I’ve been through three book ideas since the I wrote in this space about the absolutely-for-sure final idea. I’d written a hundred pages.
It was a good idea and my agent said I had nailed the voice.
Then I ran aground.
I didn’t know I was weaving around on the shoulder, about to drive into the ditch. I thought I was puttering along, picking up speed, with clear pavement ahead. The sky was blue and the coffee tasted just right. My agent was the one who broke it to me.
“This just isn’t working out,” he said.
Drive a letter opener through my heart, huh? It could not have been more painful had my agent been the love of my life who was telling me it was all over between us … in the nicest possible way.
Of course, I knew that it wasn’t working out. I knew that I was already in the ditch, trying to force my way out of the car in deep snow. But, like The Wizard of Oz, I hoped no one else would notice me behind the curtain.
It was such a good book idea!
Could I come back to it someday, I asked my agent? He replied with the email equivalent of a shrug. Oh noooo!
Last time, I wrote that this state of affairs was unprecedented in my career. And that was before the state of affairs became really dire!
If I didn’t love my readers, some of whom are aspiring writers – and my students, who deserve the ugly truth – I would simply say that I’m such a careful, precise, jeweler of a “lit-ah-rary” author that it takes me a full three years to craft another masterpiece.
I would simply leave out all the authorial cellulite and hold my chin high.
The truth, though, is that part of the process of writing a book is facing despair. There’s a great deal of despair built into trying to do something you know could be great if only you could do it the right way.
The lovely fellow who built this beautiful website for me spend most of his time with authors. Once, a long time ago, he told me that writing a book would be like hitting yourself on the head with a heavy object. You love it, because it feels so good when it stops. So, you finish a book, and it stops, and it feels so good. Then, from the pit, comes the desire to do it all over again.
I’ve written one hundred pages. Again.
This time I really am going to finish it.
The story is about a woman whose only son killed the only girl he ever loved. It’s based on a true story a woman told me once in a hotel lobby where we were standing in line to get coffee.
“Are you happy it isn’t the other way around?” I asked her. (Double latte, extra hot …)
“Yes,” she said. “For me, there’s still hope.”
That is fascinating, my agent said when I told him this idea. But how could there be any sympathy for that character? And there was my challenge. I picked up the glove. I will go back to that other idea in the fullness of time.
And now, I must leave you. It’s time to go hit myself on the head.