How do you know when it’s time to let go?

I know many people struggle with this question on far bigger issues than the one I’m struggling with now; things like floundering marriages, destructive long-term friendships, or that 80’s haircut that’s just too rockin’ to lose (it’s not, but…well, you know). It’s easy to identify why these things are bad for (you’re fighting all the time, the person makes you feel bad about yourself, it’s likely to land you on What Not to Wear), and yet for any of a plethora of reasons, you hang on.

Often this is seen as a good thing. Tenacity. Perseverance. Stick-to-it-iveness. These are all hailed as admirable traits. Don’t be a quitter, we instruct our children. Never give up. Believe in yourself. Hang in there. But sometimes you do indeed have to let go. For your own sanity, heath, fashion sense, whatever. I think I may have reached that point with my first novel.

I started this tome back when my darling second-grader was just learning to talk. The idea came to me while driving past a cemetery one chilly fall night when numerous blue votive candles burned, commemorating loved ones now passed. I shivered at the idea of setting the first scene of a story there—a good, creepy, ghost-story shiver. The book grew from that point. But not in anything close to a linear direction. It branched and weaved, it morphed, expanded and regrouped. It changed direction at least twenty times.

I remember taking the first chapter (a mere 30 pages of the first draft) to a writer’s retreat, confident that my gift would wow the other attendees and leave them all wondering why they were even bothering with their craft when such natural talent exists in the world. I was informed (politely, but in no uncertain terms) that no middle-schooler would choose to read 30-page chapters rather than play the Wii. At first I felt affronted. Obviously they hadn’t grasped my vision. They hadn’t heard enough of the story. They couldn’t see the big picture. Didn’t they know how long Harry Potter was?

But after I stewed for a while, I felt stupid. Of course they were right. How could I not have seen it? What had I been thinking? And so I revised and rewrote, cut and pasted, reworked and reorganized. Feeling proud of the progress I’d made, I sent the manuscript to the editor from the retreat, who liked it, “But…”

And so I rewrote again. Feeling proud once again, I submitted again. But fourteen agents didn’t like it enough to request more.

And so, again, I’m revising. And yet, after almost seven years working with this story and these characters, I’m still getting feedback that says my characters aren’t well defined enough, that their story isn’t jumping off the page. I’m now wondering, is it time to let them go? Perhaps I’ve done all I can with this story, with these two middle-school boys and the ghosts that haunt them. Maybe this story is destined to be mine alone, and not one I’ll ever share with the world. Maybe it’s time to lay them to rest just like the many departed souls in the cemetery.

But, just like a bad relationship or a comfortable haircut, it’s so hard to let them go.

Making Changes

Tis the season to make some changes. Have you noticed? Promises and prompts to change ourselves abound at this time of year. New Year’s resolutions. New year, new you. Out with the old, blah, blah, blah. The quantity of TV ads touting gym memberships, exercise balls, diet plans and workout videos is staggering. Department store ads bombard us with organizational mechanisms to help us finally whip our chaotic hoarding selves in order. Even schools join in, urging us to finally make that career change we’ve always wanted to make but never realized until we saw their ad. How could we not feel inspired?

I’m jumping on the change bandwagon myself, hauling my lazy bones out of bed a half hour earlier to do daily cardio, purging the sweet treats from the house, rearranging rooms (needless to say, my husband isn’t too excited about this one). But while change is exciting, it’s also difficult. Downright painful, sometimes, as my aching muscles can attest.

A particularly agonizing change I’m working toward right now is the revision of my first novel. You may remember this novel from my frustrated blog posts last summer in which I lamented the obvious poor taste and lack of vision espoused by the more than a dozen editors and agents who never even bothered to request the full manuscript, let alone offer me a six figure multi-book contact. Silly people. Or so I thought. But after a kind yet in-depth critique from my mentor, I came to realize that I had been the silly one. This novel wasn’t ready. It wasn’t even close. And here I was, trying to shove it down the throats of massively overworked agents who had at least fifty other manuscript packages – some good, many not – to slog through along with mine. And there would be another fifty the next day. And the next. When I finally looked at my piece with a more objective eye, I completely understood the many responses I received with the same basic message: “It’s well-written, but I didn’t fall in love with it.” An infuriating response at the time, but one that is becoming clearer to me the more I write. It’s one thing to master the mechanics of writing. It’s entirely another to grab readers, to make them care deeply about your main character, to laugh, to cry, to turn page after page after page. This, alas, is much harder to master. Thankfully, I now have an amazingly talented writing group to help me do just that.

My manuscript, originally planned as a young adult novel, is now becoming a middle-grade novel (which, apparently unbeknownst to me, it was all along, except that I never let my word count know). And so the main goal in revising is to cut. Cut the introspection, cut the flowery language, cut long narrative passages, cut, cut, cut. Stephen King said it best, I think, when he compared manuscript revision to slaughtering children (as only he would). Ripping out phrases I worked tirelessly to craft because they don’t fit the character or my target readership is excruciating. They were such lovely phrases, after all. Surely they should be read by someone other than me.

But it’s a necessary process. And strangely rewarding. In fact now that I’ve begun, I make it a personal goal to cut X amount of pages from each chapter, and I find I’m merciless in hitting that goal, no matter how many “darlings” I have to sacrifice, because once I’ve slashed a chapter, I immediately see the improvements.

It’s a painful process, but worth it in the end. As most change is.

Writing is a Team Sport

Anyone who says that writing is a solitary activity is missing a huge piece of the equation. The writing group.

A few nights ago, I got together with three of my MFA girlfriends to talk craft and give feedback. I submitted pieces of two projects: the first three chapters of an early middle-grade chapter book, and the first three chapters of my ill-fated, oft submitted but never requested, 5-years-in-the-making young adult supernatural mystery novel.

Which I learned, by the way, is not a young adult novel at all. But, of course, I didn’t know this on my own. I had to be told this by my mentor and advisor who reviewed the manuscript for me only a week or so ago. How did I not know this? I mean, I was always told that the age of the main character determines the age of the readership because kids like to read about characters who are their age or older. My main character is fourteen. Ergo, young adult. Right?

Not so, people. The content and tone of the manuscript do far more to determine the readership. So even though my character is fourteen, which would place him squarely in the young adult category, the content and elements of the book are clearly middle grade, for a plethora of reasons I won’t go into here. But I couldn’t see this on my own.

I also couldn’t see, in this manuscript about which I have been querying and submitting furiously over the past six weeks, that I need a chapter prior to the first chapter to make the readers care about the main character before he’s plunged into the darkness of the spirit world. After all, if your character falls into peril before the reader gets to like him, who’s going to care? Of course, what I remembered from all my years of writing instruction is to begin in the heart of the action. Start with a bang at the moment of change. I thought I was doing the right thing. Why couldn’t I see it?

Because I needed objective eyes, which I could not possibly have after honing this manuscript for five (almost six) years. Sometimes it takes that outsider’s perspective to shed light on the dark spots that only appear gray after you’ve looked at them for so long.

Thankfully, I now have many objective eyes. I just hope I remember to never, ever send out a single piece of writing again without running it past my amazing writing group first.