My novel has been my WIP for a while now. I have poked it, started rewriting it, looked at my rewrites, decided they were crap, and then started rewriting again. Mostly from scratch.
My WIP “Social Disease” has been my baby since I wrote it in November of 2008. I have loved it more than I have loved anything I have written, and more than anything else, it’s kept my attention. Story ideas come and go–I can pour 30,000 words into a story and then decide it’s assy–but Social Disease is my one constant. I leave it alone, give it time to rest, but I will never truly be rid of it. I am it and it is me, the one and only novel that I have truly loved that is finished.
Except that after it was finished, I started rewriting it. And when I got 3/4 of the way done rewriting it, I decided I didn’t like where the story was going, and started rewriting it again. In that time I have started a lot of things that I felt were good ideas, only to not finish them. And now that I find myself unemployed with no real job prospects (and honestly, no desire to work, seeing as though I’ve pretty much been working ever day since I started college, which, coincidentally, I also didn’t finish), more than ever I want to finish. I don’t want to open my WIP in a year and see that is still there, the story all in my head, but not on the page. It might not ever get published, but I want it to be finished.
But I suppose that’s part of the writer’s problem, isn’t it–the novel is never finished. Even as I finished it the first time, the ideas where already turning on how to make it better. Even now, I fear that I will finish, then decide it’s all for naught and start redrafting again. Even Maureen freakin’ Johnson says that her novels are never finished. How am I supposed to finished if Maureen Johnson says that her novels are never finished!?
This was the brave woman who finished "The Lost Symbol", but says that her novels are never finished. I'm so confused right now.
In an odd way, I feel guilty. I hear my characters talk to me sometimes (I try to convince myself this is less lunacy and more something that ever writer goes through–don’t try to prove me wrong), screaming “finish me, finish me”. I yell back that I’m trying, but they never seem to understand why I can’t get up and go.
I love my main character Fiona. She is the best character I have ever written. Every day there’s a new layer to her, and I have to pause and ask myself “holy crap, did I write that?”. She, like Shrek, is an onion. That is she has a lot of layers, not that she’s a giant green ogre. Not that there’s anything wrong with green ogres. Okay, let me start again.
This is not my main character. I just needed another picture to post.
My main character is deep on many levels that I can’t seem to comprehend fully. She’s the most fleshed out, awesome thing I have ever written. She’s incredible. And I feel horribly, terribly guilty that her story may never be heard. That I may never finish. At least if I could finish and I got rejected by every agent, or I found an agent and never got published, or I got published by no one bought me book, I could say that I finished. I could say that maybe someone else read her story in full. I am more a wreck than when I found out Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez weren’t talking anymore.
THIS FRIENDSHIP WAS SUPPOSED TO LAST FOREVER!
I also feel guilty that the stories I’ve started with characters I’m also proud of often get shoved by the way side for Fiona. Another story I did come awfully close to finishing was pushed aside for Social Disease, and in a fit of “I NEED TO DO SOMETHING” I scrapped that whole story, started again, and then stopped it cold…to work on Social Disease. Because I can’t finish it, and I’ll be damned if I leave this story untold.
Sometimes I treat it like it’s some kind of twisted relationship, where if I go away and write something else, when I come back it will have written itself and worked out it’s problems. But it never works like that. It’s in a perpetual state of undoneness, always moving forward, always get mostly done and then…it stops. The words stop coming and I stare at the page, and in a fit of rage I say “FUCK IT, I’LL START IT ALL OVER AND THIS TIME IT’LL WORK!”. I can’t tell if this is just part of the writing process or if there’s something profoundly wrong with me.
I’ve written this wonderful character with this awesome story, AND I. CAN’T. FINISH. Is there a word for that? I’m going to make up one. Creatively Impotent. Why don’t they make a pill for this?
Cialis For Writers: For The Creatively Impotent. Has a nice ring, yeah?
