Not quite epiphanic
Those of you who read between the lines may have worked out that my writing output has been slim of late. I've been banging my head against a brick wall with Benfro book three (and four - glutton for punishment, me). Or to put it more accurately, I've been finding endless excuses to do other things - writing short stories, rewriting old novels, blogging, hoovering, bathing the dogs, working for a living. Anything really to keep from having to plunge once more into the world of Sir B.
Why the reticence? I hear you ask. Well, I'm not sure. Partly it's because I've been living in the story for so long I'm getting a bit dragon-drunk. I'm still enthusiastic about it, but somehow the whole thing is old, and I want to be doing something new.
Partly its because I'm naturally lazy and the thought of embarking on another 150k words (let alone 300k) fills me with a sense of impending doom. I know that once I start, I'll be fine. My work ethic does kick in eventually and I always finish something once I've started it (which nearly killed me in Duke's Restaurant on Waikiki beach, but that's a story for another day). But getting started is hard.
I'm also held back by having an agent, which might seem a little odd. Before, I wrote mostly to amuse myself and Mr Stuart. Sure I wanted to be published, but after years of getting nowhere, that was low on my list of priorities. Now that there's someone out there tirelessly fighting my corner and singing my praises to the publishing world, it's all a bit more serious. This has the effect of paralysing me whilst I wait for some news, even though I know perfectly well it could take years to make a sale. It's not that I don't want to write the rest of the story in case no-one wants to buy it, more that I want the excuse of a publishing contract to throw myself wholeheartedly into the fray again. Or at least that's what I tell myself.*
And the final thing that has been keeping me away from it all is a simple lack of ideas. I had a vague plot plan in my head - I know how the whole series ends,** but I could never quite see how it would all fit together in a pleasing whole. Normally this doesn't bother me. I'm probably at my happiest making it up as I go along and then fixing all the problems in the rewrite.*** But now there's a chance this whole thing might get published. And worse, the first book might come out before I've finished writing the fourth.**** I need to have at least a complete skeleton of a plan before I can rest easy - something that I'll be able to keep to, more or less, and which won't introduce any howling continuity errors. But I'm crap at planning. Or at least crap at sticking to plans. The last novel I did that for, I introduced a key new character into the mix before page thirty, then had to work her into everything that came afterwards.
I could pretend that all my work avoidance is just me letting my subconscious mind work away at the problem until it's ready to spew out the answer. There's some truth in that, I suppose. Quite often putting something to one side for a while is the best way to get it sorted. But it's normally a matter of days, rather than months. Following Friday's events-fest, which left me with a big hole in the middle of book three, I didn't think about Benfro all weekend. Today, when I took up my notes again, the solution was there waiting for me.
Not quite an epiphany, but a small eureka moment nonetheless. Now it's time to leap out of the bath and run naked down the street.
* Talking to yourself isn't a problem. It's positively healthy. It's only when you start to answer yourself back that you need to worry.
** At least I think I do. I might change my mind, which is a bit scary.
*** Which is a lazy way of writing, but I can only be bothered to fight my nature so much, OK?
**** Well, I can dream, can't I?
Why the reticence? I hear you ask. Well, I'm not sure. Partly it's because I've been living in the story for so long I'm getting a bit dragon-drunk. I'm still enthusiastic about it, but somehow the whole thing is old, and I want to be doing something new.
Partly its because I'm naturally lazy and the thought of embarking on another 150k words (let alone 300k) fills me with a sense of impending doom. I know that once I start, I'll be fine. My work ethic does kick in eventually and I always finish something once I've started it (which nearly killed me in Duke's Restaurant on Waikiki beach, but that's a story for another day). But getting started is hard.
I'm also held back by having an agent, which might seem a little odd. Before, I wrote mostly to amuse myself and Mr Stuart. Sure I wanted to be published, but after years of getting nowhere, that was low on my list of priorities. Now that there's someone out there tirelessly fighting my corner and singing my praises to the publishing world, it's all a bit more serious. This has the effect of paralysing me whilst I wait for some news, even though I know perfectly well it could take years to make a sale. It's not that I don't want to write the rest of the story in case no-one wants to buy it, more that I want the excuse of a publishing contract to throw myself wholeheartedly into the fray again. Or at least that's what I tell myself.*
And the final thing that has been keeping me away from it all is a simple lack of ideas. I had a vague plot plan in my head - I know how the whole series ends,** but I could never quite see how it would all fit together in a pleasing whole. Normally this doesn't bother me. I'm probably at my happiest making it up as I go along and then fixing all the problems in the rewrite.*** But now there's a chance this whole thing might get published. And worse, the first book might come out before I've finished writing the fourth.**** I need to have at least a complete skeleton of a plan before I can rest easy - something that I'll be able to keep to, more or less, and which won't introduce any howling continuity errors. But I'm crap at planning. Or at least crap at sticking to plans. The last novel I did that for, I introduced a key new character into the mix before page thirty, then had to work her into everything that came afterwards.
I could pretend that all my work avoidance is just me letting my subconscious mind work away at the problem until it's ready to spew out the answer. There's some truth in that, I suppose. Quite often putting something to one side for a while is the best way to get it sorted. But it's normally a matter of days, rather than months. Following Friday's events-fest, which left me with a big hole in the middle of book three, I didn't think about Benfro all weekend. Today, when I took up my notes again, the solution was there waiting for me.
Not quite an epiphany, but a small eureka moment nonetheless. Now it's time to leap out of the bath and run naked down the street.
* Talking to yourself isn't a problem. It's positively healthy. It's only when you start to answer yourself back that you need to worry.
** At least I think I do. I might change my mind, which is a bit scary.
*** Which is a lazy way of writing, but I can only be bothered to fight my nature so much, OK?
**** Well, I can dream, can't I?
Comments
I couldn't finish book 3.
Okay, then it was inexperience, I had no frame of reference for editing an entire manuscript. But I'd overloaded on the characters. I hadn't given it all time to gel in my brain.
I dropped book 3 89% done first draft and took a few weeks off and then started a new book, which became Terms of Redemption.
Now, in edits, the other series turned into 2 books, because books 1 and 2 were really just one long book. Nobody was going to let me end book 1 without a resolution.
Not as a new writer.
But technically, the then book 3 which is now book 2 was the hardest thing imaginable.
I just needed to get away from it for a while.
And maybe you need to write a McLean novella to do the same.
Seriously, what difference does it make if book 1 is out before book 4 is written? That's reality for the average writer. In some cases, before book 2 is written. You've got a huge buffer, and in the pro editing stages your direction might shift and then you might have even more re-writes.
Just a thought, or four.
Plus you're probably going to be looking at a book a year, so even if Benfro 1 got snapped up and published next year, it'd be 2010 before number 4 would hit the shelves. You probably wouldn’t be expected to deliver it till 2009.
Publishing is a long, slowwwwww business.