In last Friday's post, Of Milestones and Manuscripts, I mentioned in passing that finishing A Scandalous Liaison was a major accomplishment for me because I had so many quarter- and half-written manuscripts littering my past. In the comments, Jody (aka meankitty aka Typing Slave) asked me to 'fess up as to how many in a blog post.
Well, the truth is, too many for me to be able to tell you how many.
The first piece of fiction I recall writing was a story about a fairy and a jack-o-lantern (hmmm, Erica, this is sounding frighteningly familiar!) back in the second grade. I don't think I want to tell you exactly how many years ago that is, but suffice it to say, it was quite a long time ago and the beginning of what I suspect will be a lifelong obsession. Even in the decade when I wasn't actively writing (from several years after I got married up to last February), I did write in fits and starts--bits and pieces of stories that never quite got up enough steam to get me to commit to them.
Of course, most of what I wrote when I was in junior high and high school (and even college) was craptastically bad. I took a creative writing class in college where the instructor took my stories apart with a gigantic red pen and left them as bleeding carcasses on the floor. At the time, I thought he was harsh and just didn't like my stories because they weren't "literary" enough, but now I realize it was just because they sucked. Oh, they had a few redeeming qualities (I'm pretty certain all the sentences were grammatically correct and accurately spelled), but other than that, I can't think of much that was good about them.
The only thing I ever wrote back then that had any real promise was a bit of Star Wars fan-fic set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I couldn't wait for the next installment, so I had to write my own. And I felt very sorry for Luke after he discovered Leia was his sister, so I gave him a love interest in the form of Emperor Palpatine's daughter. I thought Jedis should get a little up-n-down, too, ya know? Before I finished it, however, ROTJ hit the theaters and writing it became a moot point. Although it still didn't look like Luke was ever gonna get any hot girlie action... (I almost wish I knew where to find that piece now, but I don't. It was written long before computers on a manual typewriter, so it's probably decomposing somewhere in a landfill now along with most of the rest of what I wrote back then.)
Looking back, I suspect that the primary reason I didn't finish anything I started (with the rare exception of a few short stories and one very bad YA novella) was because I knew what I was writing wasn't very good. It was mostly mental masturbation, a way to entertain myself. I never shared anything I wrote with anyone else (at least, not until that disastrous college course that flayed me alive, LOL). And after a certain point, the stories always stopped entertaining me and I moved onto the next one.
So, what changed between then and now? I'm not sure, but I suspect it's a combination of factors. The primary one, though, is that I found a community of writers with interests similar to my own. (That group includes pretty much everyone who reads this blog, of course! So thanks to all of you.)
I do have to give the lion's share of the credit for the fact that A Scandalous Liaison is both finished and not a complete piece of crap to Lacey, though. That's not to say my other critique partners aren't fabulous! They are and have all contributed enormously to everything I've accomplished this last year.
It's just that Lacey was the first to work with me and she pointed out a lot of things in the first version of my manuscript that I didn't know enough to see on my own: passive constructions, telling rather than showing, weak stage direction, POV problems, etc. When I started to apply the simple pointers she gave me, the story got instantly more interesting and entertaining to me, and it seemed infinitely more worth the effort to finish it. (And it's more than a little humbling that she taught me this stuff while being young enough to be my daughter. I wasn't a bad writer when I was her age because I was young; I was just bad!)
So, today's question for ya'll is: What motivates you to keep working on a manuscript until you finish it? And how many unfinished (and possibly never-to-be-finished) books and stories are taking up space on your hard drive or in your file cabinet? Or in landfills?
Friday, March 16, 2007
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10 comments:
/Lacey wipes away the tears...
You've given back and then some, darling! And the internet is great for wiping ages, anyway. Who cares? I luh yah like a sister!
As for helping people finish mss--couldn't have done mine without you (and everyone else!), either! Darcy rocks for reading quickly, too. Wipe out erros like 401!
404? 409 :-) I got money on the brain...
Must be tax season if we're talking 401. . .although if you want to know, that's probably pretty close to how many half-finished projects I have.
Oh, the stories I started. . .but I didn't know "how" to finish.
I bought lots of how-to books and finally figured out how to finish a short story. Although I have quite a few of those that topped out the crap-o-meter and "retired" to that great circular file in the sky.
I actually started writing novellas in hopes of teaching myself to write a 'finihsed' novel. It's working, slowly but surely. . . I admire all you 100K writers. . . The longest I've written so far has been 32K. . .
