I Am Fighting With My Manuscript, So I’m Writing This!
Writing a novel is a marathon. Let this be a reminder that marathons aren’t flat.
“Up until just recently, I felt like I had this whole novel thing in the bag.”
Being a writer is weird. Right now, I feel like I wrote my Writing Made Me Better piece in haste. And up until just recently, I felt like I had the whole novel thing in the bag.
- I finalized my cover with the artist.
- I paid for a professional review by Kirkus.
- I hired an editor.
- I lined up beta readers.
- I built a growing email list.
- And a growing following on Instagram and Twitter!
Indie authordom, here I was coming!
Until it hit me like a bag of bricks: I had used up my naive energy.
That’s dramatic to a degree. Other factors came into play at the same time. Advertising has proved to be a bur, and Lord help my perfectionism with the promotional costume I’ve taken on making.
I also took time off from work. I haven’t taken a long contract since April (I’m a merchant mariner). That means since April, I’ve been unemployed. By choice. Man, it felt so good to look to the horizon whimsically and accept I didn’t want to go back to being a sailor. I wanted to write and create! But, here’s one of my favorite lines regarding my job (which you can read about here):
“My bank account decides when I go back to work.” — saying about Merchant Marine life
So, all at once, reality asked for its rose-tinted glasses back, which is genuinely very cruel. How dare the demands of adulthood and motherhood do that? Not to mention, my loving beta readers came back with the most fantastic feedback. That would not have stung so bad if I hadn’t sent the same work into Kirkus. (See image)
Why, in my childlike glee of doing the thing, did I not listen to every author’s advice before that more time is always needed? It’s just my perfectionist getting angry. She has every right to be. I’ll not take that away from her. However, my gentler side has begun work on tempering her.
I was too close to see the plot holes. Excuse me, but I know precisely how this trilogy ends. There is no way I could have known I was dragging the reader along on this journey while not clueing them in. It was the equivalent of me saying, ‘Look at this shiny I made!’ and not explaining what said shiny is.
While discussing with my beta readers, the definite trend was, “I explain that in book two.” Cue heavy sighs and facepalms aplenty!
Feedback Fights
The Choice to Split the Manuscript into 3 Books
My editor (Lily Aurora) coached me through a hard decision back in August. With her pro guidance, I made the tough choice to split the massive 205,000 word manuscript into three books. In August, I wanted to publish book one by Christmas. But it was ambitious to believe I could flesh out a whole section of the book in the way it needed, in two short months — especially since that entire section I considered a character study. That ought to have counted towards two red flags to me, at least.
Cue every response I had to said red flags: ‘But I love this story.’ I do.
So, while I sit here keeping my finances in perspective and begin planning the logistics of going back to sea, focusing on advancing in my other career, I’m just letting the story sit.
I’m writing stories here to flex my creative freedom and voice. Even if I love the thing, it still becomes a confined space. While working on the novel(s), I live in the dark medieval fantasy world I created. I love my characters immensely, but I don’t want to listen to their clamoring for my attention. So, we are fighting, and I’m taking a walk through the meadows of creativity and rest to cool off.
I Have Failed To Publish My Book Before Going Back to Work.
It’s alright with me at the end of the day. It’s all a part of the process I wish people talked about a little more. So, let me talk about it.
I took a similar break back in September. A short, two-week contract for fun between editing sessions. The joke was I went to work during my writing vacation. Taking that contract was feeding a part of my soul.
This break is less fun. This break is coming to terms with where I am at in this process.
I’m fighting with my manuscript. I failed to reckon with the expectations I had for it and the reality of it. I poured my love and attention into it too quickly, and now that it needs more, I’m too exhausted to right now.
That’s the thing with running a marathon for the first time (see what I did there? I bet you do!). If you’ve never done it before, you have no idea what it’s like to hit each wall and power through them. It took me fighting with my manuscript to contextualize the whole novel as a marathon analogy fully.
