This post is inspired by Skipp’s post of April 5th, in which he confesses to a deadline crunch and offers an assignment. That post struck a chord with me, because I’m on a bit of a deadline crunch myself.
See, my new novel was due April 15th.
I say “was,” because I figured out several months ago that that wasn’t going to happen, and asked my agent to ask my editor if we could push the deadline back somewhat, because I was having no luck at all getting my head around the dratted thing. I knew even then that I was floundering, and that this was going to be a long, hard slog.
I had no idea how hard.
I have been struggling with this draft since February 29th. I’ve written about 62,000 words. I have been fighting this book like a pit of pythons. Hammering on it. Writing it in spite of itself.
And I’ve realized in the past week that I’m not sure I’m going to be able to use any of them.
This is the sort of thing that happens, sometimes. You take a wrong turn, or you’re not sure if you’ve taken a wrong turn, but what you are suddenly sure of is that you don’t know where you are going. Sometimes, you can blunder on for a while and eventually come to something you recognize–a mile marker, a mountain on the horizon, the turnoff for Schenectady. Pick up one of those things, and you can bushwhack your way home, and you might find some fascinating synchronicities along the way.
But sometimes you drive a while further, and you realize that you can’t get there from here. And possibly, you’re not even sure where there is anymore.
When that happens, there’s only one solution.
You have to pull over and fish out a map, and spend a little time staring at it until you figure out where you are.
The problem is that when this happens with a book… there isn’t any map.
I’m asking for another extension.
A long one.
Even though I find it frustrating and humiliating to do so. Because I’m going to have to explore, you see, and draw a map. And then once I have the map drawn, I’m going to have to figure out if there’s any way to that shining city I can just see across the desert there, hovering like a mirage.
7 Comments, Comment or Ping
eric wilson
Oh, Elizabeth, I understand that frustration and pressure. I’ve pulled out the map before, wondering how I ended up here–wherever “here” was.
I hope you discover a secret pass that takes you from your present position suddenly and quite unexpectedly to that shining city. Sometimes it’s there, just waiting to be revealed by the right plot twist.
Apr 7th, 2008
Brian Hodge
A friend of mine, the late Bill Relling, once shared with me the counsel of a friend of his, Richard Christian Matheson: that you aren’t really a pro until you’ve blown a deadline, but good.
Take heart. Sounds like you’re now a pro on a scale you’ve never attained before.
Me, I’m wondering what kind of editor schedules a due date on tax day. That’s just wrong.
Apr 7th, 2008
Dave Wilson
I have found many times that when I feel that disconnect, and then get back to looking at it correctly, I find my words are fine…I never quite feel like I wrote them, but I’ve been able to go on…it’s a very strange sensation…and I hope you get that map drawn quickly.
DNW
Apr 7th, 2008
Elizabeth Bear
Dave, I’m hoping that some time off will let the book grow in my head. I think I’m trying to write it too soon after the last one.
At least, the storytelling part of my brain feels quite scraped out.
Apr 7th, 2008
Thomas Sullivan
“…fascinating synchronicities” — for sure they are there, Elizabeth. You’ll find them. Maybe it will require some un-doing of a key element here or there to create more avenues. Wasn’t it Sax Rohmer, writing a serial locked-room mystery for Collier’s, who created an insoluble plot for himself? Couldn’t get out of it. Had the problem but not the solution. Meanwhile, Collier’s had already published two installments. Wasn’t till Rohmer got to NY and his friend (no other than Harry Houdini) pointed out that if he simply brought back a character who had said something in an earlier chapter which fixed the plot in place, and then asked that character why he lied, then the whole book could change! Magician’s do that — misdirect, do one thing with one hand while the other is otherwise employed. Nothing that appears real necessarily is. It can carry over into fiction. Subtraction by addition. Addition by subtraction. Your imagination probably decided on the size of the box it would work in when you started the book. Maybe you just need to throw the walls away. Go for it.
– Sully
Apr 7th, 2008
edwin mcrae
Sometimes a draft is an act of cartography, done from a barque offshore. Often, once you’ve sussed out the coastline, you can venture inland and find out what the land’s really like. And that can take a lot longer than we expect.
Apr 7th, 2008
Lara Zielinsky
“a map” I guess this is why I always work out a synopsis/plotline before I get to writing the whole thing. I can still lose my way in the writing of a specific scene (it doesn’t get from point A to the point B I actually expected) but with the overall map in front of me, I can look over the route as I had pre-supposed it and either get back on track with a turn at the next road and get back to my original map’s end, or… redraw the map for several turns ahead from this new point forward to a new, more appropriate (to character) end point.
Apr 9th, 2008
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