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.