies.
If it’s boring to write, it will also be boring to read!
David, well, yes and no, on certain occasions, if duty calls, if we must we must, furthermore, upon reflection, possibly, but then again, hmm … (NOW I get what you mean.)
Tom,
You crack me up. Loved the post. Loved the thoughts. Love your voice. I think Don mentioned the realness of it — its velveteen quality (I added that velveteen part; ripped it off Therese).
The thing I hate about writing a comment way down here in the basement is that I have to scroll all the way to the top to find the quote that made me bust a gut, but once I got up there, I couldn’t find it. Must have been someone else’s article. But seriously, you kept me entertained throughout AND conveyed a great message.
Loved this: “I attacked this challenge vigorously: I put the novel on my hard drive’s shelf, to breathe.” I’ve a novel doing just that. Actually, it’s on resuscitation. A ventilator. It was a NaNo attempt — nothing but a string of vignettes and a lot of work to make it something. Plus, as all newbies do, it was the first in a planned series of fifty books. I’m still considering pulling the plug. I need to charge my cell phone.
I don’t know where you live, but if possible, swing up to NYC for the day during the WD conference and visit. It’d be great to meet you.
Mike, a novel on a ventilator. There is poignancy in that. I was hoping the verbs in mine had enough verve to breathe on their own, but I’ll be taking the pulse of the confounded thing again soon and will report. Very happy that you liked the post, even though I’m about as velveteen as a badger.
I’d love to come to NYC to have you buy me an expensive cocktail, but I’m way out west in Cali-forn-i-a, so I can only dream.
Tom, reading your fresh, funny voice in this blog made me want to read your ‘failed’ book! These are just a few of your lines that brought a smile to my face this morning:
“I do enjoy re-writing; well, sometimes I enjoy it; sometimes I’d rather lick batteries.”
“Notwithstanding that 50 or 60 agents could be plumb crazy…there seemed to be a clue that perhaps the work was wanting in some way.”
“I began to see that there might be a couple of rips in the novel’s fabric that might necessitate some sewing. With a whaling harpoon.”
“A publisher told me that…the lead first-person character is annoying (wait, is this my sister talking about me?)”
I have a feeling that you’ll resuscitate your novel in the workshop (congrats for that) and that in another eight years we’ll all be reading your ‘break-out novel’.
Sally, another eight years, hmm, I may still have teeth, so that’s something to look forward to. Glad you found some smiles in my plaintive jeremiad. (I am going to put a GIF of me tearfully playing a tiny violin to accompany my next post.)
“There are three rules of writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
— W. Somerset Maugham
“Nobody ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have while trying to write one.”
— Robert Byrne
“Writing is the hardest way to earn a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.
— Olin Miller
“When I had got my notes all written out I thought I’d polish it off in two summers, but it took me twenty-seven years.”
— Arnold Toynbee
“The profession of book writing makes horseracing seem like a solid, stable business.”
— John Steinbeck
Ernie, if all those alligator wrestlers were in such bad moods about their writing, I’d hate to see what they are like washing dishes. Yep, this writing stuff can be a puzzling pursuit, but all in all, it’s better than, say, being a member of Congress. Or perhaps a presidential candidate.
I have had the same experience with my first book which was to be a cookbook and had to leave it for several years to write another book Mind Process and Formulas which had fought me all the way, but I stuck with it untill it is completed and published. Writers have to allow ther writing to take them over no matter what and then publish to see the result. Kb
KB, I appreciate the sense of a being taken over by your writing. That only happens to me on rare occasion, where you just seem to be channeling a rolling river—that seems as close to grace as I know. Most of the time for me it’s just hammering with slightly bent nails.
I am so late to this party that, perhaps, you have forgotten that you even threw a party. But I just wanted to say congrats on the fellowship. They don’t just give those to any old yahoot, you know. And I love your writing. Please keep doing it.
That is all. Carry on, good sir.
Any old yahoot? I resemble that remark. Yes, party there was, but all you latecomers welcomed with open arms, because you’ll be asked to vacuum. Thanks Sarah!