Writing is Hard

What question do you wish that someone would ask about your book or your career or you, but nobody has?

I have had so many odd questions asked of me that it’s hard to believe there are any left.  A few favorites:

1)     Do you write mysteries because you think you aren’t good enough to write mainstream novels? My answer to that was that I thought there was a mystery at the heart of every good novel. But I have a NEW answer! If I had a good enough imagination, I’d be writing science fiction. Every time I read a book of sci-fi, I’m amazed at the kind of imagination it takes to write it.

2)     Is Samuel Craddock ever going to “get any?” Always asked by a middle-aged woman. I finally answered that question. If you don’t know the answer, read the books.

3)     How long did it take you to write (insert name of book)? The answer is that it doesn’t take me long to do the actual writing of a Samuel Craddock novel. I always feel like I fall into it and swim like crazy and then it’s done. But that doesn’t count the years of writing novels that never saw the light of day, learning the craft, getting rejections, etc. Which leads to the answer to today’s question.

Here goes: The question nobody has asked me that I would like to answer is (tada):  “You wrote for a long time before you got published. How come it took you so long? (Subtle question: Are you stupid, or what?)

I wrote six complete books and a few bits of books before I got published. I’m not the only person who wrote that many. In fact, I’ve heard that’s about average. If it’s average, that means some people wrote a lot more than six books before they were published. I know one person who wrote nine—and she is a highly successful author now!

But that was a few years ago. Now, I think it’s probably fewer on average, because if people have trouble getting traditionally published these days, they turn to independent publishing (which used to be called self-publishing). Still, even people I know who published independently and are successful often have a few books “stuck in a desk drawer” never to see the light of day.

That means I’m not the only person who could be asked the question, “what took you so long?” For me, the answer is that I thought all I had to do was write a book that was “good enough.” It turned out that good enough wasn’t good enough. That doesn’t mean I haven’t read books that I don’t think were “good enough.” I have. But the book was good enough to get the attention of an agent, a publisher, or readers.

Every time I realized that the book I was trying to get published was not going to succeed, I felt let down. But each time I wrote one, I leaned something more about writing. I envy those writers who not only know how to tell a story, but seem to have known how to get it onto the page as soon as they sat down to write for the first time.  But I think that’s rare.

My learning process hasn’t stopped just because I’ve published eight novels. 

I’m trying now to write something outside my comfort zone and it’s as if I’m starting for the first time. The story is written. It’s 80,000 words. But just because it has a lot of words doesn’t mean it’s done. I keep having to go back and zero in on character development and plot line. I’ve struggled with the beginning and the back story. The hook has eluded me. How to factor in the back story has eluded me. (Finally I wrote out the back story out in a separate file, which helped me figure out which parts really needed to be in the book, and which could be jettisoned.) I’ve changed the beginning again and again, and I suspect that I will find holes in the story once I start looking at it as closely as I’ve looked at the beginning.

So, in answer to the question: I took me so long because writing is hard. In fact, I’ll quote Philip Roth on this: “Writing isn’t hard work, it’s a nightmare.” Or William Styron: “Let’s face it, writing is hell.”