Yesterday I finished a picture book text
(supposedly the 1st draft, but I’ve saved it as Version 6 so my math is obviously wonky).
I started this piece last April and I really love the idea and the main character’s name and her sister’s name and on and on and on.
But.
But.
I started it six months ago and I’m on Version 6 of the 1st draft.
It has been just the teensiest bit like squeezing blood from a stone.
Sigh.
Here’s the thing.
The three picture books I’ve sold so far all came to me like thunder — in the middle of the night or out of a daydream.
They all moved in and took over and I had no choice but to ride out the storm.
Not to say that they didn’t require work.
All three begged for painstaking and obsessive attention — somehow frenzied and careful at the same time.
All three rest atop a teetering mountain of earlier versions and drafts.
All three drove me to well-deserved naps and pedicures as the final revisions wrapped up.
But the work, honestly, was kind of fun.
It was work that was intuitive and impulse-based.
It was work that followed some woo-woo pre-ordained path.
It was work that I was driven to do.
My other manuscripts (and I’m not gonna say how many there are because I’m worried someone may tell me to get a life) have been harder. From start to finish.
They’ve all started with some sort of constructed G.I. (Great Idea).
Then I’ve applied what I know of the craft to said G.I.
Then I’ve revised this or that version of the G.I.
Over and over and over again.
Character, setting, dilemma. Character, setting, dilemma.
It’s been, quite frankly, more like sausage making.
And apparently not all the editors out there are sausage eaters, because these are the stories that haven’t sold.
Even though I’ll stand by the G.I.s they sprung from. Truly, each one of them.
Which begs the questions: what am I supposed to do when I’m not being put upon by thunder? should I take up knitting? should I drop all the ideas that seem to take too much effort from the outset? should I keep a tape recorder by my bed and throw out my computer? should I keep working away when the work that is being most adored is that which feels less like work and more like love?
Huh?
Should I?
Liz,
I totally get what you’re saying. I suffer from the same dilemma. I’m thinking those stories that come upon you like thunder are more right-brain creations, more intuitive. When you make sausage, you follow a logical path. I always feel like I’m forcing and trudging along, being way too controlling.
I’ve given up on several projects because I can’t get out of my own way. Some of these, editors have liked the idea, and want to see a revision. But after rewriting so many times my passion for the story is gone. I can’t get back to that initial “spark” that drove me in the first place. It’s agony.
So I don’t know what the answer is. Most of the time I think I’m trying too hard.
Good luck . . .
Right. Exactly. Ditto.
OK, well as long as I’m not in it alone…
Me too!
Both books that sold were impulsive, free, fun, and from the gut/heart. I’ve got a few others like them that I haven’t sent out much, but I’m confident that they are good stories even if they don’t sell.
But the other things? They started in the head — a concept, or a plot, or something thought ABOUT instead of IN, if you know what I mean. And I don’t know if they’ll ever become something.
Yes!
aBOUT instead of IN.
Linda — that is totally and exactly how it is for me.
OK, now I’m actually feeling a bit weepy. But in a good way.
Thanks, you guys…
“the work that is being most adored is that which feels less like work and more like love”
Step back. You have work that is being adored. You have work that feels like love. The big picture looks good when you step back.
Mary Lee
Thanks, Mary Lee. I think you’re right, but I never stop for long and wallow. I’m an on-to-the-next-thing kind of gal. But this is a very, very good reminder that I ought not be morose…
I am not a writer of fiction and have no answers for you but wanted to say that I love the phrase “some woo-woo pre-ordained path.”
Jules 🙂 — 7-Imp, that is
Well, you know, Jules, it applies to life, too, not just fiction! 🙂
Man, Liz, what a hard, hard question. My only offering is that perhaps somehow the process of working so diligently on those G.I.’s hones your craft so finely that when the thunder strikes you’re SO ready. It’s like winding up a rubber band…you wind and wind, tighter and tighter, and then KAH-WANG! it flies off! And if you didn’t know about all the winding, all that energy being stored up, you’d think the flying was totally unpredictable. But maybe it’s not?
Sara Lewis Holmes
Right, Sara. That’s a lovely way to look at it. I’m waiting for the next KAH-WANG. And in the meantime, wind wind wind….
This post stuck with me when I read it yesterday but I didn’t get a chance to comment. I really just wanted you to know that you aren’t alone. I am so often in that same space (like this ancient book I’m doing now for the gazillionth time)
My first PB came out in a true white heat. My verse novel, once I found the format, poured out almost faster than I could type.
Sometimes there are heart stories and sometimes there are head stories. The heart ones feel easy but they are the ones that really rip your guts out. The head ones, I think the trick is to find a piece of yourself that you can connect to the story. But it’s so hard.
I have tried to write to some editoral requests before and I can’t make it happen. I can’t find myself in their ideas.
Thanks, susan, for your perspective. Head and Heart seems right. Sort of like what Linda said about About and In stories. So maybe finding the heart in the head… the in in the about… that’s the key. When it’s NOT all coming to us in a true white heat. Right?