The Marathon Analogy
During a marathon, a constant internal dialogue happens while you’re running, and not a single person can tell you what you’ll be saying to yourself. They’ll let you know it’ll hurt, but they can’t tell you exactly when a cramp will happen, or how bad it’ll hurt when you’re done. All they can do is give ideas to ease that cramp in the event it happens and how to recover. All the runners in the world can provide you with advice, but that doesn’t take away the fact you still have to train. If you don’t prepare, you won’t know how to deal with the ups and downs of your inner voice. You’re never going to know if that cramp can be pushed through or if it’s going to do you in if you don’t stop. If you don’t train, you won’t know how to accept that sometimes it isn’t your race. No amount of pushing through a genuine injury is going to do you any good.
No amount of reading advice panels is going to give you all that in the context of writing, either. So, the only thing you can do is jump in, which is honestly scary. Suppose you don’t have any experience writing anything over twenty pages like myself. In that case, there is undoubtedly a level of naivete you have to hold on to for dear life — the same starry-eyed dreams of grandeur a first-time marathon runner possesses.
I know because I also attempted a marathon once. Unfortunately, I never made it. I am plagued by an over-tight psoas which does weird things to my iliacus. The moral of that story is I’ve spent years trying to rehab all my muscles and weight lifting. It’s a story of conflicting passions at this point.
The same applies to weight-lifting, though. There is an art of managing expectations, recognizing injuries, accepting different seasons of time management, and learning how to start from square one. No aspect of life is a sprint. Even sprinters have to train meticulously to sprint through life literally. So, how dare I try to rush in the middle of the marathon of writing a novel-turned trilogy?
The truth is I sped up to chase my expectations. Just like sprinting mid-race or climbing a hill, I now have to slow down and catch my breath. Never stop, though. Every runner knows if you stop mid-race, that’s it. You’re screwed. The smooth gait is never the same, and your breathing gets thrown off. It’s awful; never stop running.
Any passion project is a marathon at the end of the day. Passions require training. They need checks and balances lest they become obsessions and other aspects of your life suffer. You have to seek other methods to improve when your skills plateau. So, here I am, writing this instead of editing my manuscript because my manuscript and I are fighting.
Sprints have a place in marathon training to increase your speed. Right now, I am doing the equivalent of writing sprints. Take that, marathon-manuscript. These are easy. These are fun. In making prose fun again, I’ve longed to revisit that gait I find in writing fiction.
Give me that feeling of settling into my pace. Give me the way my thoughts wander while running beside my characters. Let me watch their world roll by while my fingers and wrists bear the brunt of pounding my keyboard-road. I’ve always been a distance runner, just like I’ve always been a distance writer.
The Winner of the Fight
Now that I’ve worked through my thoughts, let me again say I was being dramatic. I did not write my piece on how writing has dramatically improved my life in haste. Similarly, this trilogy I’ve undertaken is not going to wither and die in a pile of scrapped projects.
Just because a type of burn-out struck when life demanded I tend to other responsibilities does not mean my love of the marathon has died.
Call me a masochist, but I love uphill battles. I love running up hills, hiking up hills, pushing through a burn-out set. So give me that struggle, and keep your downhill jogs. Because, again, I am a long-distance kind of gal. My runner’s high comes from reaching the top of the hill, letting out that big breath, and continuing. The same is true for any uphill in life. Read any of my pieces, and you’ll see that unmistakable thread. There is nothing better than seeing that obstacle rear up, then committing to powering through it and not stopping. Remember, you must never stop.
I’m glad my manuscript and I fought. Writing about it and other things have been my deep exhale. Watching movies and reading have been a deep exhale. That deep exhale is self-care. It makes room for what comes after: a deep inhale of everything you need to keep moving.
If we’re going to compare writing a novel to marathons, let this be a reminder that marathons aren’t flat. There are going to be hills, plateaus, and even downhills when it’s deceptively easy. In this period of fighting with my manuscript and voicing my woes to my biggest supporters, they all offered advice and encouragement. They told me not to give up. I told them not to worry; it was but a moment. This period is not an injury that requires me to stop the race, but merely my deep exhale. I’m a long-distance sort, and I’ve trained enough with myself through all manner of things to know what comes next: a deep inhale. So, take that manuscript.
Now that I’ve breathed through the burn of embarrassment and disappointment, I’m ready to keep on. I’ve inhaled my plan of attack and let the scenes that are missing solidify.
I’m glad we had this fight. Now let’s get back to that race.
Signed,