As for motivation? That's a tough one as I simply have never been able to "not" write. . .
I'm a feedback whore. I love hearing from readers what they liked (or didn't) about my books. If I don't finish, I don't get feedback. Real simple.
"I thought Jedis should get a little up-n-down, too, ya know?"
Also, Jacq, I giggled in pure delight. I've never seen anyone else call it that, but now my coined phrase is spreading. Mwahahaha!
I don't know what motivates me to keep working. I wrote a book and its sequel when I was ten. I finished it. I started writing another book when I was eleven. I never did finish that one, most likely because it had no plot and it made no sense. I started writing another book when I was fifteen or so. This was going to be a high-falutin' literary work of Incredible Genius, which undoubtedly would have won prizes everywhere.
Needless to say, it was crap. And then I gave up because I figured out that I was crap at writing books because I couldn't plot my way out of a paper bag, and so I went and did other things for a while. This makes a grand total of 4, but I don't really count them because they weren't "serious" efforts. That is: when I wrote them, I thought writing was something you did--in some ways, that a writer was who you were. If you wrote, you wrote. If you didn't write, it was because it wasn't meant to be.
Between now and then I learned how to work. Like, really work. And I learned how to revise and how to edit and how to rip my stuff to shreds.
Writing isn't some magical thing that just happens. It's something you've got to work like the devil at.
For me, I guess the real change has been that I've learned how successful work can be. So that even if I write horrible crap, I know that I can work and work and work, and it will get better.
Ever since I started writing "professionally" (quotes because I'm an unpaid unpub, and I've only been *serious* about writing the past 1.5 years), I haven't allowed myself to leave a manuscript unfinished. I don't know if it's motivation so much as I remind myself that if I want to be perceived as a professional, I have to act like one, and professionals finish the job. Now, prior to me being all professional-like, I only managed to finish 1 out of god knows how many manuscripts. So I hear ya on that. But like Nike says, ya just gotta do it. And you can! Nobody spews forth perfect first drafts. Nobody. Don't worry about it. You're a great writer. Don't forget! =)
Oh dear. Since probably the age of 19-21 when I was serious and in college, I probably started about 7 manuscripts, sent 1 partial to Harlequin and didn't finish a single one. Last year when I took it up again in June, I started three contemporaries and didn't finish. I started my first historical in November and finished that one. I know the key was I wasn't writing in the genre I was most passionate about. I am now and I'm loving it. I also joined RWA and my chapter and have a CPs (unofficially probably several CPs) and that makes a huge difference to what I was doing before.
I can name 7 WIPs on my harddrive that progressed beyond notes. Sometimes I have to eke out a partial before I can determine whether or not something's worth pursuing. As to what motivates me to finish something....because I think I can sell it, that's what. I'm a mercenary piece of crap.
Well, it's good to know I'm not alone in my inability to finish manuscripts.
Annie, I'm definitely with you in the "feedback whore" category. And I'm glad you got a kick out of my use of your catch phrase. It's a good one! (I didn't realize it was a coinage of yours *g.)
Jody, there's nothing wrong with being mercenary. I know I wouldn't have tried to finish ASL if I'd become convinced it was an absolutely worthless piece of crap that I could never sell. (It may be, but I would never have been motivated to finish it if I'd felt that way when I was writing it.)
Also, I think I might have met your agent this weekend at an RWA chapter meeting. She lists your Ellie Marvel books on her site, so I assume she represents you. I'd love to ask you about her if she is your agent as I'm considering querying her.
Ericka, I admire those who can write short! ASL may have clocked in at 126,000 words when I finished the first draft and I'll probably get it down to right around 100K when I'm done with revisions, but I find it HARD to write a complete, satisfying story in a limited number of words.
Everyone else, keep plugging! We're all doing great.
I am a bit late - but then again, I thought this was a trick question.
Between my sisters and I we have probably 100 unfinished mss covering the past twenty five years.
Because we are professional writers means nose to the grindstone. We aren't given room to sit and ponder when the deadline is bearing down on us which is probably why we did branch out into cross-genre. The challenge was great, so was the aspect of feeding our imagination.
Ten years ago anybody who suggested we write romance would have been laughed at. Today, the story is completely different.
Find motivation anyway you can - that's the ticket whether you are struggling to get through the first book or the fiftieth.
T.J.
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