Novels are like lost puppies.
You can bring them home, feed them, play with them, spend time with them, but the moment you give them a name, you’re doomed.
They’re yours. To feed, clothe and provide shelter. They commit themselves to you, and reluctantly or not, you’re forced to love them and succumb to their hourly attention-seeking, the drool, bad breath and disgusting habits notwithstanding.
That’s precisely the case with the novel I’ve been writing for 1.5 years now (and counting) and I think it’s because I gave it a name after the first 20,000 words that it’s made itself comfortable in my psyche.
“You named me,” it says. “So you obviously cared for me, intended better things for me. Now here I am. Deal with me.”
Sam said an interesting thing to me last night as I paced about, fretting because I’d sat down to write and ended up cutting 3,000 words instead. He said that I should enjoy the process, have fun with it, because it would possibly be the only time I would be writing without the weight of any expectations– external or my own.
I hadn’t realized the truth of that until he pointed it out.
Whether or not this novel is successful, there will be baggage. If I sell it, the next one will be expected to exceed whatever this one goes out and achieves. If I don’t manage to sell it and it sits on my computer forever, there will be the weight of personal expectations on the next one. I’ll want it to perform, the way this one didn’t, to go out into the world and prove that I don’t suck, not really, not two books in a row.
This book that I’m writing now, that I’m enjoying writing for the most part, comes without any baggage, any expectations. I’m not writing it because I think it will sell–though of course I hope it will–or because of any commercial success that I anticipate for it. I’m writing it because I found this story in me that I felt the need to express and when I sat down to write it, it just came and came and came. As much as I’m resisting the writing of it, the story is there, fully-formed in my head, the character arcs, story narration all waiting for me to commit to paper.
I’m going to take my time to finish it, however long that might be. I’m not in any rush to send this out into the world because my only expectation from this work right now is that I finish it, that I tell the story in the manner in which I want to. I want to approach the page when I’m full of anticipation for what’s going to happen next, not with dread or performance anxiety. I want to be woken up in the middle of the night with inspiration for just the right turn of phrase, ideas for the perfect scene. I don’t want to stress about whether someone will think a character is based on them or whether the work is autobiographical (it isn’t) or whether an agent or publisher will deem it marketable.
I just want to write.
And for the last few weeks, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.