Last week my family was on vacation. We go to the same place in British Columbia every summer to visit family. (Note the picture of me trying to see my laptop screen while I try to pick up a wi-fi signal.)
We are such a bookish family; we always come home with more books. One small town has a bookstore with a “back room.” Gotta love the back room. There are always great deals to be snatched up.
My deal this year was The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club. The book is mostly made up of letters Maeve Binchy wrote to students in a writing class from the National College of Ireland.
Week 8 is called the Writer’s Journey. On p.49 she says: “A book is a journey. Well, it is if you finish it. If you don’t then it’s no journey at all, just a series of stops and starts and eventual disappointments.”
In this chapter she suggests you take the next five minutes to think about what it would be like if you didn’t finish the book. What is at stake? How would you feel? What would you have wasted if you didn’t finish?
She offers things like: money, time spent, time not spent on other things, “the feeling that you did it rather than just talked about it,” “the possibility of getting it published. The possibility that people might love it.” And her list goes on.
What would be on your list?
I found Maeve’s comments to be very motivating. I can’t guess how many hours I’ve spent working on my writing skills (but my husband can probably tell me how much money I’ve spent.)
Writing a book takes a long time and writers have to sacrifice sleep, or time with family and friends, or other pleasurable activities in order to write. Is it worth it? I think so.
I can’t stop now!
Must. Finish. The. Book.
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5 users responded in this post
It’s hard to disagree with Maeve! I’d only add that I do have a manuscript graveyard of projects I realized weren’t up to snuff before I finished them. But I finish anything viable.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
Elizabeth, that brings up a whole other discussion! How do you know when the book is a dud? Or can you find the part where it fails and fix it?
Actually, I wrote a blog post on it a while back (insert plug for me!
) Here’s the link: http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2009/07/signs-your-project-isn-going-well.html
Basically, these are biggies for me:
* You can’t logically explain what motivates the protagonist’s behavior.
* Along the same lines, your character has completely changed with no reasonable explanation.
* You can’t get into the protagonist’s head. They seem flat. You can’t identify with them at all.
* The plot limps along with no discernable conflict.
* There’s too much conflict and it changes from one thing to another. There’s no primary focus. There’s no theme, just ‘the world vs. John Smith.’
* There’s only external conflict and no internal conflict for the main character.
* The protagonist is unlikeable.
* There’s no readily-identifiable antagonist. There’s just bad stuff that happens.
* Your content is a mess with flashbacks, backstory, telling instead of showing, too many dialogue tags, and point of view issues.
* Your characters aren’t original. They’re more like stock characters (the alcoholic cop, the snooty society lady, the shy librarian).
These can be FIXED….but do we have the time?
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
Good question, Shonna. What would be lost and how would I feel if I didn’t finish X? I have to admit my first, knee-jerk reaction was insightful. I thought it would be guilt and disappointment, but my first thought regarding my fiction project was, “Relief!” while my first thought regarding one of my non-fiction projects was, “What a shame and waste! I can’t not finish it!” I guess I know which project I need to work on now and which one to lay aside.
Elizabeth–Ooo, that’s a really good, concise list. Gotta print that one out. BTW, loved the picture of the plant on your blog; I have several that look just like it, poor things.
Stephanie–interesting insight! Non-fiction it is.
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