How much time and effort do you put into your work? Do you worry about failure?

underthecity · Mar 15, 2008

And I don't mean "when do you write?"

Writing the first draft wasn't a chore . At times I was flying along, the story practically writing itself. However, I didn't stop to flesh things out. Many scenes were sparse and a lot of dialogue didn't have many beats. Much dialogue was there only to get the point across, and I had plans to improve it in the second draft. In spite of all this, I ended with 100K words.

That first draft took about five months to write.

I've been revising for nearly a year and a half. I'm about fifty pages away from the end of Draft 2. And I have to be honest here, a lot of time revision is a struggle.

Sometimes I'll keep reworking the same paragraph for an hour or more. I keep changing dialogue; it seems to become more natural every time I work on it, but it never seems good enough. "Is it real? Is it believable?" are questions I keep asking; never mind the fact that the subject of the book, its whole focus, is based on a concept that is impossible in the real world. (A machine to catch ghosts? Yeah, right.)

The book and story are constantly on my mind. I'll have scenes and individual lines of dialogue running through my head at any given time. Sometimes I'll go back a hundred pages and add a line in a scene to add a tiny detail that might enhance it just a little. Other times I'll rethink another past scene and post it in SYW and ask for advice. I did that with a scene involving a passage quoted from a Ben Franklin book I made up. I ended up reworking nearly the entire thing. And now it's better, I guess. Nobody really said so in SYW.

I keep pouring so much time and effort into this thing, and sometimes I wonder, will anyone like it? Have I wasted my time? Will I find an agent? Will it really get published?

Or have I wasted two years of my life endlessly working on a project that in the end . . . will go nowhere?

allen

dreamsofnever · Mar 15, 2008

Hi Allen,
I feel your pain. You're right-writing the first draft is the easy part. (though it's not always easy either)

I've been struggling with revisions of my first novel for almost a year and a half now. But that's with taking some breaks from the revising because sometimes I get to a point in revising where I feel like it isn't getting any better and I wonder if I'm wasting my time too. That's usually when it's best to take a step back for a little bit to give yourself some distance from the work. Then when you go back, you can have a fresh take on it and hopefully some more motivation.

In the meantime, I would suggest starting a new project. Take what you've learned already and channel it into a new first draft. This will rebuild your creative steam and your writing self esteem and will usually give you a new take on your previous work.

I was absolutely at the point you're at now and then I started a second book. I found that just the process of writing it, knowing what I learned via editing, educated me on what else I could edit and now I'm juggling writing this new first draft with editing the first novel and it seems to work really well.

As for whether or not it's worth it? I believe it is. Maybe this book won't be published (which is sad, I know) but maybe what learn from writing and editing it will enable you to write a book that's even better and stronger and that will be published. Then, maybe you'll have the fuel to go back and polish this book til it shines and then it will get published too.

Not sure if this is the first novel you've written or not, but a lot of the published authors on here have said that their first novel published is actually the third or fouth novel they've written. And that they were able to get published because of what they learned from writing the first 2-3 books.

So, yes, it's worth it. But maybe give yourself some time off to exercise your creative side too.

Oh, and if you haven't tried this-I find that reading my dialogue out loud really helps in editing it to make it sound more natural.

ORION · Mar 15, 2008

This is what all writers go through (I think).
My first 2 1/2 novels may end up sitting in a drawer forever...Are they a waste of time? No. I consider them my tuition.
They taught me what I needed to know for LOTTERY.
Revision is the HARDEST thing to do. EDITING is Hard.
That's why many writers never get past the first draft- they are different skill sets and you must learn them by doing.
Hope this helps...

donut · Mar 15, 2008

How much time and effort do you put into your work?

A lot.

Do you worry about failure?

Yes. Like, constantly.

You sound like me -- a polisher. On my finished (?) novel, I spent hours working on tiny details, rearranging sentences, replacing words with slightly apter synonyms, working over my dialogue until every beat felt natural. A lot of the time, I wondered if I was just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic -- pretending I was working when none of it would make a difference in the long run. Well, I'm not published yet, and I may never be, so it might still turn out to be true. But I'll tell you, when I was submitting to agents, even in the rejections I got a LOT of compliments on the quality of my prose. People said it was polished, sophisticated, natural... better than most of the stuff they saw every day.

So I have to believe all that work did make a difference.

blacbird · Mar 15, 2008

underthecity said:
I keep pouring so much time and effort into this thing, and sometimes I wonder, will anyone like it? Have I wasted my time? Will I find an agent? Will it really get published?

