My New Novel

As Sarah mentioned earlier, my latest novel, Twisted City, was recently published. As is usually the case, while I'm out, publicizing my current book, I'm very much absorbed in the next one....

My new novel for Vintage Books is just about finished. It's quite long--longer than anything I've written so far. I have a probable title, but I haven't told it to anyone yet. The length is just about all anyone knows about the book. I haven't shown any of it to anyone--not even my wife. I'm particularly secretive about my work. I try not to discuss my unfinished books with anyone. If my agent or editor wants to know specifics, I'll tell them of course, but I'm private about as much as possible. Part of this is superstition--or at least that's what I always say. I tell people, "I don't want to let the energy leak out"--whatever the hell that means. Actually, I have no idea why I feel so uncomfortable discussing my unfinished books. Maybe I'm just weird, need therapy, but I like to keep the books a total secret for as long as possible. There's really no logic to it. For all my wife knows, I haven't even been writing a novel for the past year or so. Maybe I've been playing video games or typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over again...

When you keep stuff to yourself, such as an entire novel, you create fertile ground for paranoia. I'm at the stage right now where I'm convinced that my new book is either absolutely brilliant or it absolutely sucks--there's no in between....As I get into my revisions, I'm sure my manic-depressive extremes will relax. I'll have some distance from the project and be able to see it more objectively...But right now I have no idea how anyone--including me--will perceive what I've written. It's a familiar feeling that happens every time I'm completing a book, and I'm handling it the way I always do--I'm started the next book....A psychologist I know who studies "creativity" has told me that it's common for artists to start their next work as they are finishing a current one. Apparently, it's some kind of emotional safety net or something...So maybe I'm not alone. Am I?

Comments

[Jim Winter]

This is the stage that reminds me of Adaptation, where Nic Cage either thinks he's positively brilliant or frets over being a sham.

And then he plays his twin brother, who just blindly pushes ahead without any preconceived notions about what he's doing.

The book I have coming out I actually have become rather blase about. I've lived with it for two years, so if anything, I'm sick of it. (Which is too bad, because I'm actually going to have to read it again before I start asking questions.)

The one I sent to the publisher last month has me positively convinced of my own brilliance. The rough draft sitting above my desk, not to be opened until after B'con, if even then, frightens me, makes me think my career is already over. It's a weird mix - ego and paranoia. I think they're all part and parcel of the same thing.

[Charlie W]

Jason - you don't divulge the merest detail about your work in progress? That is indeed weird and you should seek immediate medical attention. But I can understand it. I'm the same up to a point - I don't talk about the plot or what happens or the characters in too much detail while the thing is still in the air. If you do that you kind of get the story out there and there's no longer any point in writing it. But I'll happily tell everyone the title. I think it's different if you have a series character. When that's the case, people know who you're writing about and have ideas about where that character should go. Really great ideas, oh yeah.

[Charlie Stella]

I write like I eat ... two to three things at a time ... but I'm always driving my wife (and some others) crazy with manuscripts to read (that I often change wholesale before I let them settle). I think I'm too insecure to keep it secret ... I'm a big chimp needs the occasional encouragement that I'm not spinning my tires. For me, if it doesn't happen pronto (a first draft in 3-4 months), it usually gets shelved for another try ... but I also start something new (really new) before I've finished something else. This year was my year of total rewriting (and it make me nuts); then recently (2 weeks ago) I churned out half a book in just under 10 days ... and probably gained a pound for each day.

[Dave White]

It's odd, I'm uncomfortable talking in person to people about my writing. Especially stuff I'm working on right now (I haven't told anyone really what the premise of my first novel is yet, mostly because I'm not sure myself)... However, I am willing to write about my writing. I have no problem responding to email or chatting with people. Maybe it's because I get the feeling people really want to know if they're willing to write to you about it... or maybe I'm paranoid as well... which is absolutely possible. As for my novel... yeah I'm convinced everything except for the last chapter absolutely sucks.

[Aldo]

Not that I am a publisher writer like the rest of youse guys...I ask other people to read when I get stuck so I can talk through a stumbling block.

As for reading other people's work, I find it a great honor to do so, but only comment when asked. I never divulge anything to anyone else, ANYONE.

[Rebecca]

As a kid, I always ran to my parents/family members for praise and encouragement when I'd typed up four or five pages, and then gave them a precis of the whole plot of the imagined book. Then I would go back to work, and bang out a few more pages, hand them over for reading, and so on. The problem was that I always lost interest in what I was writing and never finished anything.

When I was fourteen I hit on the solution for actually finishing a novel: don't tell anyone anything. I was DYING to run to my parents and show them what I'd done (which I was convinced was brilliant at the time), but I made myself a rule that I COULDN'T show them anything until I had the whole book. I wasn't even planning to tell them that I was WRITING a novel because I wanted to surprise them. (This particular resolution fell through because of pressing computer backup problems that required parental assistance.) The desire to show off the finished product kept me pounding away through all the tough places.

