What do you do when the book you're writing is no good?

I'm writing a book. It's not any good. I don't know what to do.

The thing is, I planned it all out in advance - not the way I usually do things - and even now I can see how that story would work, how exciting it would be, what potential it has.

But I'm almost 10 000 words into the story and it's no good. It's actually really boring. And I'm not sure if I can fix it.

The thing is, which I'm not sure whether people who don't write books actually understand - the thing is, the characters aren't playing ball. They don't fit into the plot. They're not who I intended them to be, but they are who they are and I'm damned if I can change that. (I'm not sure that actually makes sense, by the way - I'm unlikely to be more or less damned whether I can or can't change their minds!) Anyway, I don't know what to do.

Plenty of people have told me to give up. Unusual advice, but what they really mean is - write the story you want to write. If you google 'should I write a story that I think will be successful' the answer will be a resounding no. Write the story you have in you to write. Everything else will be crap. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but it turns out it's true. This, what I'm writing now, is crap. The story will do what it does and the characters will trail along after, miserable, like kids being dragged around a museum. God knows what the readers would make of that. If there's anything worse than being dragged around a boring museum, it's probably watching kids being dragged around a boring museum, whining and fidgeting and spoiling it for everyone else.

The thing is, I always knew this was going to be hard. Writing to a plan is so not me. I understand why the plan was necessary - you see, someone important was interested in this book and they wanted to see how it would work out. But I knew from day one that writing a plan would take all the fun out of it for me - because in writing, as in reading, the thrill is in finding out what's going to happen next. In seeing characters develop and plots unfold. All that's gone when you know the ending from the start. It's much worse than reading the last page before you've finished chapter one - I've been known to do that sometimes and I can't say it's ever spoiled a book for me because the joy is finding out how someone got from A to B. I know all that with this book and it's officially spoiled. All the dramatic bits, like the big battle scene on the beach, our heroine wearing her wedding dress and blowing monsters to bits, are completely undone by the fact that none of it is a surprise - not her strength, or the wedding, or the arrival of the monsters in the first place.

But this felt like my big chance. Like, if I turn it down, there won't be another opportunity. Like I'm saying 'thanks, but no thanks', which is not at all what I'm trying to say. And so that's the thing.

A long break

I think I stopped writing this blog because I was doubly afraid - one, that someone would read it and two, that nobody would. I imagine that's a common fear for writers. That feeling of wanting to be read but not wanting to be judged. That fear of rejection.

I thought of you while I was away. I wrote this for you. I hope you like it.

I haven’t blogged in ages, for a number of reasons. But I’m in India right now for work and I wanted to make a record of my trip in case I don’t come here again. I wanted to tell you about the drive up from Chandigarh into the Himalayas around 180 degree bends on roads that were paved in a single track down the middle. I wanted to tell you about the different sounds of the driver’s horn, which said alternately, ‘toot toot’ (watch out, I’m right behind you!), ‘toot toot’ (I want to come past), ‘tooooot tooot’ (Move out of the way), ‘toot toooot toot tooot’ (get the hell out of my way!). I wanted to tell you how the houses up there weren’t nestled or perched or any of those adjectives people use to describe mountain living. They were slapped on the side of the mountain, fixed with all the permanency of prit stick, looking almost like someone who’s standing on a ledge, gripping the wall but leaning forward dangerously just to see how far there is to fall.

I wanted to tell you what it feels like to be foreign, to have no idea where you’re going or what you’re doing and to be completely in someone else’s hands. To be stared at for the colour of your skin, or your hair, or your eyes. To be unsure what people are thinking when they look at you. To have your head so full of preconceptions that it’s hard to sort reality from the stories you’ve heard.

I wanted to describe to you what it’s like to sit in Delhi traffic, putting your life in the hands of your taxi driver and watching kids on motorbikes wind in and out of the cars and buses that sit, horns blaring, exhausts blowing, creeping forward inch by delicate inch. To be idling next to a bus crammed full of people of all ages, lines of what – at best – looks like sick, trailing from the windows, and to catch the eye of a shy toddler, who smiles toothily and waves. Or to have small children knocking on the window of your taxi begging for food or money when you have a grubby thousand rupee bill in your hands, waiting to pay the driver.

 

I wanted to tell you about the taste of real naan bread and the special kind of anxiety that comes with eating a meal that tastes delicious, but in surroundings that look to be on first name terms with e coli. If I could describe the texture of the air in the spice market, how it caught in the back of my throat and burned in my chest...but it's not the kind of description I can do justice.

Writerly update

I've been a bad blogger lately.

I've actually been a pretty bad writer lately, which is to say up until the last few days I really haven't done much work on my sequel at all. I've been very busy with work, and have had more writing to do in that department, less free time, and therefore less inclination to write in my free time. Add to that that I've been doing more reading lately (I finally got around to charging my Kindle - hooray!) and it makes for a bad writing mix.

I've made up for it over the last day or two, though, banging out over 3000 words even while being distracted by EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD. Seriously, Jane Austen had it easy. Apart from lots of tea and dances, she must have had bags of free time and nothing to distract her except, I don't know, news of more tea and dances. If she had had a smart phone, it is quite possible she would never have written a thing. I bet she would have been a prolific tweeter, though.