Someone help me, oh please God help me. I want to write forever. I want to do this for a living. But how the hell can I do that if I can’t finish this? Is it always this hard, or am I making a big issue out of nothing? And no, this isn’t an issue of the story not being write–I love this story, and the characters. I’ve come up with an entire different story for on of the characters in the novel. I have written Fiona and found my Anti-Bella (again, why don’t they make a pill for that?). I can’t turn away.
Help. S.O.S. PPLLEEEAAAASE GIVE ME SOME ADVICE.
KC
Feb 17, 2010 @ 01:52:12
I have no advice for you. I’m just glad I’m not the only one that can’t finish a novel for the life of me.
I think it’s just the process. Finishing is hard, especially when the story isn’t living up to what you saw in your head. Truth is, though, it probably never will be as perfect as the story you first imagined. I think you just have to hold your nose and go for it — at least, that’s what I’m trying to do.
I’m also trying not to make it such a big thing. If I start going “OMG if I don’t finish this I’ll never be a published writer and I’ll die alone in a food service job” it becomes a lot harder to write anything, much less anything good.
Feb 18, 2010 @ 01:13:45
I had a horrible time with endings when I first seriously started writing. I would write great character development, settings, action, but I never knew where it was going! I started having problems with the direction of my WIP, and so when I met a Very Successful Writer at a reading one day, I asked him, in so many words, “How do you keep going when the writerly road gets bumpy?” and he responded on the bulls-eye that I had been avoiding, “Well, you have to know your ending.” It’s such a “duh” answer, but I never wanted to face it: why would I ever start anything I didn’t know the ending to? After all, EVERYTHING is building to the ending. How will your protagonist grow if you don’t know what he or she is growing to be? The resolution should, in some way, come full circle to your beginning.
I hope this helps. After I received this startling newsflash, I didn’t scrap my WIP, but I decided to buckle down and plot out what the ending would be. It took me a VERY long time to figure it out, and I liken it to putting down a Yellow Brick Road to the answer; but once I found my resolution, everything else started flying at lightning speed. Don’t worry about rewriting and revising until you get that first rough draft out of a clear beginning, middle, and end.
And if you truly love your characters, focus on their relationships, what makes them special, and try to decide what their story is really all about. Who are they really? Why is their story worth telling?
Good luck. It can be lonely out there on the Yellow Brick Road.
Mar 31, 2010 @ 21:55:57
Found you from Twitter, where I really enjoyed your thoughts. I say, don’t feel bad that you’re still working on it. Two years is not that long, especially for a novel early in your writing career. If you are stuck and bored, though, it might have something to do with the story.
In my MFA program, I was taught to ask myself: Do you still know what your protag wants? Do you know why she needs to get it NOW? Do you know what will happen if she doesn’t get it? What obstacles does she unwittingly put in her path as she tries to get it? When I forced myself to answer those questions, I often got unstuck. I hope this or something works for you. Just remember again — you are not alone!!
Apr 08, 2010 @ 09:44:28
I feel your pain, but it is time to face facts. Your novel will never really be finished. Until the day you drop dead you will always find a new twist or a new way of expressing the characters plight etc.
All I can say is that you need to be disciplined. Have one final edit and then leave it alone. The next great idea can find life in your next project.
Below I set out an extract from a short essay written by Ian Fleming in 1962. Amongst other things he tackled the issue of how to keep forward momentum in order to get past the finishing post. I hope that you find it helpful.
“I never correct anything and I never go back to what I have written, except to the foot of the last page to see where I have got to. If you once look back, you are lost. How could you have written this drivel? How could you have used “terrible” six times on one page? And so forth. If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you write 500 words a day and you will be disgusted with them into the bargain. By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day and you aren’t disgusted with them until the book is finished, which will be in about six weeks.
I don’t even pause from writing to choose the right word or to verify spelling or a fact. All this can be done when your book is finished.
When my book is completed I spend about a week going through it and correcting the most glaring errors and rewriting passages. I then have it properly typed with chapter headings and all the rest of the trimmings. I then go through it again, have the worst pages retyped and send it off to my publisher.”
Let me know how you get on-I’d definitely like to have a chance to read Social Disease one day!
Best wishes,
CY