The Finish Line Gets Further Away

“So when is your book coming out?”

That’s an easy question. When someone asks me that I wax loquacious on agents, editors, publishers, “the market,” and a host of other forces outside of my control. I point out that many bestselling classics were rejected for years before publication. I shrug, smile optimistically, and imply that I’m quite close to starting that long, unpredictable cycle of submissions and rejections.

“So when will your book be finished?”

That’s the tricky bit. If you’d asked me two weeks ago I would’ve said “Early 2015.”

But that was two weeks ago. I’ve done some serious replotting since I finished my second draft. As always after a second draft I look at the story and realize that it’s about 70% wrong. This might sound depressing to you but it’s exhilarating to me because this time I know how to fix it.

My three years of serious slaving over a word doc might not have produced a bestseller, but it did produce a writer who knows how to edit.  I finally have the ability to look at the whole plot and realize “ah, that’s what’s broken.”

Previously I would finish a second draft and think “something’s kind of wrong here.” But I didn’t know what it was or how to change it. I could fix individual scenes but I couldn’t fix the whole arc.

For instance I’m altering a “She doesn’t know that I know that she’s actually one of the bad guys” dynamic. Now it will be a “We’re both kind of bad guys and we’re openly using one another” dynamic.  I don’t have to throw out too many scenes to make this happen but I do have to alter the tone and the motivations every time these two main characters are involved. (Hint: that’s all the time.) Still it was a necessary change because I want these characters to swagger and you can’t swagger when you’re always pretending not to be a bad guy.

So early 2015, that’s not going to happen. In the past two weeks alone I think I’ve given myself an extra six months of work. I went from 77,000 to 59,000 words and most of those remaining words need to be changed into better words. Long story short, my finish line just moved further away. But you know what?  It will be a better book.