So, anyway, I am still waiting and seeing with Chase. I've had two 'no's from agents, neither of whom feel passionately about my story. That's ok. People like different things. It's not the end of the world. I'm waiting on responses from two others, but I'm not holding out much hope for a positive. I really need to get my arse in gear and 'reach out' (I hate that expression) to more agents, but it is just such a faff and I am so ridiculously lazy. I'll get around to it.

In the meantime, though, I have had some really wonderful feedback from my friend's cousin, who I have met once but basically do not know and therefore she has no reason to be nice to me. She's 17, the perfect age for Chase, and she was so wonderfully generous with her praise that I did a little happy dance around my living room and was actually fizzing with excitement, especially over her comments about my main characters and my ending. It's so amazing to see that what you've written has actually had the desired effect, you know? My friend text me the comments as screenshots so I will keep them forever more. (I may even print them and put them up around my writing space as inspiration. Too much? Don't care.)

So here I am, basically soldiering on with the second book. I'm at almost 11 000 words. I remember that at the start of nanowrimo last year I had already written 13 000 of book 1. If I can get ahead of that now, there is a (small) chance that I will have finished my first draft of book 2 by Christmas. Do you think it's better to approach an agent with two parts of a three-part story already written? Who even are 'you', random person that could potentially happen upon this blog?

Oh, hi mum, it's you :)

The road to 30...

Something other than books

I tried to make a cake yesterday. This happened.

Rejection

I am an incredibly lucky person. I met my husband when I was 18 years old. We've been together for more than 11 years now and in all that time we haven't ever broken up. Without delving into the intricacies of my personal life, prior to meeting my husband, there wasn't really anyone else. I had crushes, sure. Who doesn't. But I didn't do much to act on these. (Ok, yes, there was some embarrassing incidents of pseudo-stalking including one instance where I actually texted a boy pretending that I'd meant the text for someone else just so that he would text me back and we could hopefully start a conversation - *sigh/blush/ick*) So anyway, though I often felt rejected, a lot of that was to do with not really putting myself out there. I wanted them to notice me. I didn't really give them the opportunity to reject me as fully as they could have done. I wasn't ever truly heartbroken.

There have been other things in my life that left me feeling pretty blue. Family issues offer their own relationship trauma, so there's that. And then there was that time I applied for English with Creative Writing and got rejected by 3 out of the 6 universities I applied for, despite being a straight A student. That still stings. (And if you're really at a loose end and interested in laughing at the teenage angst version of me, please do stop by poets2000.com/katspoems/default1.htm for some insight into just how rejected I felt and also why I didn't get onto that creative writing course...If they'd had a special module specifically on awful angsty teenage crap I probably would have aced it!)

But generally I am a lucky person. I am loved. I have food and shelter, a good job and great friends. What I'm trying to tell you is that I feel ill-prepared for rejection. So that's probably why I have been putting off sending out my query letters. I had an incredibly strong fear of reverting to that angsty version of me.

Well sometimes, as they say, you have to feel the fear and do it anyway. So last week I sent out two queries. This week I will send out two more. I guess I'll keep going until I run out of people to send them to. Because I believe in my book. I believe in my story. I believe in myself.

*Fingers crossed someone else believes in all that too!*

I'm not sure that I'll keep you posted on all that. Just assume it's going on in the background and if I have any insights to share then I'll post them instead. Meanwhile, it's time to really start thinking about Book 2. Camp Nanowrimo's coming up...who's with me?

 

Rutsville, People's Republic of Rut Land

People, I am stuck in a rut.

I had one of those nights last night where I was so bored, but I could not find the motivation to do more than watch Thursday night TV, and I think we all know that is by no means the best TV night of the week.

I used to drive my mum insane when I was younger, going into her bedroom at ten o'clock at night saying "I'm bored!" over and over again, like even the act of saying it was something to do. She'd say, "You can't be bored, it's bedtime," but it was more like a build up of ennui throughout the day that culminates in the realisation that I have wasted the day and now it's night and going to bed is boring and not going to be bed is boring and I AM SOOO BORED.

15-odd years later and I am annoying my husband in exactly the same way. (He's such a lucky guy.)

I think the problem right now is I'm not writing and I'm not running. Those two things together make me more of a person. (Because, you know, a bored person is a boring person.)

I'm not writing because I am killing my brain endlessly researching query letters, agents and publishing. I know it's important that the query letter is, like the novel, the best it can possibly be. I know it's important to find the agent that is actually open to submissions and representing your genre. I know it's essential to make sure you follow the submission guidelines down to the letter. I know all this, but I can't help but think I may have left bits of my soul scattered over the various agency websites, twitter feeds and blogs I've been obsessing over. I haven't even sent a single query yet.

I'm not running because I've not been feeling 100% lately (cue the violins) and the last time I went was just before I got ill and I felt so sick after running that I was put off doing it again. But running (like waxing, incidentally) hurts less if you do it more often. With running I guess it's a question of fitness. With waxing, it's supposedly to do with the roots of the hair (ew), but I think it basically comes down to expectations - once you know how much it's going to hurt, you can prepare yourself for the pain. With writing, it's maybe a little of both.

Anyway, I've bored you guys enough with my boring tales of being bored. Time to go figure out what to do with my evening/life.