Last month I shared my anxiety over my latest WIP, which was due at the end of February and not going well. The book had serious problems and I was struggling with what to do about them. I concluded the post by saying since I couldn’t throw away two-thirds of what I’d written and start over—which was my original gloomy assessment of what I needed to do—I was just going to have to keep going and “write my way out of the corner” I’d gotten myself into.
A couple of days later, I recognized that “writing my way out” wasn’t going to work. I ended up ditching 80 pages and starting over from there. I didn’t throw out two-thirds of the book, but I discarded a huge chunk. It was a tough call to make, since it meant I won’t meet my deadline. But eventually I listened to the nagging voice in my head that said, some things you can’t fix, you have to start over.
The voice warning me the book had serious problems had been nagging at me for some time. In fact, most of the time I was writing those 80 pages I eventually ended up scrapping, that voice was whispering in my ear. So, why didn’t I listen to it sooner?
Because we often don’t listen to what we don’t want to hear. At least I make that mistake. And I’ve been making it for years. I can recall leaving critique sessions twenty-years ago and hearing that nagging voice, triggered by the comments of my fellow writers. I often pushed aside the unwelcome voice for days, sometimes weeks. With the result that I kept going down the wrong path and then had to completely rewrite chapters and chapters.
It’s been many years since I ignored the voice for so long and got myself in this deep. I blame my current stupidity on the fact I had a tight deadline and felt I couldn’t afford to admit the mistakes I was making. Which is ridiculous. Pretending flaws don’t exist doesn’t fix them. And in this competitive market, few writers can get away with publishing anything other than their best work.
I know I’m not alone in ignoring that nagging voice. I recently read over the first few chapters of a friend’s book. I didn’t have many comments, but the ones I did have apparently matched what her little voice was saying, for she thanked me for confirming some of the doubts she had about how her character was coming across. She’d sensed the problem herself, but tried to push her concerns aside and keep writing.
It’s a weird self-defeating thing we do, ignoring plot and character problems, pretending they will go away and everything will be OK. I used to be so stubborn about it that I probably threw away at least a hundred pages for every four-hundred pages that ended up in my finished books.
Sometimes the pages you throw away aren’t really wasted. Those pages may have helped you learn more about your characters. Or discover a plot twist that you wouldn’t have come up with if you hadn’t pursued a flawed one. But a lot of the time, it’s more like you got stuck in a hopeless, doomed loop, like a robot that has encountered a wall and its wheels keeps churning away, going nowhere. You pretend you are making progress, because you have words on the page. But in fact, you’re wasting time and energy. Typing, rather than writing. And all because you ignored the voice in your head that warns you about problems you don’t want to face.
I hope I’ve learned my lesson, at least for a few years. I plan to start listening to the voice on the next book. Indeed, I plan to strain to hear the first whispers that something is awry. At least I hope I will.
How about you? Have you ever experienced this? Where your sub-conscious warns you of problems with your book and you don’t listen?
Thank you for sharing your process with such authenticity. I too have been thinking, talking and writing about this concept of “pushing forward,” which for me often feels antithetical to the artistic process. I’m searching for that balance between throwing my hands up and stubbornly hacking away, typing instead of writing, as you so aptly put it. I most definitely relate to what you shared about producing a lot of extraneous material.
Yes, I think the current focus on producing work and writing fast is not helpful creatively. I’ve come to accept that because my plotting process is so intuitive, it ultimately “takes as long as it takes”. Which is a problem in this current publishing market. I’m not sure where I will go from here. I want to keep writing, but at my own natural pace. But maybe that’s unrealistic these days.
Thanks for commenting! Always nice to know other writers struggle with these things.
Great epiphany, Mary!
Yes, I’m having those issues on my latest WIP, but I think I’ve taken care of them. This latest ms is more “maintstreamy” in sections, and that kind of writing is mind numbingly uninteresting to me. But I had to address it, and when I did, the story took an unexpectedly new turn with far more character depth. So, I was able to write myself out of my corner on this one (though it has mucked up my cool ending a bit…). And yes, I had to remove about 7k more prewritten words to get there, but it definitely tempered the gestalt story so danged well! Synchronicity!
Glad you found a good direction for your story. I think a lot of times, the second version, after we screw and write quite a bit on the first one, is often more complex and interesting than what we originally came up with. If only we could see the right path the first time! But I guess that is part of the process. Cheers!
I’ve had critique groups or beta readers point out flaws (particularly structural flaws) that deep inside I suspected but couldn’t quite admit to myself. Their comments forced me to revise.
It can be easy to avoid the nagging voice if you write in a vacuum. One of the good things about critique groups. They can sometimes force you to listen to the nagging voice before you’ve gone too far down the wrong path.
I definitely know that nagging voice, too. However it’s difficult sometimes to know whether the voice I’m hearing is the right one, or the negative one that tells me everything I’m writing is total garbage. That hyper-critical voice is important to ignore. (Do all writers have so many voices in their heads??) I guess the negative one makes me feel bad and the nagging, correct voice makes me feel angry, because I know it’s right. Stupid, right nagging voice trying to get me back on track! So if I’m angry, I should listen, and if I feel bad, I should just ignore it! 🙂 Anyone else struggle with telling the difference between those two voices?
I think self-doubt haunts a lot of writers. For me, it’s always there, in the background. I try to ignore it. My problem is that I ignore the smart nagging voice, too. Interesting idea about your reaction to the voice. That if it makes you angry, it’s probably because it’s right. I attribute a lot of my problem to laziness. I hate facing the fact that I’m going to have to throw pages away and go back and start over. I don’t get mad, like you do. I just go into denial. But I have hopefully learned my lesson with this book…at least for a while. Pay attention to the voice. Don’t convince yourself that because you’re producing pages, you actually getting somewhere, when you’re not.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.