There comes a time in the writing of a book where an author finally finishes writing the last words of a novel, sits back, and stares at the page (or screen, depending on what medium was used) and realizes: "Wow. I just finished writing a novel."
I'm personally not an extremely excitable person. I feign excitement a lot, but only if I'm around other people. If I'm sitting by myself staring at my computer screen, then I don't get excited at all. I continue doing whatever work needs to get done without getting excited. When I got the email offering me a publication contract, I was so nonchalant about it that probably no one guessed I had just gotten one of the most important emails of my life.
The same feelings sat with me as I finished the rewrite of Solid Ground. This book has been with me for so long. Almost 7 years ago in fall of 2007, I began writing about Vivie, her family, and her friends. The journey continued until my freshman year in high school, April 2009. Eight books and many dead pens later, the series was finished. I moved on and began writing other projects. But in 2012, I decided that there was a lot of potential in the series of books I had finished. Yes, a lot of material would need to be thrown away, but much of it could also be reused. So that was how I began rewriting Solid Ground from scratch. Two days ago, I finished the rewrite, which is about two years of work on this project. It was strange, because I didn't really feel anything. I just sat and stared at my screen with several thoughts running through my head.
Showing posts with label Finishing a manuscript. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finishing a manuscript. Show all posts
Truth Thursday: A Break from Hashtags (Writing Sequels)
Writing is much harder than it sounds. An infinite number of problems can find ways to present themselves in a manuscript. After hours of working on deleting typos and editing out words that occur too frequently, a second or third glance will still reveal problems that were previously overlooked. To produce a good piece of writing takes patience, time, and a lot of red pens that end up thrown away not because they get lost, but because they run out of ink.
A few weeks ago, I got bored in class, so I wrote out a scene I planned for a sequel to a novel I started and finished three years ago. The scene continued and developed into a chapter, which spawned another chapter, which in turn spawned even more chapters. (They multiply like rabbits, I swear.) Now I have more than 10 chapters of a new novel staring at me. On one hand, I'm excited because it's fun figuring out where my characters have gone in their time away from me, what they're up to, and seeing how they've developed differently. However, I can't seem to turn off the editor in my brain that complains that I'm not watching out for repeated words, that the character development feels unnatural at times, and that new characters that I've added are shallow and not fleshed out even though I've already written twenty thousand words of the novel. In fact, I'm afraid that I've been wasting words instead of making sure each of them is precious.
This is not a unique problem. Many writers are afraid of writing sequels because they fear it won't be as good as the original. (We hear people talk about how movie sequels aren't as good as their originals sometimes, and we fear the same thing for our precious babies, our novels.) In fact, I don't know if I'll ever publish this sequel that I'm writing. When it's complete, I'll have to evaluate it and see if it detracts from the story it's a sequel to, if the quality measures up. To do that, however, I have to actually finish writing the novel, which will be the hard part.
See, being a writer is tough. But being a writer is immensely rewarding as well. So wherever it takes me and whatever I do with it, this is what I'll do for now. I'll let the words flow out of me, and when the reservoir runs dry because the novel is done, I'll put it aside for a time. Then I'll pull it back out and make my decision then.
It'll be months before this happens, so don't expect to hear about my decision soon. But once again, writing requires patience, time, and many red pens. And I'm ready to supply all three.
A few weeks ago, I got bored in class, so I wrote out a scene I planned for a sequel to a novel I started and finished three years ago. The scene continued and developed into a chapter, which spawned another chapter, which in turn spawned even more chapters. (They multiply like rabbits, I swear.) Now I have more than 10 chapters of a new novel staring at me. On one hand, I'm excited because it's fun figuring out where my characters have gone in their time away from me, what they're up to, and seeing how they've developed differently. However, I can't seem to turn off the editor in my brain that complains that I'm not watching out for repeated words, that the character development feels unnatural at times, and that new characters that I've added are shallow and not fleshed out even though I've already written twenty thousand words of the novel. In fact, I'm afraid that I've been wasting words instead of making sure each of them is precious.
This is not a unique problem. Many writers are afraid of writing sequels because they fear it won't be as good as the original. (We hear people talk about how movie sequels aren't as good as their originals sometimes, and we fear the same thing for our precious babies, our novels.) In fact, I don't know if I'll ever publish this sequel that I'm writing. When it's complete, I'll have to evaluate it and see if it detracts from the story it's a sequel to, if the quality measures up. To do that, however, I have to actually finish writing the novel, which will be the hard part.
See, being a writer is tough. But being a writer is immensely rewarding as well. So wherever it takes me and whatever I do with it, this is what I'll do for now. I'll let the words flow out of me, and when the reservoir runs dry because the novel is done, I'll put it aside for a time. Then I'll pull it back out and make my decision then.
It'll be months before this happens, so don't expect to hear about my decision soon. But once again, writing requires patience, time, and many red pens. And I'm ready to supply all three.
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