When enough is enough...

The "Perfectionism" thread caused me to think. Is thise even the right word. It implies that we can all come up with a perfect work. And that's clearly not the case.

A perfect work is beyond the level of a classic. Tolkien's work wasn't perfect, but were classics. Even die hard fans will debate whether Tom Bombadil adds or detracts from Lord fo the Rings. Though this is written brilliantly, a minority would call his work perfect.- wanting less description of flowers and wanting more inner dialogue.

The question is simple- what are you striving for? The answer will dictate how much you will break down your novel and do re-writes. Again, look at how much Tolkien poured into LOTR- which was one story broken into three books. It took well over ten years to complete. There were also countless revisions and major changes.

If what you pour into your novel will dictate the level of your story- and it's going to be the difference between 1-2 years to publishing and 10-15 years, what will satisfy you?

1) Getting published. That is the bottom-line threshold. For a natural writer with a good idea, this could be completed in less than a year- as long as the idea is marketable.

2) Making a living- which means writing fast, leaving little time for incessant tweeking. In a sense, you become the fastfood of writing- volume volume volume. You've given up thoughts of a bestseller or classic, because you need to keep generating guaranteed income.

3) Making the bestseller's list. (Takes much more thought, many more revisions. May take several years)

4) Writing a beloved classic that will be timeless. (You may have to revise countless times, throwing away plotlines and characters. This could take many years- more than a decade ala Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

PLEASE SEE ADDENDUM: Re- In my haste to phrase the above question, I now realize that some of my awkwardly worded phrasing was offensive. I'm going to add an addendum to better explain what I meant to say- instead of rewriting this

Please accept my appology. This was not how it was meant to be sound.

For the record, I don't even think of myself as a good writer- natural writer, though I will be published. I have to fight and claw to make things work. My edits sometimes seem dyslexic to me, to the point of terrible discouragement, where it seems I have to edit and edit forever. So, I understand the fight to make things work.

Now with that said, there are natural writers who can spin out book after book. And I have friends who are authors who have 2-3 books going at a time, who have 20-60 book careers, including ghost-writting. For them, writing is not the same as it is for others. They know what it takes. They're disciplined. They finish one series and move to the next.

These are the people I'm referring to. They aren't necessarily thinking bestsellers- because they are career writers.

As far as no gaurantee in publishing, these particular people consistantly publish. I'm not like that, and never will be like that. Most aren't like that. But they exist, and they look at writing far more pragmatically, which is why they're hired to ghost-write.

swvaughn said:

Dude. I'm not gonna get all het up about this but . . . I respectfully disagree a great deal with this statement. Ain't no such thing as a guarantee in publishing, and a year is barely enough time to even finish and properly edit a first novel, much less go through the querying process.

I think you do have a few valid points in your OP, but this blanket statement could be devastating to people who've already put in years trying to get published. Not even a "natural writer with a marketable idea" has a decent shot at landing a publishing deal for a first book in less than a year. Great books are turned down all the time for reasons no author can control.

Seriously, not trying to rain on your parade, but that isn't the way things work.

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Clarification of my initial post.

Hi. I want to appologize for my awkwardly worded phrasing.

The intention of this thread was to sort out our life goals as writers. It's meant to be theoretical that "If we could choose to spend years trying to perfect a book like J.R.R Tolkien did- would we do that if it cost us ten years of our lives? Lord of the Rings was actually one book that was divided by the publisher.

Just from observation, it appears to me that most people are not even shooting for a Lord of the Rings- or other classic. Rather, they would be content to have a career of writing many books.

In this theoretical place- where we had a choice to invest years to write one great piece vs. writing many books that won't reach the level of classic- where do we fit???

I'm reading Christopher Tolkien's compilations "Treason of Isengard"- and realized how many versions this story (Lord of the Rings) went through. The person of Aragorn went through countless trials- a Hobbit, one of the Elves. Tolkien had a callender to account for every day of the journey.

