Reading Eleanor’s blog over at the University of Fantasy I suddenly got sharply reminded of the fact that I set myself a target, not too long ago. I wanted to have written a manuscript that I thought be worth publishing by the age of thirty.
Well, dear people, as you might know I’ll be hitting the big 30 next summer, and I think I can safely say that I will not be able to write a manuscript that I think worth publishing before that time. Although the plot I have for Nano is highly enjoyable, it is not very new or original, and I haven’t written in over a year and did I already mention I don’t have much of a plot yet?
So it’s not going to happen, that publishable manuscript. And I’m still wondering if I should feel crushed about this. Obviously I’m not the writer hotshot that I secretly hoped to be, all my life… but I don’t think I ever really honestly thought I’d stand a chance. I like the process of writing but I detest editing. It’s really hard to let go of certain phrases, certain scenes. Once it’s written, it’s TRUE for me. Deleting a whole scene or storyarc seems pretty much impossible if you’re a Lannie, if you look at it this way. But I think I’m getting closer to the point where I might be able to do it.
I do know I’ve become more critical over the years, I understand a lot of the mechanisms. My characters need a reason to be in the story – a reason of existence. Elements need to be well-rounded, I need to work towards a certain point and things need to come full circle; a gun in act 1 that’s lying around and mentioned in passing will be fired in act 5; you know, that kind of stuff. No putting stuff in for the hell of it, there needs to be a reason, an explanation.
This is something I’ve always instinctively kind of grasped; things need to fall together otherwise they fall apart and I will feel lost with the story itself. So that’s one thing.
I think that if I really want to improve, I need to lay off the Nanowrimo at some point, write outside of Nano. ALLOW myself to edit, to go off tangents, to explore ‘what if’s in my story and see if they wouldn’t work better than what I initially coughed up while writing. But first there is Nanowrimo, and my lottery plot. I want to write that first. And when I’m done with that, I’ll have to KEEP writing, and start editing the snot out of my stuff.
I might not have a publishable manuscript by age 30, but you know… maybe that’s okay. I might need a little bit longer. I will have to keep improving myself, though. Because age 30 might have been a bit optimistic, and so what? I still want to write a publishable manuscript. A damn good story. That’s most important to me anyway.
And whatever age I do it at…? Who gives a fuck 
Als ik kijk naar de flutverhalen die gepubliceerd worden tegenwoordig, denk ik heel vaak dat ik dat zelf wel beter kan (ook al maak ik mijn verhalen dan nooit af
). Dus waarom zou jij niet gepubliceerd kunnen worden? Ik lees je NaNo’s altijd met veel plezier en denk dat zéker de Crystal-story-arc het waard is om gepubliceerd te worden. Ik zou het in ieder geval kopen!
The most important thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that the first draft is not, and [i]doesn’t have to be[/i], the best that I can do. That helped me get over my fear of writing badly: it’s okay to write bad first drafts – everyone does. But it also means that a first draft is only one possible way that I can write this story. Everything I do while writing (from word choice right up to high-level plot and character and theme) I can do better a second time. And I have these huge epiphanies all the time when I’m revising – I make connections, I have new ideas, I throw pages out of the window and start over.
I’m finishing the latest draft of my third novel right now, and it is so much better, you wouldn’t believe.