Carpe occasio.
There are a lot of good moments as a writer, stretched out over the course of writing (and hopefully, selling) a book. Maybe a line of description that you write which surprises you. Maybe something a character “says” that you could swear they did say, while your presence as a writer above the page or in front of the screen was just that: A presence. Like you watched it happen, without doing it yourself. Maybe a good review comes in, maybe a reviewer caught that joke you figured nobody but you would ever notice. Maybe you hit a sales number; for a week, or a month, or in total. Those are all swell.
Getting something done is another big moment, but it is different, and often touched with melancholy. The end of something, of anything, is after all an end. When lots of writers are “in a book,” we are in a book. We may spend more meaningful time with people in our head than we do with people who are in the same room, and not just while we are actually “writing.” The TV may be on, we may be standing in line at the bank, we may be in a car driving downtown. But we are not really there. We are off in that other place, working through the things we have to know for the next time we do sit down in front of the computer, or over the notebook.
A book can be a whole world for a reader, and it is the same for a writer, with the difference being that the writer has to be there. A reader can put a book down if they don’t like it, but can a writer? If it is a story they feel like they have to tell? Putting a piece away won’t shut down the voices in your head if they want to be heard, and it won’t stop the ideas from nibbling around your subconscious. At best, maybe you channel some things into a different project. But how can anything that came up from within you ever really go away? It is there, until it is on the page.
I finished the draft stage of a book today [Wednesday, June 13, 2012], and this was sort of a big one for me. My main project is a series I started putting out last year, which I began writing years ago with no intention of seeing it published, nor bothering to try and take it “trad.” I only wrote it because it wouldn’t go away. The voices would not pipe down. It is epic fantasy, nothing dangerous or controversial, not “Dark,” not particularly violent, not sexually charged. In other words, there is no easily marketable “hook.” It’s a story about some people, doing some stuff. But I knew going in that I was going to write it the way I wanted to write it. Not the way any business person or marketing guru might suggest it should be written in order to better appeal to the least common denominator. There are plenty of books like that already, and that’s fine.
The three series books I “Indie” published last year, soon after learning that “Indie” was a thing, were written quite a bit before last year (at least to the draft stage). It was a lot of work getting them edited into adequate condition, but I didn’t produce any of them from scratch after going down Indie Lane. This fourth book was different, in that while I had started writing it a while back as well, I started about three or four different times. More than once I got a few hundred pages in, tens of thousands of words, before realizing it just wasn’t working. Book IV, which had a number of different working titles, basically derailed the series. More than once. After I put Book III out in September of last year, I took another run at it.
And today, I finished.
Two thirds of the book have already gone off to my beloved and much appreciated betas and editors, and once I have this last part cleaned up enough to send to them, I will. The drafting part is over, but there is still work to do, of course. Lots of it. Something else that is different, there are now actually some readers out there waiting on this book, who have been told when they can find it. So today there was not really much time to just sit back and look at that little cursor flashing on the line below where the voices finished saying what they had to say. It was only a moment, but it was a good one. Good enough that I felt like acknowledging it, right here.
Write on, brothers and sisters, but don’t forget to appreciate those moments as they flutter by. Go ahead and seize them. But then open your hands, let them go on their way, and get back to work.
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M. Edward McNally is the author of the Norothian Cycle books: The Sable City, Death of a Kingdom, and The Wind from Miilark, and multiple free short story volumes titled Eddie’s Shorts. He has been writing for twenty of the last thirty years and does not recommend the ten year spell of writer’s block in the middle. Ed is a contributor at Indies Unlimited (IU Bio Page) and tilts at his own windmills over at http://sablecity.wordpress.com/
I really enjoyed reading your take on writing. The part about 'not being there' especially. When thoughts and ideas are running wild through your mind it's true, a whole conversation go on and you are just not aware of it. I've started carrying a notebook round with me to jot down my crazy thoughts when I have them and who knows, maybe I can put them down on paper one day. So that they actually make sense. Congratulations on finishing your book. I'm not familiar with your work but I will certainly make a point of tracking it down. Really interesting article, thank you for sharing.
I wish there was a big, fat, squishy LIKE button for this post. Thank you, Ed. I get so lost in my books I forget the world. I don't like letting go when I'm done. But I do. New characters call. Editing and marketing call. I'm learning to appreciate more of the process. Congrats on the new project!
Congrats McNally
Congratulations Ed and I know that sense of melancholy. My manuscript is out with betas too and I know there will be more work to be done but just at the moment I feel as if I have two left feet whereas just a week ago I could fly.
Congratulations on finishing your book, Ed. And one of my favorite lines from a song by Semisonic, Closing Time, goes "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Here's to your next one, my friend!
Congratulations Ed, and excellent thought Kat.
A reader once asked me what my writing process was like. I told her it was really quite simple. When writing a book, I'm lost in the words. There isn't a here and now; there is only a there and then.
The stories certainly do write us, rather than we write them. And it is one of the wonderful parts about being a writer. With the sweets, however…as my grandmother used to say. There is always the end of a project. In ways we're delighted; others we're not. But I congratulate you on your finished project – especially one that seems like it was hard in coming. Those are often the most rewarding.
I'm not familiar with your work, but I'll look into it. And thanks for sharing some of your insights with us today!
BC Brown ~ Paranormal, Mystery, Romance, Fantasy
"Because Weird is Good."
Congrats on getting this difficult offspring to speak. Seems each one gets harder than the previous one. But I'd put money on it that the end result will also make it a better 'the end'.