Current Project: NMMNG ( I'm superstitious about sharing the title, so I'm doing initials)
Status: Plotting
Dear Manuscript #3:
I've tried to break up with you in person a thousand times, but I just see your sad face blinking on my hard drive, and I always give you one more chance. I'm not very good at confrontation, so if you're reading this, I've already left. Or rather, YOU'VE left. My hard drive that is. You'll find your new residence on the back-up server to be quite spacious and accommodating of you, your 14 odd drafts, your many failed synopses, and that Rolling Stones poster you insist on toting everywhere with you.
I really hoped it wouldn't end this way. I still remember when you popped into my head back in 2005. I finished my YA in record time because I couldn't wait to move onto you. When I first sketched the rough outlines of the plot that would become you, my fingers tingled. I started drafting you in 2006, and I loved everything about you: the meandering plot, the beta hero, the funny secondary characters, and the ugly duckling heroine. You were going to be THAT book for me: The one that earned me a golden heart final, the one I snagged an agent with, the one I launched a career with. You made me laugh, you made me tear my hair out, and you forced to me to grow in ways I never could have expected.
I wanted this for you. For US. And so, I spent the last two years making excuses for you. I went on a reading tour of best-selling author's first books, and I tried to convince myself that you were just as bad as them. This should have been where I got a clue, but instead I tried an intervention. I didn't want you to meet my friends, so I said that you were in revision. For two years, I kept up the mantra that you were one synopsis away from being presentable. You were my invisible book--only I knew the REAL you. I kept hoping that you would wise up and do your part to achieve a marketable plot. You had so much potential. But, I can't keep your lazy behind around any longer on the promise of potential.
This summer, I finally decided to make you earn your keep. I tried for the umpteenth time to write a synopsis that would give me a road map to fixing your flaws, and I sent you out to a few contests that don't require a synopsis. Then the inevitable happened: I saw you for who you really are, not just who you have the potential to become. Your plot takes a year to complete, you have a beta hero, and your heroine is more than a little boring. You have a shiny title, but don't get too attached to it--I just might snatch it back later.
I was already packing my bags, but then I got contest scores back last week, and I realized that perhaps you CAN be fixed, but I just don't have it in me to try anymore. I love too much to take a chainsaw to the essence of you, and yet, I don't love you enough to let you stay the way you are. You've shaken my faith in myself long enough. At this point, I'm keeping you around for sentimental reasons, which isn't good enough. You are the embodiment of my journey to parenthood, and I secretly believe that I got pregnant because I wrote you. However, perhaps I can't fix you because I'm not that person any more. Silly inaccuracies that were endearing three years ago drive me crazy now. Thus, if I don't respect you enough to want to be seen in public with you anymore, you can laze around another hard drive for awhile.
I've got a new tingle in my hands and a new WIP that keeps me up at night. I'm a little more jaded this time around, but I still think it might be the one. I can't wait to tell its story. I'm sorry that to do it justice that I have to let you go. I wanted better for you, and I want you to know that I am a better writer for having written you to a completion, for having spent two years trying to save you, and for letting you go.
I know that someday we will both look back and know that this was truly "for the best." When I finally write THAT book, the one that truly is my ONE, I'll dedicate it to you for everything that you taught me and everything that you should-of-could-of-would-of been.
All my love,
Bethany
Your turn: Tell me about manuscripts that sit on your hard drive, under your bed, in your attic. Tell me about the one you thought was THE ONE but wasn't. Tell me about the one that you had a hard time moving on from. Tell me about your rebound book :)
14 comments:
What an eloquent, heartfelt letter, Wavy! I'm misty eyed for the parting but I think you're doing the right thing.
My second romance I wrote, I LOVED the heroine, and so did Cindy Hwang of Berkeley, so much so she placed it third in a contest saying she would have placed it higher had the hero been introduced in the pages she read and asked me to send her the full.Only she kept it two years then told me while she loved the characters my plotting need help. That's when I discovered GMC and realized my hero was a place keeper who was there when the heroine needed him and nothing more. He had a family around him and he was somewhat multidimensional but the only conflict was the heroine's past haunting her. I still think about the characters and hope to one day resurrect them. But for now they are in a binder in a box. I don't even have them on a disk, that's how far back they go in my writing career.
