Writin' and editin' makes one want for drinkin'

I took a break from writing this evening by going for a run at sunset. I spent most of the run thinking about writing. When one topic's on your mind all the time, even when you try to push it out, it's still there.

The problem with writing isn't the writing itself. It's knowing when to stop. I have been working on a manuscript for almost nine months. I wrote it in four months and in the past five months I've had a couple of editing passes. While no one knows my stuff like me, when I submitted it to an online critique group through the Atlanta Writer's Club, they found things that I didn't notice. There were minor things like "than" for "as". There were major things like me neglecting to introduce my main character's name in the beginning of chapter one.

I always know when a blog's done because that's when my hands stop moving on the keyboard. In the tricky world of narrative fiction, the task seems to be never ending. Change is almost always necessary but it affects more than one spot in your story. It's layered in many scenes, conversations, and the motivations of characters. It makes a big difference that I have a character who's actually on a Last Will and Testament instead of having to go through court procedures to get that power. It's a huge change to make one character think that a relationship has no future, and decide that instead he has a vision of longevity that he's almost desperate enough to acknowledge. Changes like that can require major rewrites. My patience for such efforts is wearing out.

In the past week I've worked on one major chapter in the book. It's a crucial scene in the manuscript because it's the only extended chapter that has all 12 characters in a room together for an extended period of time. I worry about balance because some characters speak more than others and some have bigger revelations. The key to the scene is that despite their differences, they choose to honor their friend together. It's completely plausible that without this reason for unity, they would continue to drift apart due to the kind of petty issues that occur in any long-term relationship, let alone 12 distinct personalities that exist in a fantasy football league.

After a week, I'm still not sure if it's ready for prime time, or print. What is revealed individually could make a few novels or novellas of their own. To the reader the scenarios might be implausible but so are most of the football finishes in season one of Friday Night Lights and I can overlook that because the show is great, the characters are great, and I'd watch it if the major sporting event was fencing.

What is a writer to do? Continue plugging away. Whether it's a blog or a critical conversation in chapter ten of your 110,000-word manuscript, you have to keep plugging away until it feels right. Next week it might feel wrong but that's next week.