Thursday, August 19, 2010

Uhhh, Spoke Too Soon

So remember how I was all, "I'm going to finish Transparent this week! Wahoo! I'm awesome!"

Yeah...that's probably not happening now. Turns out I've been reminded once again that I am not, in fact, very awesome. I love eating my words like that. Yummy.

But it's okay! Well, mostly okay. You might have picked up a slightly "down in the dumps" vibe from yesterday's post. It's been a rough week for many reasons—funny how life can get in the way of writing like that.

It really all started Monday night. I'd finished the "third to last chapter" (which now might be more like the "fourth or fifth to last chapter" [arg]), when something started nagging at me. I'd planned how the end would go. I'd figured it out and outlined it and everything!

But at that moment, when I finally got to that point in the manuscript...I just knew it wasn't right.

All of the sudden I didn't have an ending! I was at the end and, bam, I suddenly couldn't write it the way I planned. Sure, I knew what was wrong (let's just say a sort of deus ex machina issue), but I didn't know how to fix it. So there I was wanting to be done SO BAD and not moving forward.

This writing thing is maddening, I tell you. Maddening.

Kiersten was all "Just write it and I'll tell you if it's bad!" Then I'd be like "But I KNOW it's wrong! It WILL be bad! I'm not wasting my time on wrong." And then she'd be all "But I want the ending! Wahhh!" (Okay, she didn't "Wahhh!")

And then some other stuff happened, which made it even harder to see how this ending was supposed to go.

Maybe a year ago I would have just written the ending I'd planned, knowing it wasn't right but not knowing how to fix it. "Oh, it's fine for now," I'd say to myself. "I'll figure it out later. Or even better, maybe no one will notice and I won't have to!"

But this pause, this patience in waiting for the answer, tells me that maybe I have grown as a writer. Maybe I am a little bit better. I have more instincts than I used to. Not that I'm anywhere near perfect, but I can more easily sense when my story is going off track. And instead of just letting it, I wait for it to come back or run after it and force it back. Either way.

Last night, my dear Fiona told me the beginning of the answer, and the rest kind of filled itself in. I'm letting it marinate a little, but I know this is the better choice, and I'm glad I waited for it.

21 comments:

  1. Here's to hoping you get it figured out soon! I know that when I hit those "wrong" walls I tend to throw tantrums and fret and whine for about a week and then when I give up things come. I think this is why it takes me so long to write most of the time. Sometimes it all feels wrong and I just have to rewrite it. Ugh.

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  2. Ouch, that hurts! Congrats on figuring out where the ending should go though. :-)

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  3. I'm glad you were able to have the patience to discover the answer. That is a major victory! Focus on the victories, right?

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  4. It's probably better you found the problem before you finished the rough draft.
    In the rough draft for my last book I spotted a problem, the main character didn't really seem to care a friend of his was murdered and served up for a light lunch, but ignored it, in the rewrites I wrote around it so people wouldn't notice, and my beta readers didn't notice that problem, but they were very uneasy about about my main character and looking over my book it was because of his indifference to that event that killed his character, so I ended up doing a 30,000 word rewrite. That's a third of a book that could have been spared if I addressed the problem in the rough draft.

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  5. Amen. Letting things marinate is hard. Good luck on everything, though...it will be delicious to read, I'm sure. :)

    Ha! My captcha is "tries." Yes! Yes I do! We all do!

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  6. Dude, I totally WHAAAAed. But I can be patient if it means you feel better about it : )

    And, beg to differ: You ARE awesome. And I am always right. The end.

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  7. Must be something in the air...I just posted on this same thing! I sent off an incomplete story to my editor, just to "make sure I was on the write track." Of course, it came back with a "Um, no you're not." Which I knew. Which is why I couldn't finish. So now I, too, am marinating ideas.

    Trust your instincts.

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  8. I'm glad the answer is coming to you. I hate not knowing critical parts of my story, and I'd say the ending is pretty critical. Yes, it's maddening. And no one REALLY understands like your writing friends. I mean, could you have told your not-writing friends that you are having an especially horrible day because you don't know how the invisible girl in your head is going to live happily ever after?

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  9. Hey, Natalie? I think you just proved how very awesome you truly are. :D Glad that you're figuring it out, even if the waiting and the wrong ending did mess everything up. You'll finish it!

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  10. Oh wow, I am SO glad I read this!! About a week ago, I was on the Very.Last.Chapter of my WiP and I was HIGH ON LIFE!

    And then BAM, I realized uh-uh, no way, this ending is not what I wanted. And cutting 84 pages (5ish chapters!!) was the only solution.

    Instinct is everything sometimes, isn't it? I have awesome crit partners, too, who say, "No, it's not as bad as you think" when it is! Sorry you've had a set back with your book, but so glad you are waiting, rather than forcing out crap that will leave you unsatisfied and most likely end up deleted anyway!

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  11. Characters love throwing us for a loop like that and changing things midstream. I ended up changing my ending half way through my book. Turns out it worked perfectly, in the sense my Beta never saw it coming. (Hugs)Indigo

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  12. I love it, Natalie! I'm a big fan of waiting for the answer to come versus pushing. But that can be a tricky thing.

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  13. Yes, this writing thing is definitely maddening...and waiting is certainly the hardest part when you want to finish!

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  14. How wonderful to be able to see your growth as a writer, though, maddening as the process may be :)

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  15. I totally empathize. I had a moment like this when I had to face the reality that my beginning was lame in comparison with how wow that ending was. I needed to rewrite. I knew I needed to rewrite but how to change it and keep the essence so that the rest of the novel worked. It was horrid. I cried! I just couldn't see how to more forward and then, a few days later, it all clicked into place. Those moments are worth the awful waiting. So hang it there. It'll call come together and it'll be way better than you ever thought it could be! :D

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  16. This is a really great post. For some, it is hard to just go for it and write. But for me, its hard to slow down. We have to balance between pushing through doubts and waiting for the right idea. Right now, I'm letting myself wait for a couple days! I've only just learned how to chill out. ;)

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  17. Love the Waaaah moment. Reminds me of Fruits Basket.

    So glad you are following your instincts, too. I see the flaws in my own writing far more easily now... though I am still learning to pay closer attention and resist the urge to ignore the inklings that something isn't going the way it should be.

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  18. Glad you're beginning to figure out where to go from here. Good luck!

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  19. This has happened to me before. Time will make everything clear, I promise!

    Good luck and don't forget to breathe every now and again! ;)

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  20. Congrats on finding the right ending. It's always frustrating when things start going off the rails and you know the old plan won't work out. Hope the new ending's working out great for you though.

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  21. Agggggh, I've so been there! (The reason I have so many unfinished manuscripts.) The right ending, when it does come, always comes when most unexpected.

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