Are You Done Already??

I could have called this "Let It Go"

Last week, my husband, writer James Lee Proctor, made this comment:

Stories endings are seldom as satisfying to authors as they are to readers, begging the question: Is the writer ever really finished?

How many times have you put a project to bed, submitted it, read the published version, and still considered ways it could have been better? Even if it gets raves from everyone, the correct answer is: Always! It's a good thing your audience doesn't read your stuff the way you do.

My first knee-jerk reaction was: Of course I know when I’m finished!
Then I got thinkin’ … more on that later.

And “always” second-guessing myself? I beg to disagree!
Do I reread after publishing and wonder if some sentences could have been improved, or a better word chosen? It happens, but rarely. When selecting short stories for the Family and Other Ailments collection, I took the opportunity to cut and streamline. I also included a longer version of one of the stories than what had been published because I liked the slower build-up more. It was a bit of a “redo” but over the entire book the changes were minor.
When I reread, I often have a different reaction: Did I WRITE this?
Which says a lot about the way my mind works when I’m deep in a story. I’m in what we call in French “un état second” (altered state?), and not completely in control of what appears on the page. Add to that the glacial speed of publishing. It can take months between a short story acceptance and its publication, and when it comes to a book, it may be years. I will not remember everything I wrote. Plot, yes, characters, absolutely, but a specific paragraph or line of text? No way.

Then there’s how I work. I rewrite as I go. I don’t keep a separate draft#1, draft#2, etc. I constantly tinker with the same Word file. If I remove a big chunk of text, I dump it in a separate “cuts” file that I seldom look at again. In the case of a short story, I will spend more time tweaking and polishing than I did writing the initial document. Nothing gets sent out until I’m 100% satisfied and I’m a terrible nitpicker. The balance of time between writing and revising is different with a book because I force myself to write without rereading. Constant reworking would slow me down too much. I just go back to the last chapter to create momentum. Once I reach The End, I let the manuscript sit for at least a month before working on it again with a magnifier and a sharp knife.

I used not to write like that. I used to belong to the “never finished” tribe. And to go back to Jim’s remarks above, not just for the ending, but for the entire work.

It took me twenty years to complete the science fiction Savage Crown tetralogy (cool word). That’s five years per book on average. Not extremely long if you use George R.R. Martin’s writing pace as a benchmark (will he ever finish Game of Thrones?), but hats off, he’s a master maze builder.

I was a very different kind of writer then. My motivation for writing was something else entirely.

I wrote like some people quilt or crochet, or take up pottery, or grow an herb garden. To balance my life that was utterly absorbed by WORK, the kind that pays the bills. Before I started writing Solitaire Plaza (the second book in the Savage Crown series that was actually written first), I was at serious risk of burn-out, spinning my wheels, restless, and crippled by anxiety attacks. My shrink—I was sensible enough to realize a solid shove to get out of the status quo was needed—said the liberating words: You need a project. Make sure you always have a project.

My musical talents are pitiful, I can’t draw to save my life, and my mom’s nimbleness with a sewing machine wasn’t passed down to me, but I knew I could write. I’d sold a few short stories, wrote a one-act play, did improv … I knew what my project was going to be. The objective wasn’t being published or finding readers. The book was my woodworking, my Zen. When you look at it that way, time to completion doesn’t matter.

Until the time comes to let go. Because, at some point I had to let go. To be free. To be released and turn my attention to something else. Over a 3-year period, I published the complete series. Of course I reread, and edited, and pondered with my usual obsession for detail. But I was finished. Would I write some things differently? Sure. Do I want to? No. The project served its purpose, I was no longer restless and I knew I wanted to keep writing.

It was good learning. You can’t write 400,000 words and not learn something. I cut my teeth on the Savage Crown.

And then I cut them again on Declan Shaw Book#1, and Book#2, and Book#3.
Love You Till Tuesday (#4) is my debut crime novel. Forgive my chuckle! I’m happy with the way it ends, and I wouldn’t change a word.

Cherry on the cake, the next one (#5 for me, for you it’ll be #2) is on its way … I just need to summon my inner eagle-eyed critic and read it all over again!

In case you missed it …

An article on Writers Who Kill, where I talk about Houston as a perfect location for a crime novel: A New Detective on the Streets of Houston.

An essay on Booklovers’ Bench on rereading old favorites and being surprised … sometimes: Hit Replay, Read that Book Again, or not …

And to close this issue, an interview on Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers.

If you’ve read Love You Till Tuesday, thank you for leaving a few stars on Amazon. Help me beat the advertising algorithm!