Just Let Go

The other day on one of my discussion groups, a writer was lamenting bitterly over her WIP. It was one she’d written a while ago then put aside. Now she wanted to come back to it and get it in shape, but each time she sent in a chapter to her critique group she ended up getting lots of negative comments. She knew it was rough—after all, she’d written it ten years ago. How should she get them to be more helpful?

A more experienced writer had a simple suggestion: trash the book and go on to something new. During the past ten years, the writer herself had changed. By now, the book either needed radical surgery (which this writer was apparently unwilling to do) or it was beyond saving. That’s what the negative comments were trying to tell her. She should just accept that the book was a lost cause and move on.

I think writer number two was absolutely right, but I can also sympathize with writer number one. Like most of us, I’ve got a cache of manuscripts written during the early days of my determination to become a novelist that will probably never see the light of day. I have one in particular that I was very fond of when I first wrote it several years ago. I even managed to interest a couple of publishers at the time (although, obviously, that interest never developed into an offer). Every once in a while I resolve to redo it. I know what it needs. I know how to fix it. Yet every time I’ve tried to do that, I find myself giving up after about five chapters. I just don’t write like that anymore, and I can’t really make the book fit with the way I write now.

The decision on whether a story is worth pursuing, particularly after it’s sat around for a while, is one of the toughest ones a writer can make. Your first books have a place in your heart, but frequently they don’t deserve much more than that. Sometimes those old manuscripts should simply wither away. But sometimes they shouldn’t.

Long Time Gone, published by Samhain in July, is actually based on an idea I had a few years ago. The earlier version didn’t have the same cast of characters and the hero was radically different. But when it came time to tell Erik’s story, I found myself gravitating back to my earlier concept even though I only used the bare bones of the original story—the toxic waste dumper, the winery, the crooked mayor. The story just seemed to fit with Erik and the Toleffsons. In this case, I was very glad I hadn’t trashed the earlier book because parts of it were still usable.

Still, I think in many cases we’re better off just accepting the inevitable. Yes, we spent a lot of time and tears writing that story. Yes, it was something that convinced us we could actually write. Nonetheless, chances are that story, beloved though it may be, is never going to amount to anything. Time to just tuck it in that trunk under the bed, dry those tears, and let it go.