Photo Friday, No. 683

Current Photo Friday theme: 2019 In Review (week 2)

In February, I thought I was crazy to revisit a novel whose characters have been with me since I was a young teenager and whose story I finished in the mid 1990s. Some people read it and liked it. Others didn’t like it that much. From time to time I’d dust it off and let someone new and trustworthy read it. I called that novel and the two follow-ups that continued the series my training novels.

After other works I wrote were published, I did a heavy revision of the first book on the advice of my agent and sent it to my editor. He couldn’t publish it. That was fine with me. I was unhappy with how I’d chopped it up. I tucked away the characters of not just that one, but all three novels in the series.

Other novels have arrived in my brain over the last few years, but writing takes time and energy of which I’ve been in short supply since 2013. You have to MAKE TIME to write, and I wasn’t motivated to do so.

Then strangely, unexpectedly, these old characters returned in late 2018. By early 2019, They nudged me awake when I slept. They broke into my daytime thoughts. They reminded me of all the ways I’ve changed over the decades and they, too, wanted to be re-invented, to be written by a more seasoned, wiser author.

“NO TIME,” I kept saying.

By April, I had 24 new pages. I refused to read the old manuscript, even though it sat on the table next to my desk. A true fresh start meant letting go. Trusting myself. Trusting them to help me find the way into their reborn selves.

By November, I had three readers and the nearly-400-page draft you see in this photo. Along the way, I realized two things. The first: I was not writing one but two books. It’s the only way I can tell their stories the way they need to be told. My agent was right about that, if not right about how to split it up. The second: It isn’t time wasted, because I went into this knowing it is highly unlikely to be traditionally published.

It will be edited now by my sternest editor: Timothy. When I’ve cleaned it up, it’ll have a little wait for me to write Part 2, then I’ll self-publish both for my friends or anyone who wants to have a go at them to read them. They are not contemporary romances. They are neither TJB novels nor the Coventry books. They are what they are supposed to be.

In the photo, you see my marked-up draft. The yellow journal where I jot down ideas or song lyrics and put photos that inspire me. Three yellow folders that contain the chapter summaries, the timeline (this first novel spans the 1950s to the late 1960s), and the concordance of character and place names that helps me keep it all straight. You also see something intangible: determination, persistence, a love for the craft of writing, and the encouragement of friends, family, other writers, and readers who have through the years told me not to give up and to trust my voice.

In review, 2019 has given me something I didn’t know I desperately needed.