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, short-order cook or marine biologist.
Neil Gaiman
Debbie Ridpath Ohi adorably illustrated a quote from Liana Brooks about it.
It is, to borrow a term from Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet, the Dark Night of the Soul. Complete with Whiff of Death. “I could burn the manuscript. Delete all the backups. No one will ever see this. No one should ever see this.”
I happen to believe it’s more widespread than just writers. I watch a lot of Bob Ross painting, and he’s said more than once as he did something drastic, “now, I know you’re thinking, Oh, Bob, you’ve done it now, you’ve made a mess. And maybe I have. Maybe I have.” But he’s painted before, all the way to the end. He knows if he has messed something up, he can fix it. “We don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents.”
Luckily for this manuscript, I have also been all the way to the end. I knew the way out of that moment (once I’d wallowed enough.) I went and got a bowl of Cheerios (forgot to cook dinner in my despair) and went to TDP chat, and asked the wonderful Siri to talk me down. As she is the wonderful Siri, she did.
Don’t burn the manuscript, kids. You can do this.