And I'm okay with it.
In January I started writing a sequel to a comedy about a young mad scientist (a book only our Erin has read so far, but by jingo did it make her laugh), and it's flying along, over a third done already. A Graveyard Visible might come back to life (ha ha) after this, it might not.
I'm okay with that too.
Now bear with me for a moment here: this will all come together very soon. Our Lucy came up with an answer to the question of how she always had room for ice cream. Her food goes into separate compartments, so when she says she's full at dinner time, what she means is that the 'main' compartment is full, and it's time to move on to the dessert compartment. (It gets weirder - each compartment is manned by a full staff of little people who make sure each food is delivered to the correct section - by the way, you never want to be demoted to the bowels.)
Let's replace the stomach with my imagination. It used to have lots of compartments, lots of rooms with different stories and ideas in each. A Graveyard Visible had overflowed. It had blocked up all my compartments. At the start of writing (and this is usual for me) I had a big room set aside for AGV, some space for knocking around new ideas, a sunny area where I could forget about writing new material and do some promo work for Macadamian Pliers (just published with Black Rose Writing). Imagination was a lively factory with plenty of inhabitants. But as the Graveyard grew in the book and the intensity of its issues increased, so it spilled out of its holding pen, and eventually everything else moved out. And AGV kept on pushing at the walls.
It was making me unhappy. So I flushed it out. (I hesitate to use the phrase 'novel enema' because that sounds a tad unpleasant - so I won't even mention it.) And I had all these rooms, all these compartments standing empty, with workers in desperate for something to do. The ideas flooded in. I was writing again. And I was happy about it again.
But this all got me thinking about abandoned novels.
I've been reading Stephen King's The Plant. Not sure if it counts as an abandoned novel or not, but it's certainly an unfinished story, and might never be finished. It's great fun, and I got to wondering about what else might be out there.
I came across this fascinating article from The New York Times a few years ago. It's fascinating to read about Michael Chabon's difficulties writing 'Fortune City' - and makes me feel a hell of a lot better that five and a half years went into this novel before he turned his back on it. AGV took up six months. I'm certainly not comparing the quality of my work to his - but I think another five years (even off and on) with AGV would be the end of the writer in me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/books/review/Kois-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Look here as well to read about today's superstar writer John Green and the troubles he's had with abandoned novels : http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/7193828359/abandoned-books-2-the-desert-island-one
One more link to keep you busy: https://litreactor.com/columns/12-unpublished-novels-we-wish-we-could-read A never-to-be-seen book from Philip K Dick? Painful. But that one's because he died before finishing. So I guess he can be forgiven.
All of this has been fascinating to read, but what have I got from it all? This: sometimes we can put too much into something and forget why we were doing it in the first place. It should be done for the love of it, because from love we get joy, fun, security, happiness, and all that the soul needs. I'm now writing what I want to, and planning what I want next, and I've been able to enjoy a week's holiday with my beautiful family because I have all that's important, and I can see that I have it: joy, fun, security, happiness, love.
That might be a grand ending to this piece, but hey, I'm okay with that.
The gates have closed on the Graveyard. I think I've still got the keys. Somewhere...
Laters
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