Tuesday 3 March 2009
The two year crisis
I'm having a crisis about my novel. I've been writing it for two years and I suddenly realise that large parts of what I've written are entirely off the point and need to be scrapped. I don't feel good about this. Except that I've been through this with three novels before. It always seems to happen. When I'm two years in I always realise that the book isn't about what I thought it was about. It's depressing but perhaps it is just part of the process - or my process, at least. And the main thing I've learnt about writing is - DON'T ARGUE WITH THE PROCESS. Arguing with the process wastes time and gets you nowhere. So I'll just keep going and hope that it comes right. I think that it will do but I get bored of waiting.
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Hi Alice,
I was attracted to your site because it's so close in name to mine; wwww.kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com
I too have gone through soul-searching...and soul-desroying times with writing. At one point, a few years ago I was writing a novel that didn't make sense or hang together, but I couldn't let it go. I decided I would give up writing and get a life. Instead, almost without meaning to, I enrolled in an MAcw - almost entirely out of desperation over my book. I thought they might help me finish it. Actually, they did, and although it was still too flawed to ever be published, I used my new qualification to begin a career in tutoring. Also, finishing this book cleared my mind and I was able to start on First Victim, which is now with an agent.
So keep on in there. Sometimes a book is only writing practise but still needs to be completed - the skills you pick up are essential for the next book.
with writerly love,
Ninahare
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