On not giving up

Especially since the long-term view can be tiresome

A couple of months ago, when I was moving from Draft 3 to Draft 4 of my novel, I thought it would be fun to write a post about successive drafts being more fun rather than less.

Last night, I finished D4.

By ‘finished’ I mean I have run out of reasons to make more changes. Which means that I’ve reached the limit of my skills and that it probably is time to invite fresh perspectives in.

Each draft upto D3 had been an almost-complete rewrite of the novel. Nothing romantic about this process—all it did was make me feel like I had been an unthinking idiot while writing the previous draft.

I had hoped that D4 would be my ‘indulgence’ draft. One where I can sit and ponder on the particular choice of verb, or sentence construction, or paragraph composition, like Joyce or Fitzgerald did. The assumption wasn’t entirely misplaced—I did get to do all that—but I also dropped / rewrote significant chunks and moved chapters and scenes around like I was playing Tetris.

Like the badly drawn image at the top of this post says, each successive draft felt like an act of sorcery. And I learnt a couple of things:

One: I am not the over-writer I thought I was. D1 was 48k words, D2 ended at 73k, D3 stands at 92k and D4 went back to 89k.

Two: I am not the planner (or plotter) type I assumed I would be. My novel didn’t take off until I scrapped D0 and rewrote it entirely with a new character, new PoV and turned friends into mothers and aunts into girls.

Three: I don’t hate the book. I like it more now than I did before, and, I daresay, love it a little too.

Apologies. Since I am currently inept at Canva, the blurring effect is from Powerpoint.

My biggest hurdle in understanding that this chaotic progression is, in fact, the process, was the kind of books I used to read on Writing. I used to gravitate towards the poetic advice because it sounded beautiful and it made me feel special. I understand now that sometimes it is very hard to talk about the process because one is not fully aware of it themselves.

But those books did not help me understand what it means to ‘find one’s own process’.

Today, I prefer authors who talk about the process of writing without using obtuse language.

Brandon Sanderson talks about it like a practitioner, rather than an artist. He tells us how to ‘think of the writing process’ and prepares us for the arduous nature of it. He uses a simple metaphor - that writers should try to be chefs, not cooks.

“My job right now isn’t to publish books, but my job is to write the words so I can learn how to write a publishable book one day.” - Brandon Sanderson

He goes on to tells us that the process changes constantly, and that the nature of the project informs the process. He tells us that, most of the time, interruptions happen because one doesn’t have the ability to identify why they are not able to proceed to the next sentence.

Staying with the novel as it shape-shifts seems to be the most effective way to not give up on it, and I will remember this in the future.