Whiff of Death, Manuscript Style
Last week I had a Moment. It was more than a moment long. I fell into despair. I’ve been working on this book for a year. It has been, as most anyone would agree, one hell of a year, and I’ve been trying to write this book the whole time. And I, in that very long moment, hated it. I never wanted to look at it again. Everything was wrong, it was all wrong, it was trash and it would never be anything but trash. The characters were boring, the plot was stupid, and I can’t write anyway. I suck. But I’ve been there before. When writers advise other writers to “finish something, no matter what” this is part of why. I’ve finished a number of books at this point, and I know now that every book I write has that moment. Also, it’s not just me! Many authors know that awful moment. I’ve talked friends through it more than once. Neil Gaiman wrote about it. The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber,…