The stage of a longer writing project that I most love is the obsessive final stages of a book, the monkish-locking-yourself-in-a-cell-barely-pausing -for -anything-else-stage. For me, this is as much of a payoff for all of the years (!) of toil and frustration that attend any book project as publication, maybe even more so (though I hate to tempt the publication gods who I’m afraid might strike me down with a lightning bolt pronouncement: Then be satisfied with only inner payoff, accursed mortal!).
The beginning of a project has its good points – that initial rush of excitement when you think (or at least, I think), I bet I can knock this one out in a year. But haha, what a liar you are at this stage. One of several things happens when you start a book with a rush of infatuation:
1. You abandon it after 100 pages, thinking, I have no idea what this book is about anymore or This was a terrible idea or whatever made me think I could write this? Or some variation on this.
2. The GREAT IDEA stays a great idea.
3. You keep polishing the first chapter until you have an amazing first chapter and nothing else.
4. You push on through the misery, frustration, and confusion until you have a draft.
The writer Lawrence Sutin once told me that his ideas were like flirtations with some beautiful person. They turn your head, promise they’ll make you happy, and then dump you (I’m expanding somewhat on his idea here). He said that he rejected most of these flirtatious creatures. But the one that keeps returning, the one who truly is serious, that’s the one he chooses.
This is what happened to me. In 2016, I heard an amazing story that I wanted to write about. I could either write about it fictionally or I could write about it as nonfiction. I chose to write a novel. I wanted the freedom that a novel affords: the ability to make composites, to invent where I needed, to draw on my own experiences.
In that flush of enthusiasm, I wrote about the GREAT IDEA in my journal. Then I went on to other projects, other books (which I finished).
Then in 2018, I landed a new agent, and I told her about the novel that I thought I was writing but wasn’t. She, too, thought it was a GREAT IDEA, and I grew enthusiastic about it again. I was all revved up to write it now. So I wrote a chapter or two and stopped.
Suddenly, it’s two years later. How did that happen?
So, I decided that I wanted to hire a writing coach. Yes, I’d written a fair bunch of books and I am a writing coach for other writers, but I needed someone to tell me, Is this writing actually any good or not?
So, I asked a friend if she would serve as my writing coach for a while (I would pay her, of course), and she said yes.
I did a slightly dumb and telling thing after that. I sent her two prose blobs disguised as book projects. One was what I had written on the GREAT IDEA (not much) and the other was the beginning of novel that I had written and rewritten some years earlier. I asked her to choose which one I should write.
REALLY? You really did this? I ask myself now, incredulously. Yes, unfortunately I did. It put her in a tough spot – what could I expect her to say? She thought they were both good ideas but hey . . . get real. Okay, she didn’t tell me to get real, but I eventually did.
I chose the great idea. And I started writing and showing it to her. And she gave me good feedback and all seemed hunky dory.
And then I stopped. Why? I don’t know. Life got in the way, let’s say, as it sometimes does.
Cut to a wall calendar, pages torn off in quick succession by an unseen hand.
Two more years passed, and I had barely passed the 100 page mark. I wasn’t sure what my novel was about anymore or if I could finish it, but this time, I decided to find out. I committed.
I didn’t write on the novel everyday, but close to that, and when I wasn’t writing it, I was thinking about it. Amazingly, my agent still wanted the book. I took a research trip (research can be its own trap, but I’ll discuss that another time) and I wrote for a year, though I kept doing what I tell other people not to do. I kept starting over because the book kept changing in front of me. It was still about the GREAT IDEA, but it wasn’t only about that. I believed that I couldn’t move forward because I still needed to figure out the characters and their motivations, their backstories, their relationships to one another, etc.
Someone might fairly criticize me here and say, Isn’t that something you should have figured out to begin with? To which I would answer, maybe, but that’s not the kind of writer I am. I have to figure things out as I go.
The year went by with me figuring things out and writing and when the summer arrived (last summer, for those who are keeping track), I took another research trip. On this trip, I learned something that was so crucial to the book and getting it done that it gave me a sense of urgency I hadn’t had before. I told my patient and still enthusiastic agent about this and she and I decided on a deadline to finish the book: January 1st.
Over the next six months, I became increasingly fiendish about my novel. Nothing was going to get in my way, no matter how much the universe piled on. And I would say that over those six months, sixty percent at least of what I wrote was completely new. Completely. I upended everything, changing characters, genders, relationships, motivations. The GREAT IDEA was still there, but this wasn’t what the book was about.
Another thing happened: I hit the endorphin jackpot. As I wrote: on planes, at the breakfast table, in the great outdoors, on vacation, between classes -- the joy of writing the book and finally figuring things out poured through me.
The last two months in particular have been the most obsessive. I did almost nothing else but the novel. The remarkable thing about these two months is that I kept writing new scenes and even a couple of new chapters. Very late in the game. But, because I knew my characters and their stories so intimately now, these chapters felt not only almost effortless, but also some of the best writing in the book. This is not the kind of writing I could have achieved at the beginning of the book, though I had foolishly thought I could achieve it from the get-go (because I am not always patient and I forget my hard-won lessons as soon as I’ve learned them).
While I didn’t make my agent’s deadline, I almost made it. I was off by about three weeks. Happily, she not only forgave me, but now, after having read the book, she’s still enthusiastic. This is a big relief.
All that is a way of saying that I have not tended my Substack well these past few months. I wanted to say I’m sorry but not too sorry. My obsession has receded, and I can now get back to this. I have some GREAT IDEAS for this Substack. I look forward to sharing them with you soon and regularly.
Hey Tom, Thank you! That's a great idea. Let's do it!
Robin. Just love this post about our profession's HEMMING AND HAWING. Beautifully captured, all the head-spinning. Perhaps this or something else we might propose for an AWP Los Angeles, 2025 panel? TL