Or have I wasted two years of my life endlessly working on a project that in the end . . . will go nowhere?

You've only wasted two years?

caw

Nateskate · Mar 15, 2008

I relate to everything you've said here, and went through the same introspection, and the same difficulty going from one draft to the next.

Ultimately, I asked the same questions about whether this was the biggest, most lavish waste of my time. The only question is whether the story is worth it.

I'm sharing the fact that I had doubts and it was extremely hard, because that becomes secondary if the answer is 'yes'.

StoryG27 · Mar 15, 2008

blacbird said:
You've only wasted two years?

caw

LOL! That's exactly what I was thinking.

You would think at this point I wouldn't be worried about failure because I've faced it so many times, but I still get nervous. I figure I'll just keep going until I either wake up one day and know I'm done or until I make it.

wrinkles · Mar 15, 2008

Writing the first draft wasn't a chore . At times I was flying along, the story practically writing itself. However, I didn't stop to flesh things out. Many scenes were sparse and a lot of dialogue didn't have many beats.

Recently I've seen several references to "beats" in dialogue. What is that? Don't tell me it's something else I need to be worried about in my writing.

Stew21 · Mar 15, 2008

its easier for me to create in first draft too. I toil over second, third and other drafts beyond. That's the real work. I also tell scenes instead of showing them to hold my place, skip scenes to get to other ones, and have to add all that new language into the second draft. I'm now at the stage where I take each chapter and read it individually so I can make stylistic edits, and tweak sentences to get the most out of each scene.
Very frequently I think it will never go anywhere, but I do it anyway.
I still believe in the story, I just seriously wonder if I've done it justice with my writing.
I'll keep working on it and work on other things in th meantime. I just hope if anything good happens with one of these books, I remember what it was I did right.
I also agree with Patricia, they are tuition. I'm still paying.

Matera the Mad · Mar 15, 2008

I've been editing/revising for three years and still no end in plain sight. Gets to be sort of a life-style after a while. Never counted hours of research, but there's gigabytes of stuff tucked away on CDs. It's cheaper entertainment than eating out.

blacbird · Mar 15, 2008

Matera the Mad said:
I've been editing/revising for three years and still no end in plain sight. Gets to be sort of a life-style after a while. Never counted hours of research, but there's gigabytes of stuff tucked away on CDs. It's cheaper entertainment than eating out.

Not when you factor in the therapy.

caw

icerose · Mar 15, 2008

I've spent 8 serious years writing and am only just now starting to make money on it. Not a single minute spent writing was wasted. I can think of plenty of time wasted watching television, or sitting a round bored, and so on and so forth. I have the same 24 hours every single day, I have to do something with that time. I might as well use it to work on something I enjoy and am trying to succeed in.

Failure is only the steps to success if you learn from them.

Toothpaste · Mar 15, 2008

Oh I totally agree that writing is a painful painful process. Though I have to say for me, the first draft, is quite possibly the hardest. But I write and revise as I go. I get all mad at myself if what I write right off the bat isn't perfect. It is so hard for me to let anything go. My latest WIP was a nightmare trying to finish.

Editing is a set of all new stresses, definitely not fun either. But I have to say, I wish I could write a first draft that felt fun and good again. It's been a long time since I've felt that way. I believe it is now time for the world's smallest violin please!

JustGo · Mar 15, 2008

I'm in a pretty similar situation myself. Finished my first novel after seven months of writing in June or July 2007, so it's been about nine months since then. Admittedly, I have a tough time balancing revisions with college (Agh! Essays!) and this semester is so nasty I only work on it during vacations, but I know I've already spent about twice as many hours on revisions as I did on the rough draft, and it's nowhere near complete. (See that run-on? That's why revising is important.)

On the flip side, though, my writing has improved leaps and bounds thanks to the process. I recently slapped together a short story in a day and a half to meet a deadline, and it was incredibly well received by my classmates. My best friend, who's normally rather indifferent to my writing, thought it was fantastic and said it was the best thing I'd ever written.

Do what dreamsofnever suggests and write something different to take a break - you may be surprised how much you've improved. No time writing is wasted; if you're actively thinking about what you're doing, you'll only get better with experience.

ishtar'sgate · Mar 15, 2008

underthecity said:
(A machine to catch ghosts? Yeah, right.)
allen

You mean you can't?

