I’ve been neglecting this blog for a long time now because even during the summer, when I have glorious stretches of writing time, there are only so many words I can crank out in a day, and I’ve been hoarding them all for the manuscripts I’m writing.
Since I last posted, I finished and revised the young adult book I’ve been working on, and a friend and I jumped into a collaborative middle grade novel (which has been so much fun that I hesitate to say we’ve been “working on it” because it hasn’t felt like work at all), and I’ve played around with the beginning of another middle grade story I started last summer.
The past year has been draining and difficult for me in a lot of ways, and it has felt incredibly invigorating to have so much of this summer just to write—to sink into characters’ perspectives and explore ideas I care about and have some real control over the structure of a plot and the events that happen in a story. Control is something I’ve felt like I’m lacking in parts of my regular life, so it’s been pretty wonderful to have so much control over my schedule and writing this summer.
But the closer I get to having my new young adult novel ready to send to my agent, the more that sense of control starts to slip away because now I’m starting to think about what might happen if (and when, I hope) this book goes on submission to editors. Suddenly it seems like there are too many other YA books that share an element with my new book. Suddenly, even though this book seemed so different from my last two, I imagine getting rejections that are just like the ones I saw for my last two manuscripts.
Plus, after getting very encouraging, “this is so close to ready” feedback on the version of the book I sent to critique partners early in the summer, the response I got to the next version was thoughtful and useful for sure, but it didn’t feel quite as positive. And while I’m trying to take my time with this book to make sure it’s as strong as I can possibly make it, I’m having to be patient about so many things right now, and the idea that this manuscript might not be where I thought it was felt disheartening.
But then three things happened. First, on Monday night, I saw the movie version of Paper Towns. I’ve read Paper Towns at least five times, and for the past three years, my eighth grade students and I have discussed the book in depth and analyzed the shape of the main character’s hero’s journey. So I know the story very, very intimately. At first, I was happily struck by how much of the dialogue in the movie is replicated word for word from the book, but then as the movie went on, I began to notice story lines that had been cut, changed, or rearranged. Some of the elements that don’t appear in the movie are things I really like from the book, and occasionally I burst out with comments like, “This isn’t supposed to happen now!” or “She’s not supposed to go on the road trip!” But despite those moments of resistance, I thought the movie was great. Certain elements were emphasized and other ones were downplayed, but a book with a lot of internal narration can’t just get plopped right into movie form, and I think the the movie version absolutely captures the spirit of the book.
The second thing that happened is that on Tuesday, when I was having a rough morning for non-writing reasons, I was in my car in a parking lot after an appointment and trying to make an important phone call that I needed to focus on before I started driving, and a woman came up to rap on my window and tell me to please do whatever I was doing somewhere else because she had an appointment and needed my spot. So I pulled out of the parking lot, found a quiet residential neighborhood where it would be safe to stop on the side of the road, and burst into tears. That’s not strictly relevant, I guess, but I was trying so hard to do all the right things and be okay, and maybe sometimes we all just need to let go of the need to hold everything together and fall apart parked in front of a lovely house on a suburban street after somebody scolds us for hogging a parking spot. Or something.
And that release allowed me to be a bit more relaxed when I drove to a restaurant where I had lunch with a very wise writer friend who had read the most recent version of my manuscript and had a lot of extremely kind things to say about it but also some pretty major suggestions about switching the way the premise plays out, combining or changing some of the characters, and bringing in a couple of characters who have shaped the main character but didn’t show up in the action. Her suggestions involved completely rewriting the beginning of the book, which I had gotten extremely positive feedback on from my first round of critique partners and at a writing retreat in the spring. She was also suggesting I change one character, the protagonist’s sister, when that sister relationship was one of the things that all of the people who had read the novel so far liked the best.
But the thing is, as much as I like the sister and the beginning, I completely understood why making those changes could strengthen the overall novel. As with the movie version of Paper Towns, I may miss some elements of the first version I knew, but I can see how cutting or switching them will serve the end product.
And so, as I begin this revision, I feel confident that the changes I’m making will preserve (and maybe even amplify) the tone of the story. And I realize that I still am in charge of sorting through and incorporating other people’s suggestions, and while I can’t control whether there are other YA books that have something in common with this one or whether that will be a deal-breaker on submission, I can ensure that my story is as vibrant and fun and meaningful as I’m capable of making it. So I’m energized again, thankfully. And now I need to get back to work!
Go, Laurie, go! Your strength and perseverance are an inspiration to me. Also, I really want to read your book!
Thank you, Laura!! I appreciate that so much and will definitely send this revision your way when it’s ready!
First, here is a cyber hug: [[you]]. Thank you for letting us know what’s going on. Second, I totally believe in you, Laurie. You can make this book awesome. As Laura said, “Go, Laurie, go!”
I’ve had a different writing issue: the more I post on my blog, the more I realize I’m running away from my writing. Fear of rejection. 🙁 I wish I had more control over that.
Thank you, L. Marie! It’s such a challenge to figure out how much writing energy to allocate to blog vs. manuscripts, especially for you, I’m sure, since you’ve done such an awesome job of building an active, wonderful blog with a big audience. But even though fears are hard to gain control over, being self-aware as it sounds like you are feels like a huge first step to me. Sending a big cyber hug back to you, too!
Sometimes, you need a good cry. I went through several sad and stressful things all in a 3-week span of time and under-reacted to all of them. I mean, I felt down, but I didn’t really let out my feelings. Then I had a fight with my husband over something really, really dumb — and sobbed and sobbed. Luckily, he realized that I had been holding back my feelings for weeks, trying to CONTROL everything, and he a) backed down from the argument and b) told me to go ahead and cry.
Things got much better after that. We can’t always be in control, and sometimes, when we let go of the things we can’t control, our path becomes become very clear! Good luck with your revisions. It sounds like you are ready to make it be the best it can be — and then release it.
Thanks, Dianne, and I agree–a good cry can be so helpful. So glad you got that kind of release, too! Hope your writing is going well–can’t wait for the third Eighth Day book!!