Crossroads

I'm about a month away from finishing a new draft of my novel. One month. I've given myself until September 1 to finish it. I think it will be "done" before that. And while I suspect that all writers have this nagging sense that their projects are never really DONE, my gut is telling me that within the next month I will have taken it as far as I can take it without professional help. (This time I don't mean a psychiatrist.)

Remember how you felt about a month before graduating high school? Elated, excited, ready to get out on your own and into the world, ready to do great things, pressured with last minute assignments and requirements and tests, sad about saying goodbye to good friends, happy that there were some people you'd never have to see again, terrified that you might actually be completely inept and OMG THEY ARE HANDING ME MY DIPLOMA AND I AM NOT READY FOR THIS!

It's similar to how I feel right now. I've worked on this baby since November of last year. The ideas have been churning for a few years. Everything has changed several times, but I'm actually pretty satisfied with how it's turning out. But now -- what the hell do I do with it? I feel like a kid ready to graduate who has no prospects beyond June -- just a vague sense that I *should* do something, but I have no idea what.

Am I ready for the majors? I doubt it. Am I ready to query and seek an agent? I don't think so. Should I work on craft more? Probably. Always. Should I keep tinkering with this damn thing? I don't think so.

Good heavens... You thought I had angst about the direction of the book itself. Nah, that was nothing. Now here I sit with a nearly completed novel and NO IDEA what to do with it. I've called it "done" before. I've tried to ignore it. I can't resist it.

So what do I do?

Sit on it, I suppose. Put it in a drawer. Let it take up space on my hard drive. I dunno... I can't really picture anyone reading it. That's not a statement of self-deprecation or lack of faith in my ability as a writer. It's just that I can't picture anybody reading it. I don't know why.

I've done this before -- finished book-length stories and set them aside. I have two of them sitting in manuscript boxes in my closet. They are both completely unrelated to each other and what I'm working on now. I've created characters, led them through events, given them endings, and cried when I finished because I knew I had to say goodbye. I sense that same thing happening again. While I know this novel is far better than either of the other two from years ago, I still think there's something permanent about the way this is coming to an end -- something similar to what I did before.

This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where I fish or cut bait. Paint or get off the ladder. Yada yada yada......

So what do I do? I don't know. Maybe in a month I will. Stay tuned.

At What Price Story?

There's not enough room in this house for me and my Angst. I think we're going to need an addition for the Muse, the Editor, and the Angst that accompany my writing.

I'm working on revising the end of my novel, and it's going... okay. I like the general direction the new ending is going. I've spent more time developing characters, and while the same general things happen in this new ending, it seems that it all flows more naturally from the characters now. The events are deeper and more meaningful in their lives as well, and I think they seem a little less like an ass pull on my part (Warning: language in that link. Plus you may never come back. I warned you.)

But I ran into a problem tonight -- well, not really a problem. More of... a dilemma? I don't know. In re-writing something that happens to the heroine I've introduced a bad guy who she didn't interact with before. And he did something... Not nice. At all. And I wondered... Is this just me in a bad mood? Rough day? Something I ate (crappy cardboard freezer pizza leaps to mind)?

Or is this the way the story really goes?

I've said before -- I write to find out what happens. I re-read this part and examined it for inconsistencies. Thing is, it's remarkably consistent with who this bad guy is and who the heroine is. It also sets up some things for the future of this story very well. There is a lot I could do with this one very awful thing.

At what price story? Am I sacrificing some real depth, some serious story potential, if I remove this piece? I think I may be.

At what price story? Would I only be pandering to the sensitive among us if I removed this part? Perhaps.

Sacrifice story? I don't know if I can. If the price of story is extreme discomfort for my heroine, that's real life. None of our stories are pretty. They all involve discomfort to some extreme. And we in the Christian community are big on saying that those uncomfortable things can be used by God in mighty ways. (I believe that, by the way.)

It's consistent with the bad guy's character. It's consistent with the heroine's character. For the moment, I'm leaving it in. But maybe after a good night's sleep I'll change my mind.

The Five Stages of Writer Angst

I know you've been wondering, right? Here you go:

Stage One: Euphoria. Usually occurs upon completion of a project, typically when little association with the Editor has occurred. A common occurrance at the end of NaNoWriMo when 50,000 words or more have spewed forth on the unwitting computer. Accompanied by thoughts such as "I'm pretty good at this," "Wow, that's brilliant," and "I bet everyone will LOVE this."

Stage Two: Confusion. Thoughts include "What was I thinking when I wrote that?," "Wow, this part sounds like a psychopath wrote it," and "Huh." Often characterized by a feeling of disorientation as the internal Editor tries to kick the internal Muse out of the proverbial sandbox.

Stage Three: Depression. The stage most commonly associated with writers. Accompanied by a lot of late night television, whiskey, and computer solitaire. Characterized by thoughts such as "A monkey could have written this," "Why did anyone let me near a keyboard?," and "No one is ever going to read any of this ever again. Ever." Some writers never emerge from this stage.

Stage Four: Denial. Often characterized by the writer deleting every single word associated with previous euphoria-inducing work from the hard drive of his/her computer. But not really, because he/she saves it on a Secret Directory or tucks it away on a CD/ROM just in case. Bet-hedging, insistence that the whole damn thing was just a lark and really, he/she is okay with not ever being published, more computer solitaire, and a lot of spouting of nonsensical, random cursewords characterize this stage. Again, some writers never emerge.

Stage Five: Realism. The writer wakes up and discovers that against all odds, the stinking story is still stuck in his/her head and demands to be let out. Characterized by a new fascination with self-publishing and e-books, agent and editor blogs, and publishing market analyses. Accompanied by phrases such as "I have to write the damn thing -- it's still in my head," "If I don't get this on paper I'll go nuts," "I suppose I'm going to piss off a lot of people with this," and "Maybe a few people will like it, but I guess as long as I like it, that's what counts." May come dangerously close to crossing into rationalization.

And there you have it. Writer angst in five stages. These can go quickly or slowly depending on the writer and the work in question, and at any given point the writer can be mired in more than one stage on more than one piece of work.

I wish psychiatrists would come up with a category for this disease I have. For now, I'll just call it writeritis.