Finishing... At Last

In the corporate world they like to do psychometric tests, one in particular is the Belbin Team Test. This is meant to help you understand what types of people you have in a team so you can understand if you have a good balance.

One of the personality types is that of a completer/finisher. Every time I have taken this test I score very low in the completer/finisher role. I think once I even scored zero. Supposedly I’m a great Resource Investigator (i.e. networker) but give me something to finish? Not so much.

Of course, one of the biggest pieces of advice you can be given about writing is finishing what you start. This obviously gives me a few problems. I launch into new stories in giddy excitement only to splutter to a stop halfway through. Then begins the hard slog to reach the end. And as finishing things is obviously against my nature it is hell.

But this week I did actually finish something. It has only been five years since that initial giddy start but I never gave up hope that somehow, if I just had the time and motivation, I would finish that story. And I have. Admittedly it is a rambling pile of nonsense but it is a finished rambling pile of nonsense which can be fixed. Hopefully before another five years pass.

Do you have problems finishing things? What techniques get you through?

sorry, Ma, that there well done gone run dry

photo by f_shields on creative commons licence for flickr

At the end of September, I finished a book a month early. I sent it to my agent, who sent it to my editor. I took two days to go house-hunting and do laundry. I then immediately launched into writing another book, a 30,000-word novella, which I wrote in three weeks. I revised and submitted that to my other editor. We also sold our house, made an offer on another, found a solicitor and a mortgage advisor, consulted our accountant and the taxman and booked surveys and checked insurance. By this time, my editor had come back with revisions for my big book. We agreed a deadline of two weeks would be about right.

I went on retreat with some wonderful writers, to talk writing. I came up with an idea for my next book. I went to lunch with other writers, to talk writing. I went to dinner with other writers, to talk writing. I came up with an idea for another book. I went to a book launch with other writers, to talk writing.

On Thursday I sat down to write a new scene for my book that I'm revising. It's not a long scene, but it's an important one: a flashback to a time in my characters' lives when the foundations were set for their current conflict. I wrote the scene in a couple of hours.

The insightful Emma Darwin mentioned at one of those talking-writing events how sometimes writers who have written a lot can come up with something that is technically competent, but not at all exciting. It was that. It ticked the boxes, but it was lifeless. I can't possibly put it in a book that I care about, not as a key scene.

As usual, I've been beating myself up about this. Have I lost the joy of this story? Do I not have enough imagination? Does the story just not carry the depth I want it to?

But it has occurred to me that it's none of these things. I can't write a good, fleshed-out, emotional, complex scene because I am just too tired. Not physically, but mentally. I've done too much creating and talking and thinking and writing in the past two months. And I've also bought and sold a house.

My well is dry.

Yesterday, I spent the whole day reading a book. Today and tomorrow, I intend to spend playing with my kid and watching films with my husband. Monday...well, Monday I'm not so sure. Maybe the well will be full enough by then to come up with something worthwhile. Maybe not. Maybe I'll have to move my deadline forward a week or two, but that will be okay.

I have enough experience now to know that that there well will full right up again, Ma. And what a wondrous and exciting thing to know that it will. Just give it some time.

Look out for Anna's post, coming soon. My grammatically-problematic title is in homage to Susanna's post on copy-edits, below.

Book-love

On Tuesday I finished working on the book I’ve been writing for the past ten months. I did a final check, I printed it out, I put it in an envelope and I posted it to my agent. She says she’s going to read it this weekend and let me know what she thinks. That gives me five days, at minimum, during which I don’t have to work on it.

I have neglected my family for this book. I’ve let my husband and kid go off and play without me. I’ve spent mornings during my holiday writing, when everyone else was at the beach. I’ve let the house get absolutely filthy, I’ve had an empty refrigerator for weeks, I’ve gone off on weekend-long research trips or writing marathons, I’ve turned down invitations from friends. I’ve hardly left the house. I’ve dreamed of the book, thought of the book constantly, stayed up late working on the book, got up early to start work again. For the last two weeks, during my last intense push to revise the huge manuscript into something readable, I’ve been popping ibuprofen every four hours and wearing a wrist brace, to stop me from suffering too much from typing-related repetitive strain injury.

One of the first things I did after posting the manuscript (after going for a little lie down) was to go out with a friend for dinner. We had a glass of champagne to celebrate my achievement, and then she told me about what she’s been doing. She has crazy six-month deadlines to finish up writing a big trilogy, and at the same time she’s going on a promotional tour for the first book, interacting with her growing army of fans, and doing copy edits for a different publisher. She hardly has time to eat or sleep or talk with her husband. She is constantly in the world of her trilogy. Whatever we were talking about, the conversation slid back to her characters, and the look on her face was priceless: the look of a woman in love.

I was wildly jealous of her. Not of her success, which is well-deserved; certainly not of her lack of sleep or social contact, which I’ve got plenty of myself, thank you very much.

I was jealous of the book-love.

For me, the crazy obsession takes a little bit of time to wear off. I send the book, and then I dwell on all the things I could have changed. I think about the characters and their story almost as much as when I was writing. But then the reality sinks in. It’s over. My love affair is done. It’s no longer just me and the book. It’s time for someone else to read the story, and judge it.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s incredible to send off a book and have it read. I await my agent’s judgement with fear and crazy anticipation. But there’s a wearing-off period when I feel sad that it’s over, that it’s not my entire life any more. It's time for me to fall out of love. I feel exhausted, inadequate, at a loose end, and really lonely.

Obsessively working on your novel is bad for your health, it’s bad for your social life, it’s bad for your family. It can’t be doing your sanity any favours. And it leads to a consumption of wine and chocolate which is truly disgusting by any civilised standards. But it is wonderful. Just wonderful.

I miss it.

Come back on Sunday, when Anna Louise Lucia will be posting.