As a writer- we start with a goal, and that goal will differs from other writers. Some writers have a one book career- and that may be a classic.
My "Fast Food analogy" doesn't imply lack of taste, talent, or class- what it was meant to convey was that some choose to be prolific- averaging at least one novel per year over their career- which means they approach the job differently than someone who is going to try to write The Lord of the Rings or War and Peace. And many good and gifted writers choose this course.

For what it's worth, I don't consider myself a great writer by any means, or that I will have this choice. I'd liken myself to that person who is not a natural athlete, but who was willing to put hours a day in the gym to try to make the team. I wound up on a scholarship, but had to fight and claw to get there. The same is true for my writing. Regardless of my goal, nothing has come easy.

Still, as a person who has to fight to get a story out, I do know what my dream is. Will I reach that goal of writing a classic?- I don't know. My goal and the reality will depend on readers opinions, and not my intentions. But my dream is to write a classic. I don't see myself as a career writer who can be assigned to write a sequel to a popular series- year in and year out. Others here can and want to do that.

All the same, I'm curious where my AW friends are in this- where do you want to be? What's your goal?

Hope that better explains what I meant.

Nate

Hi Cathy. First, I absolutely admire your accomplishments. And I wrote a statement appologizing for the awkwardly phrased paragraph you mentioned.

All the same, you did answer the question very well. And it's what I'm looking for. Hopefully if you read my addendum it will make better sense.

Thanks,

Nate

Cathy C said:

Actually, this isn't as hard a question as it first appears---at least for me.



Oh, I'm planning for 20+ years of publishing. Minimum. It's my retirement income since I expect that Social Security will be mostly depleted by the time I reach that point.



Yeah, that's about how it worked for me. Now the trick is keeping up the ideas.




Sorry. I disagree with this statement ENTIRELY. Defining the speed at which something is prepared as "fast food" is a bit of a slap in the face of a lot of chefs out there, who can produce a high quality gourmet meal in the equivalent time as it takes to deep fry french fries. It's all about skill, not time. What a writer learns over the course of being published is to craft more quickly, but not with less quality. You learn to choose your words for maximum impact. To me, after the first real editing pass, I learned all the things NOT to do in a manuscript and it freed up amazing amounts of time in the next book. I was able to produce it in near-shelf quality on the first round, rather than struggling through editing after editing to achieve it. I really wish more high school English classes would bring in guest editors to discuss theory. It would really increase the number of published authors out there, and lower the amount of slush.



Yeah, but several years isn't really all that much in this business. Not when you're planning a multi-decade career.



Not all of us want to write something timeless. I want to write a "great beach read." I want people to pick up my book when they want to escape the world for a few hours---not spend hours dissecting each phrase to find the imagery, like staring for hours at a Doolittle painting. I want to be on a "keeper shelf" but not studied in a classroom. But to each their own.

I want our books to keep growing in popularity. Yes, I want to be a bestseller, and I want readers to love our books. My goal is to make books that they WILL love. That means hard work and constant practice.

Trust me---there's nothing quite like writing under deadline to give a girl lots of practice.

JMHO, of course.

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Terran said:

Ahhh, that does clear things up.

On editing; I know just what you mean.

I recently submitted a portion of my work to the SYW forum. After pulling the piece and re-editing, (because of-course I posted without reading the guidelines) I re-posted the piece.

I thought I had done a fairly decent job of editing only to find I had missed many very basic grammatical and punctuation errors.

Very embarrassing.

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Been there and done that more than once. I've embarrassed myself more times than I can say, but on the positive side, each time brought me a little closer to my goal.

Some days I wonder if I have a mild form of dyslexia. I'll correct something, and read it the next day and wonder what I was thinking. This has led to more than one night of angst, wondering if I could ever get it right.

All the same, even though I feel like I'm writing at the pace of a rabbit, but editing at the pace of a slug, I hope to cross the finish line.

