On Finishing A Thing

I have been working on my second novel for two years now, sporadically. It has gone through several major changes in direction, but most recently I changed it to a story about one person to a story about four. In the process I had to dump eight thousand words and 32 pages. I’ve recently added 80 pages and 16,000 words back, which made me take a hard look at how much further I had to go to finish a first draft.

I only need about 150 pages or less to finish the story and have a novel sized manuscript. That translates to about 30,000 words. I consistently write about 1000 words an hour. Do you realize that means I only have 30 more hours of writing to be done with my first draft?

In real life, that means if I focus for the next 30 days, and write one hour a day on the manuscript, I’ll be ready to start rewrites by the middle of September. That’s huge for me.

I wrote a novella in 1995, which is a manuscript that falls somewhere between a short story and a novel, in my case, at about 160 pages. It was called “Annie’s Man.”

I made the mistake of sending it off for a seal of approval to the wrong person. When it came back marked in red with grammatical corrections and no comments on the story, I was crushed and put it away. About a year ago, I pulled it back out and reread it. I cried three times. It was pretty darn good. It could use a rewrite, which is what I would have done back in 1995, with a little encouragement.

However, with the help of “The Artist’s Way” a book by Julia Cameron, I’ve slowly worked my way back into writing to completion. The book takes you through all the possible pitfalls, and the guidance is what I’ve needed to get to the end.

Now, admittedly, I’m not at the end yet. But I know I will be. And soon. For me, seeing the end of a thing is as good as finishing it. And that’s what I will do this time.

Parts of the book are good now. After the rewrite, I expect the novel will be quite good. This isn’t a big pat on the back for me, because I’ve come to the realization that my writing is something that comes from both inside and outside myself. Yes, the source for my stories comes from inside, the life I’ve lived and the situations I’ve been in, but the writing itself is often from another source. I choose to call it the Universe.

When I’m in rhythm with the Universe, and allow it to flow through me, the writing flows as well. There are times I write something, and go back to read it and don’t remember writing that passage. I’m awed by what’s on the page. That’s when I know that something besides me was at work.

However, finishing a thing is up to me. It is about not allowing myself to get in the way, to bull through the thing until it’s done. That has not occurred for me very often. It is the biggest battle of my life – completion.

This time, I really feel this novel is going to make it, big. And I will complete it no matter what. I give myself three months to rewrite it, so by the first of 2009, I’ll be sending it out to agents and editors.

So, now that I’ve put it in writing, I’ll have to follow through won’t I? So, we have a date. Look for an update after New Year’s Day. You can say you read me when I was just a blogger!