Well, they did it in Ghostbusters so you can too.
Oh yeah, the question. How much time and effort do I put into my work and do I worry about failure. I put YEARS into the first draft of my novel. I revised as I went along, always reading what I did the day before and tweaking it as much or as little as needed. Once the manuscript was completed I set it aside for a few months and concentrated on other things. Final revisions took about four months. Of course I couldn't resist continuing to pick at it until it sold. Failure wasn't even on my radar. It took a long time to sell my first novel but even though I had bouts of depression I'd always bounce back more determined than ever. Failure just wasn't an option.
Linnea

lfraser · Mar 15, 2008

I'm still bashing away at my first draft, fourteen months later. It's probably take me another two months to finish, and I suspect it'll take that long again to edit. Yet after all that, I'm 99% certain that this will be a trunk novel. But it'll be the best damn trunk novel I can write. And I bet the next novel I write will be better for my having spent so much time on this one. It's all learning. I can honestly say that my writing -- not just the prose, but the storytelling -- has improved enormously. How is that a waste of time, for someone who loves to read and wants to write?

Layla Nahar · Mar 15, 2008

How much time and effort do you put into your work?

as much as I can

Do you worry about failure?

I keep my goals out of the 'fail-able' category

JeanneTGC · Mar 15, 2008

It depends on the book.

The book that landed me an agent I wrote in a month. The second book the agent took was the one that I wrote, and rewrote, and rewrote again over the course of 10 years.

Were the 10 years wasted? Nope. They were why I could write that other book in a month. Just in time to meet the right agent.

As for success or failure, I'm a firm proponent of following the Cat Theory which says it never hurts to ask for what you want.

I want total NYT bestseller domination.

miles · Mar 15, 2008

wrinkles said:
Recently I've seen several references to "beats" in dialogue. What is that? Don't tell me it's something else I need to be worried about in my writing.

A beat is when you use a phrase to describe a character's reaction or movements, where you would normally use a speech tag.

No beat:

"I'm leaving? Coming?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Have to clean."

Beats:

Susan looked at the door. "I'm leaving. Coming?"

"No."

"Why?"

John pointed to the floor. It looked like an earthquake had hit. "Have to clean."

Shweta · Mar 15, 2008

JeanneTGC said:
Were the 10 years wasted? Nope. They were why I could write that other book in a month. Just in time to meet the right agent.

I feel that way about my trunked stories. They got me where I am now. The stories I think are successful now (ha) will get me where I'll be next year.

Part of this is me telling myself that I can too work on a whole novel, and it's not the end of the world if it ends up fatally flawed. But while I doubt it on an emotional level, I do believe it's true

kzmiller · Mar 15, 2008

Part of what keeps a writer from going completely batty is to set aside a manuscript that they've been polishing until it bleeds and start a new project. Sometimes a manuscript needs to rest, not just after you've written it but during various stages of editing. I think your brain is trying to tell you through your doubts that it's time to rest for a bit. That doesn't mean you should listen to the doubts! They're just a distraction.

While you're writing your new fun first draft, you may want to take a peek at some books on editing and revision. There are lots of very good ones out there. I like David Madden's "Revising Fiction," among others.

Mumut · Mar 16, 2008

When youre revising, you'll suddenly realise you've got that part right. It's a great feeling. Sometimes, however, you need to do a major restructuring. If it doesn't sound right after a lot of messing about, it is probably deeply flawed. Also, when a number of problems are solved by re-writing, start reading again from the begining. You might have included something that needs seeding earlier. Or you might have used words you've used in the previous paragraph. So, yes. You need to spend a lot of time polishing before the work is ready to publish.

triceretops · Mar 16, 2008

I keep pouring so much time and effort into this thing, and sometimes I wonder, will anyone like it? Have I wasted my time? Will I find an agent? Will it really get published?

Or have I wasted two years of my life endlessly working on a project that in the end . . . will go nowhere?

Allen, I worry about this all the time. I'm on a manuscript that is such a tough slog that I don't know if I'll ever finish it. It's so different and nuts, and I took such great pains to push it in that direction, that now I'm wondering if I've gone too far and I'll end up with an unbelievable mess on my hands. The only thing I can do is weather this storm and find the finish line.

Don't be so hard on yourself. You've had terrific sucess with your non-fiction books. Believe me, I've watched you and you deserve a ton of credit for your output, meeting dealines and all that editing--no one here on this board has worked harder than you, on what I consider to be a regional non-fic series. Right now, you're trying to break into the fiction market, and I know it's got you rattled. It's tougher on this side of the fence, that's all I can tell you. Continue on, especially with that editing. But you're going to have to call it finished at some point and toss it out their for mass consumption. Don't be a feared.

