fusty and forgotten

Do you have old unpublished manuscripts that you might revive? Why did you abandon it (or them?) What would it take for you to go back to them?

by Dietrich

I have an unpublished collection of a dozen shorts that I put together before I wrote my first novel. It was signed with a small press, then the publisher went bust before the collection ever saw daylight. I was busy working on my first novel, and I didn’t pursue another publisher for the collection, and I haven’t done anything with it since. It sits in a file and once in a while I think about reviving it because I still think there’s some good stuff in there. At other times, I’ve thought about mining a couple of those stories to use as subplots in another novel. 

The thing of it is I write every day, and I usually complete a novel a year, more or less. And by the time I’m halfway through the one I’m working on, there’s always an idea for the next one waiting. Beyond that, there are usually loose concepts that I’ve jotted down that may or may not take shape beyond that. So, there are more ideas than there is time to get to them all. 

What’s great about banking ideas is that I usually stumble across other nuggets that could work alongside those original ideas, often giving me a new twist that I hadn’t thought of before. While I try to keep a never-say-never attitude about some of the older ideas like the collection of short stories, I suppose that’s what it would take to revive one or all of them: the right nugget to come along to add a perfect twist to an old idea.

At the beginning, I used to save just about every cut I made from a draft — and sometimes those cuts were a chapter or longer. My thinking was that I might use them somewhere else in the future. And after the file of outtakes gained some heft, I realized I’d never take the time to go through all that in hopes of finding something worth salvaging. They’re called outtakes for a reason. Eventually I tossed the file in the bin, but I did come away realizing that all those cuts and extra writing weren’t a waste of time, but a very good exercise in learning to become a better editor of my own writing.

Well, that’s it for old bits and pieces in the bottom drawer that may or may not get revived. And now for something new … coming June 6th.

Lenny Ovitz has plenty of secrets. He works for a volatile crime boss, is drowning in debt to the wrong people, and he’s certain his soon-to-be ex is aiming to screw him over. Somebody is going to have to get whacked.

“Smooth plotting, vivid characters, and sharp dialogue (especially from the rough-edged leads) bolster this darkly comic story, which Kalteis shepherds to a hugely satisfying conclusion. Fans of Elmore Leonard and George Pelecanos will find much to enjoy.” — Starred review, Publishers Weekly

You can find out more and pre-order yours from ECW Press. Thank you.