Last spring I did something I never thought I'd do: I pulled the plug on a novel I'd been working on for more than a year. It was sad and painful and caused me a great deal of stress to make that decision, but you know what? I should have done it a lot earlier for two reasons:
1. It wasn't an interesting story
If I've learned anything about writing novels, it's that you have to have an interesting story to tell. In my case I'd just finished a previous novel and put too much pressure on myself to begin a new one too fast. I did this because my books pay my bills, so if I'm not writing I feel incredibly guilty and stressed out. Instead of stepping back and taking time to come up with a solid idea, I started writing with only a half-baked plot that wasn't compelling, and then I dug myself into a hole and kept digging and digging.
2. Writing it wasn't making me happy
Normally I enjoy the writing process, but in this case it was making me miserable. I would spend most of the day procrastinating before sitting down and forcing myself to hit my word count (1000), and even then I would find myself adding adjectives to beef it up. More than once my mother commented on how I'd clearly lost my love for writing, which she found alarming. But I didn't listen to her because I thought I could get through it and turn my uninteresting story into something worthy of publishing. I was wrong.
After I (finally) pulled the plug on the novel, within two months a new idea came to me. And it was a good idea. I ran it by my editor, and she agreed. So I sat down and started to write, and in three three months I finished the first draft. Now I have 1) an interesting story that 2) made me happy while writing it. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to get here. Please learn from my mistake!
-Maria
Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of the Waverly Bryson series, Cassidy Lane, Katwalk, and Wait for the Rain. She also provides consulting services to aspiring and published authors. Have questions? You can find her at www.mariamurnane.com.
This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. © 2017 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.
I plugged away for five years on a bad novel. I could feel my heart wasn't in it, but I thought that if I just kept working at it, I'd reach a breakthrough. I didn't. In the two years since I set that project aside, I have written for newspapers and magazines. I'll get to a novel again, but not until I have a compelling story and a voice to tell it.
I had a similar experience. I let go of the novel (that I'd worked on for a year but no longer wanted to write), and in that space so many new ideas came to me, including one for a new novel.
I just published my first novel and people are asking if I will write a sequel. I planned to write something completely different but if there is momentum, shouldn't I seize the moment? Or should I stick to my original plan because it's in keeping with the natural flow of my mind?
Catherine Marshall-Smith
American Family, a novel
Catherinemarshallsmith.com
I liked this article, because there is a book that I've started and am no longer interested in. You let us know that it's okay not to go on when your interest in a project has gone south. Thanks:)