Hi John. You have a writing gift, and I think you see this from a different perspective than some might. Having a gift to write, which means it comes more naturally than to others, I'm sure if you obsessed on changing your goals you could. In your last sentence you articulate your goals very well.

My one very successful friend has been on the bestseller's list. His mind is very creative, and he writes well, but he also has simple writing formulas- how many words per page, pages per chapters, book lengths. He writes stories I love, but he'll never write War and Peace, though I think he could if he wanted to.

You're correct. We can't think to write a classic. Either the story is in us or it isn't. But those who have that kind of story within also have options. If they can also come up with ideas fairly quickly and have good writing skills, which some do, they can choose to avoid the hassels of an extended work that takes great labor. Obviously, this is theoretical, assuming we can choose.

I never thought to write a classic- at first. I never thought to get published at first. I wrote for sheer enjoyment. The story kept growing. At some point, my goals became much different than at the beginning.

The price of what I wanted to accomplish became apparent. So, I had to come to that crossroads, am I willing to pour into this story what it demands? Will I pay that price?

To write a Tolkienish book, one has to have a high tollerance for breaking things down and rebuilding.

johnzakour said:

Dude, you just have to write the stories in you and see what happens.

Do you think when J.K. started writing Harry she was thinking, "hmmm, I think I'll write a classic story that will be loved by millions and make me billions..."?

I just write the stories that are in my brain and I hope they make some people smile and think a little while also making my family and I money to buy stuff.

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swvaughn said:

No need to apologize. I just didn't want someone who's new(ish) at this to come along and think, "Oh, I've been at this for more than a year and still haven't gotten published - I suck, my ideas suck, I quit!"

That's all. As I said, you did have some good points, and certainly offered something to think about. No worries, dude.

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Thanks sw. My WIP has been in progress for ten years. Lol- I had no idea what I was getting into. I did it all the wrong way. I had a small audience reading the story, likeing the story, telling me to get it published. I decided that I needed to prove to myself I could finish the story (series) and wrote non-stop for two years, and wound up with nearly half a million words. But I had a story- a big fat sloppy story that was poorly written. Lol- I realized I needed to beat it into shape. Well, that was no smooth process.

Fortunately it's starting to pay off, but my history of self-doubts and frustrations and set-backs attest to the struggles it takes for some.

And I'm very sensitive- though sometimes obtuse- to those who are fighting the fight. I relate to the self-doubt. Even with finding a publisher, each time I go through another book in the series-edits, I still hit those walls- this isn't working- but now with the realization others are investing in me, and the pressure of not wanting to let them down.

I'm gaining more confidence, so that when I hit another wall, I spaz less. But I still spaz some.

The Scip said:

I agree complete with this. I don't think a person ever INTENDS to write a classic or a bestseller. Would I love to write a bestseller and be offered a multi-book deal from some publisher paying me millions of dollars? absoutely. Would I love to write a classic that will be read and dissected by every english major in college 100 years from now? Sure. I doubt those will happen but I don't plan to sit down and write those books.

I plan to sit down and write stories. The stories exist in my head and I need to get them out and on paper. Do I want to be published? Yes. Do I think I will be a published author one day? yes. But i write stories not bestsellers or classics, just stories.

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Well, I think writing can be like American Idol. Some do rush in and simply want to be a famous singer. Others have an incredible gift and simply need to focus on where their energies would be best used. Others are great at one genre only, and can't do anything else.

Joining writing groups has really opened my eyes to the wide range of people out there. And yes, there are some who have this perspective, "I want to write the next 'Lord of the Rings', but I can't seem to get it right, can you help me..."

"What do you have so far..."

"Four pages..."

"What's the story about..."

"Well, that's my problem... I kinda, sorta, wanna. But I'm not sure..."

So, yes, on a practical level we really can put the cart before the horse. But I'm supposing we have good story ideas at the outset and the skills to finish a book, when I wrote this.