'Round and 'Round and Up and Down
The carnival ride that is my (seemingly) never-ending novel revision
If you have joined me in the Birth Your Truest Story community over the last few months, you may have heard me raving about my developmental editor, Josh Mohr as I work through the third(ish) revision of my novel. Indeed, his outside perspective and assistance have been indispensable.
Sadly, our time working together draws to a close later this month.
Sadder still, I am further from having a completed draft than I was when I began in September.
What’s going on? And, more importantly, how can I keep from throwing myself out the (figurative) window?
I find myself here because the process, like any great creative process, has brought me to a place I didn’t know I would end up by revealing things I didn’t know before I began.
Let me explain.
1) This book is more important to me than any other I have written.
It’s not that I don’t love the others—authors, like parents, know better than to show favoritism—but this one represents the apotheosis of my intentions and aspirations as a novelist. With such grand desires, no wonder I need more drafts to get it right (if knowing when it’s right is even possible, but that’s a story for another day).
2) I have changed as a person in the last five years.
Every book I have written has been a way of engaging with a significant question in my life. As I change, the questions morph. No wonder, then, that this has turned into a different book than it was when I wrote the first draft. While much of the writing remains, the scaffolding has shifted.
3) I want the book to speak broadly.
We can debate whether the fiction market as a whole is healthy, but no one can deny that the market for what we call literary fiction is small. And the first completed version of my novel fell into this category. Only a narrow segment of readers would have been willing to put up with its quirks and foibles.
I knew this because I received a manuscript analysis from an incisive editor who starkly outlined two choices.
Do a little more editing and find a home for the book at a literary or independent press. The novel’s ideas and themes were not embedded in a compelling story with a main character the reader could root for and become emotionally invested in.
Put in the work to draw out the story so its power would carry the reader effortlessly into the deep and challenging questions I want them to engage with.
Turning a Midcentury Modern into a Victorian midway through the construction process is not a trivial task.
So I find myself back at what seems near the beginning of the process. As I put it in a note to one of my critique group partners, “I feel like I've gone back at least a half a board in the Chutes and Ladders game of book writing. I’m starting to feel like I’m writing the same book over and over, wondering if I'll ever finish.”
How will I keep myself sane enough to finish?
Three ingredients will get me through the next (insert unknown number here) months or—horrors!—years.
Purpose and passion.
See point #1, above.
Community.
Yes, that’s you, reader of this missive. Maybe you are explicitly a member of a community I belong to, like Birth Your Truest Story or Shuffle Collective. Or maybe you are simply part of the larger community of readers and writers with whom I feel a kinship whenever I pick up a pen or sit down at my keyboard. Maybe you are among the small circle of writer friends who regularly buoy me (you know who you are). Your collective energy, our shared experience, and the knowledge that I am not alone in this endeavor will see me through.
Humor.
Someone suggested that one reason I might feel particularly stuck now is that much is not right with the world at the moment. Certainly that’s true. But I always think of W.H. Auden’s poem Musee de Beaux Arts, written in 1938, when I feel tempted to sink into this particular pit. The first stanza reads:
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
Or, he might have added, when someone is watching a silly cat video.
These trivial pursuits are not engaged in to ignore or minimize the vast heartache of the world, but to fortify us—much the way writing does—so we can carry on the work we are meant to do.
With these tools at hand, I will finish. Someday.
I have done it before. And I will again emerge from this spin-cycle of a process with a novel I am proud to call complete.
Have you ever felt like your writing is circling ’round and ’round, never to be complete?
Let me know!
Audrey
P.S. There is a difference between the kind of not-being-done that I am experiencing, where the reasons and goals are clear, and the more toxic kind, which I wrote about for Jane Friedman’s blog in a post called How to Free Yourself from Endless Revision.
December Revelries hosted by Birth Your Truest Story
Speaking of community, we are excited to send 2023 off with a couple of seasonally focused events this month.
We're so pleased to be hosting a channeling session with Christine Boschen and her Guides, focused on supporting our connections with our human families, our Gaian Earth families, and our families in Spirit.
Christine is a gifted intuitive channel—you will be amazed at the wisdom that comes through her when you pose your heartfelt questions.
December 10, 1-3 pm Eastern, 10 am-noon Pacific. Limited to six participants. BYTS members register here; non-members register here.
And on the Winter Solstice, join us for a special writing workshop led by Jennifer Browdy, For the Love of Gaia: Sparking Wonder, Tending Grief, and Cultivating Resilience for a Time of Transition.
In a lively, thought-provoking 90-minute online workshop, we’ll plumb the depths of our love for Gaia, honoring our grief for all the harm that is being done in our time to humans and more-than-humans alike, and we’ll search out the seeds of resilience that lie buried in our creativity, just waiting for the sweet water of our attention to stir them to life.
All are welcome. BYTS members register here; non-members register here.
Sunday, December 3
Sunday, December 10
Thursday, December 21
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We are on such parallel paths, Audrey. Your post is profoundly timely, helpful, and inspirational. Thank you. I've recently arrived at a decision to "carry on" despite the fact that my Reasons to Quit farrrrrrr outnumbered my Reasons to Persist. Onward we go . . . chutes, ladders, and more. All best.
Oh, dear Audrey, I feel your pain, such a huge revision must feel daunting, nearly impossible, and yet you're steadfast in holding onto your grit, determination, and the wisdom to understand that every ending has a new beginning. Maybe you could, take a deep breath, perhaps a siesta from your efforting, and look to the Winter Solstice, the return of the Light as a sign that all is a cycle, darkness to light, light to darkness, and back again. You've got this, I admire your resilience and (sometime dark) humor!