Tri

underthecity · Mar 16, 2008

Thanks for all the comments. It's been an enlightening read.

dreamsofnever:

In the meantime, I would suggest starting a new project. Take what you've learned already and channel it into a new first draft. This will rebuild your creative steam and your writing self esteem and will usually give you a new take on your previous work.
. . . As for whether or not it's worth it? I believe it is. Maybe this book won't be published (which is sad, I know) but maybe what learn from writing and editing it will enable you to write a book that's even better and stronger and that will be published.

At the moment, I don't want to take up another writing project. I simply want to finish this one and take a break. I've got a stack of other pressing things I've been putting off that need tending to. Most of all, I'm restoring the interior of my 1967 Mercury and plan to have it on the road by May.

Orion:

Revision is the HARDEST thing to do. EDITING is Hard.

Yeah, I heard that. But I do enjoy the process of revising. I just get bogged down in it.

Nateskate:

Ultimately, I asked the same questions about whether this was the biggest, most lavish waste of my time. The only question is whether the story is worth it.

I definitely think my story is worth it. I know as writers we all love our books, but, well, if I found The Ghost Machine in a bookstore, it's the kind of book I would want to read.

Icerose:

I've spent 8 serious years writing and am only just now starting to make money on it. Not a single minute spent writing was wasted. I can think of plenty of time wasted watching television, or sitting a round bored, and so on and so forth.

I definitely don't think I've wasted my time, but like everyone else here, I've made a lot of sacrifices to write this book. I would LOVE to just sit and watch TV or play video games. Or work more on the car. Or take piano lessons.

kzmiller:

While you're writing your new fun first draft, you may want to take a peek at some books on editing and revision. There are lots of very good ones out there. I like David Madden's "Revising Fiction," among others.

Oh, I've read a variety of books on writing and revision. I haven't read this one, though.

mumet:

When you're revising, you'll suddenly realise you've got that part right. It's a great feeling. Sometimes, however, you need to do a major restructuring. If it doesn't sound right after a lot of messing about, it is probably deeply flawed. Also, when a number of problems are solved by re-writing, start reading again from the begining. You might have included something that needs seeding earlier. Or you might have used words you've used in the previous paragraph. . .

And that's what I do. I'll revise one section, reread it, back up, read the section up to the recently-revised section, rework it some more, read it from the beginning of the chapter, go a little further the next time, re-read all of it again, and on and on and on.

Triceretops:

Don't be so hard on yourself. You've had terrific sucess with your non-fiction books. Believe me, I've watched you and you deserve a ton of credit for your output, meeting dealines and all that editing--no one here on this board has worked harder than you, on what I consider to be a regional non-fic series. Right now, you're trying to break into the fiction market, and I know it's got you rattled. It's tougher on this side of the fence, that's all I can tell you. Continue on, especially with that editing. But you're going to have to call it finished at some point and toss it out their for mass consumption.

Gosh, thanks a whole bunch. Sometimes I feel like I'm flying just under the radar around here. And I am continuing on, one page at a time.

Everyone: I do enjoy the revision process. I'm taking the crap that I've written and am turning it slowly into gold. I have set a definite goal for The Ghost Machine. I've written it for mass appeal, I think, with hopes of reaching a wide audience and not appeal to any one specific set of readers. My goal, laugh at it if you want to, is to land a big agent/publisher and hit the best seller list with it. So, I have no intention of either quitting or let this be a trunk novel.

Other authors have found success with their first novels. I plan to be one of those.

Meanwhile, I still have nine queries out for the children's story I wrote two years ago. I didn't want to let this one die, either.

allen

Mythica · Mar 16, 2008

Yeah, the hard parts suck, but we love what we do so we just buck up and do it. Revising is definitely the hardest part. Because I'm young, I learn new things about grammar and storytelling every day. So, I look forward to every edit because I know it only gets better. I also tend to overlook things very easily (I zone out when I read my own stuff...it's bad) and I'm usually kicking myself during the revisions, wondering how in the world I could have missed such glaringly obvious errors...But oh well. I try to stay positive

I'm looking forward to getting my partials back, because even if the agents choose to pass on me, I'm very excited to see if they've made any notes on my manuscript. It's going to be such a learning experience either way.

How much time and effort do you put into your work? Do you worry about failure?

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