May 31st. That's my first self-imposed deadline. And now I'm sharing it with you in hopes that I'll actually hold myself accountable. I have to finish the first draft of my novel by then. I've been a few chapters from the end for over a year. It's about being single in a marriage-minded society. I've been writing it for almost a decade.
But now it's high time to find out if I can cut it as a writer. Am I any good? No clue. Sure, I can be funny or contemplative in short bursts, but can I sustain any of that in a full-length book? I'm good at finishing short stories. By their title there's not that much to them. In one of my college fiction writing courses I was told by the professor that my short stories had so much meat in them that they could be longer. I guess some people were just wordy in the hopes of getting their story idea to the required length. I still remember that compliment! Thank you, professor, for the encouragement!!
I was talking to one of my dear friends yesterday who has always been supportive of my dream. When I told her that one of my roadblocks to finishing was a fear of failure, she pointed out that seeing where my "career" has led me, didn't I feel like I'd already failed? The worst has already happened! She's right. And she knows me very well, so she wasn't telling me anything I didn't know, she was just pointing out the obvious that I couldn't see. And she wasn't cruel, either, if you were wondering. It's great to have family and friends in your corner.
I do wonder if I'm publishable. I've read some pretty horribly written books and thought "hey, if they can get published...." But it's different when it's your own work. And you know that some people could wallpaper their home with rejection letters. And when you took that additional correspondence writing course after college--one assignment from the end your mentor was encouraging you to take additional courses so it felt more like marketing than an honest opinion, you never turned in your last assignment for a "class" with no merit. Though the writing exercises were helpful, my mentor was not very encouraging of my future publication success. Sigh. In the back of my mind I can hear the phrase "those who cannot do, teach." So, maybe a published author, rather than a writing teacher, might be a better mentor to have. Ha!
I once had aspirations of being a humorist like Dave Barry. He is truly funny and I enjoyed his column in the Sunday paper whilst growing up. And though I can be funny like that, my novel is not as funny as I would like. But that's okay. It's only the first draft. The second draft will be when I flesh out the characters and inject more humor. But the first draft has proven very difficult to write. Sometimes it's painful as it's based on my own experiences and observations. I'm hoping that just getting it down on the page will be the hardest part.
The funny thing is, I have a different book I'd been writing on (also for years) before I ever got this idea and it was going quite well until it didn't. While I've been working on this one, I realized where I'd gone wrong with the other. I can completely understand why some authors work on multiple projects. Sometimes just stepping away doesn't clear the writer's block. Sometimes it's only by working on a different idea that you realize how the other could be better. Perhaps it's a perspectival shift that's needed.
So...the 31st of May. It's on!