And I have the book I wrote after that one. I worked hard on the plot and guess what? Cindy Hwang told me the characters were cardboard. So it took me a while to pull the whole package of a book together. That one I doubt I'll ever try to rewrite. While my mother's best friend loved it- I think because it was set in country she knew- I don't have enough connection with the cardboard characters to put aside other stories that are coming to me fast and furious.
Good luck with your new WIP!
Thanks Paty! I got all Misty eyed writing it too! But, strangely, I feel much lighter for having written it.
My first book is also on mothballs, but I don't feel the same angst about it--I love the characters and the story, and I hope to rewrite it from scratch but seeing as it had so many newbie problems, I had an easier time leaving it behind.
Just a moment while I collect myself (sniff, sniff...)
Saying goodbye is always hard and yet I applaud your decision to cut your losses for now and move on. I think it's almost inevitable that we date some very nice books before we come upon the right one. But like you said, you are what you are today because of the time you spent with Manuscript #3 and you'll always have Paris ... er, Salem.
The first book I ever wrote is long gone. The second book was a YA and it made several rounds and got some interest, but it's gone now, too. I sold number three, and so forth. I am a fickle lover, I guess. When I decide it's time to go, I cut my losses and send that baby packing and move on. I'm the love 'em and leave 'em type.
Such a fun blog. You should send it to the RWA magazine. Really!
That was FABULOUS, Bethany!!! I loved it.
My 2nd and 3rd manuscripts are very dear to my heart. The 2nd one is just too category for single title though, and I finally accepted that. (amnesia, secret baby, etc.) But I still love it. Manuscript #3 was my "rebound" book, and I love that one too. It has an archaeological/paranormal twist plot, but in the end I realized the pacing is off in that manuscript. I rewrote it so many times and just could never get it right. BUT...that book started me on the adventure genre I write now, so like this book of yours, I consider it vital in my writing journey. And Lisa Maxwell - the heroine in STOLEN FURY - was a secondary character in that manuscript. So I do owe that book a lot.
BRAVA! BRAVA! BRAVISSIMA!! *standing ovation with thunderous clapping*
Wavy-- I love it! So much feeling. So much emotion. (And highly entertaining. LOL)
The first book/story I once thought I loved, but ultimately laid to rest on my HD, is a Regency Historical. I ended up falling in love with the villain and had NO MORE interest in the hero or heroine. So um, yeah, that didn't work. *arching left eyebrow*
I know that I'll have to write a few duds before I get THE ONE right. And I'm fine with that. Right now, I'm just enjoying the journey.
Good luck with your current WIP! You can do it!!
Aw thanks you guys! You really think I should send it into to RWR? *GRINS*
I am so freaking excited about my new book. I think I needed to write this to fully embrace it. The Voice is there in a way that it just wasn't really before.
I really do think you should submit it, Wavy. Why the hell not? It's charming and witty and poignant, too. Lots of people, pubbed and unpubbed will identify with it and smile.
Go for it!
and I should add that I not only looked for it first thing this morning because I liked the idea so much, but laughed out loud as I read it.
Bethany, this is brilliant! I agree with Alice: Send it to the RWR. It's fabulous! :)
Well, my first manuscript was a total dud. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but whatever it was, I had fun. I must have done something right with it though because it got me my first agent, but after 2 years she couldn't sell it. This was back in the olden days pre-email, so everything was snailed everywhere. It was a long and depressing process. The book sucked, but it was a great learning tool. It taught me a lot about how to craft a book. I even rewrote it from 3rd to 1st person. What an exercise. Anyway, that book will never see the light of day but I'm a better writer for having written it. :)
I agree. Send it to the RWR!!
I agree with everyone, Wavy, Send this to the RWR. And Whoop Whoop that the new WIP is feeling good!
Yeah, send it! It's awesome! And I'm thrilled for you that you're "freaking excited" about your new book! Yay for you!!
This was such a great letter, Wavy :) You are such a strong woman! I'm proud of you for realizing what's the best for you. I admire that!!
What a fun post!
I don't have any languishing manuscripts. I rewrote two of them into salable manuscripts. Cut one down to novella size, and have plans to take the main pieces of two other partial manuscripts and rewrite them someday--they are just far down on my "to write" list.
As others have said, very cool that you've realized what's best for you. :)
Post a Comment