I finally did it. I finally finished my latest manuscript. Let’s call it project #2. (We don’t talk about the category romances I did before Project #1. I guess they’re projects -1 and -2.) I have no idea what made project #2 take so freakin’ long. Okay, I have some ideas, but still. I’m shocked when I realize it’s been a year since I signed with my agent and I had yet to send her anything beyond that first project.
What really, really freaked me out recently was realizing that it’s been TWO YEARS since I got my first request for the full on project #1. TWO YEARS. Okay, the book wasn’t finished yet when I got my first request (I’m a bad girl) but I did have a first draft done and managed to do my revisions in about 6 weeks. So, although I did more revisions after that first request, (that agent had it for 10 months before I got offered representation from someone else), it’s been a long time since I finished a book.
It’s not like I haven’t been writing… I just had a few false starts with projects I wasn’t confident enough in. And the project I just finished got temporarily stalled when an editor who almost bought project #1 told me she didn’t think project #2 would be a good second book for me — that I needed to follow project #1 up with something more similar. (See why I thought I’d sold it?)
But I should realize by now, that questioning my projects is part of my process. I hate just about everything I write at some point, so I need to remember to just keep going instead of floundering, stopping, floundering again and starting work on a whole new idea.
If I want a career in mainstream fiction — which I do. Then I need to be able to produce books more quickly. Funny thing is I feel like I do write fast — all evidence to the contrary.
This time I promise not to get too caught up in the various and sundry things that made this one take so long.
Yay!!! WTG for finishing….. fingers crossed this is going to be ‘the one’
Big cheers for finishing! Finishing a WIP is something to celebrate for sure!
From one who’s read it, it’s a fantastic book.
Worth all the time you took, and more.
Way to go Maureen. What a great day to celebrate.
Way to go Maureen!! This is me completely jealous of you right now.
Congrats!!!!!
Congrats!
Just a note on the produce-books-faster comment: I read somewhere that it took Arthur Golden 7 years to write Memoirs of a Geisha. And Geoffrey Euginides spent 3 (or was it 5? my memory sucks) on his Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex. So I say – produce as fast or slow as it takes to write a really good book and be proud!