The valuable lesson was: don't let anyone read the book until it's done, because otherwise you'll just lie back on your laurels. (For the same reason I VERY rarely skip around, even if I have scenes later in the book blocked out. I make myself write the "boring" - read "difficult" - stuff in the middle first, so that I can get to the ice cream at the end and enjoy how easy it is.)

I relaxed the "no read" rule with my first published book, because a student asked to see what I was writing, and I sent her the first chapter as an email attachment. She was curious, so I ended up sending her more attachments, a chapter at a time, and writing like a maniac to try to keep ahead of her. So that's another good way to finish the damn thing: have someone breathing down your neck for the next chapter. But it's risky unless you're really in speed writing mode, because it can turn into the "praise for the unfinished manuscript which demotivates" thing. So on the whole, no I don't think it's paranoia. I think it's a deliberate device for keeping our egos hungry so that they're good mousers. (Ok, how's that for a mixed metaphor. Somebody obviously took S.J. Rozan's comparison of herself and her cat in too seriously.)

[John Rickards]

I'm pretty much the same. I'll start thinking about the next one before I've finished the last - which always starts to make me impatient and wish I'd got it done already so I could move on. And my opinions on my own stuff vary from utter shit to really cool on an almost hourly basis.

And I almost never let anyone see even the first complete draft, simply because the horrible mistakes within are for my eyes only and I like to strip them out before anyone else gets a chance to spot them and take the piss...

[Kevin Wignall]

As in all else in my life, I'm fickle and inconsistent. Sometimes I tell, sometimes I don't, never sure why. I talk about my work if asked but the subject bores me senseless and in the middle of lengthy replies I'll hear that voice in my head screaming, "Mayday, mayday!" The only real rule is that my agent, Jonny Geller, is always the first person to read a book. Oh, and I've never shown a book to anyone before it's at the ARC stage, not because it's a rule, just because friends and family seem happy to wait, sometimes indefinitely!

[Kevin Wignall]

P.S. I always making a point of starting my new book within two years of finishing the last one. I know, it's hard to imagine how I can keep up this prolific pace - the star that burns twice as bright, etc. etc.

[Donna]

I only told a couple of people I was writing a book (because I felt really stupid saying "I'm writing a book"). I didn't know I was writing a book until I was actually doing so. While it was ongoing I think two people saw a couple of bits, just so that I could say to them: "This is really crap isn't it? I should just give up now." Only my long suffering partner had to put up with the whole thing, in chunks as I wrote it. And as he read it I fixed him with my beady eyes the whole time he read: "Why aren't you laughing? It's shit, isn't it? Tell me the truth. Which bit are you reading now? Is it anywhere NEAR decent? Should I just give up? Who's going to want to read this crap? Please can I have another cup of tea? Why have you just asked me where the razor blades are?"
Kafka

[Dave Zeltserman]

Charlie, half a book in 10 days? I could do that ... if my book ended up being maybe 40 pages!!

I've fallen into a routine where my wife and a mix of about 5-6 friends and other writers read the book as it being written. My friends involved have no problem telling me my stuff sucks(and I think a couple of them look forward to it!) but their feedback is helpful and one of them is a damn good editor in his own right. My last book (Small Crimes), my wife got deeply offended by something in it, tried to force me to change it, so I took her out of the loop. The feedback I got from the other readers was strong enough that she got interested enough by the time I finished it to give it another shot, and was able to look past the "deeply offensive" part. Small Crimes was picked up quickly by my Italian publisher, but so far waiting for a US publisher (so maybe my wife was right). Fortunately some extremely offensive stuff in an earlier novel went completely over her head, otherwise I don't think she'd be living with me now.

I wrote what became FAST LANE during a completely miserable time when I was at DEC, writing the book at my desk during lunch (sometimes typing away while talking to my boss), in an attempt to keep sane. I wrote my next book 5 years later, this time during a miserable episode at 3COM. I wrote SMALL CRIMES a little over a year ago, and am finishing up another one now, which tells my current state of mind, and how much longer I can probably stomach doing software development. Probably the reason my books are so dark, I tend to only write them when I'm absolutely miserable (at least at work).

-Dave Z.

[Kevin Wignall]

Dave raises a really interesting point there. Something happens near the end of "For the Dogs" that a number of people have complained about (I'm sure some of you will know the scene to which I refer!) and if I had let people read it before the ARC stage they would have tried to persuade me to change it. As many of the people writing here also go close to the edge, I'm intrigued to know if you get the same kind of pressure from your informal readers.

[Donna]

I do know the scene of which you speak Kevin :o) And FOR THE DOGS is a stronger book for its inclusion. As a reader, I want to read the book that the writer wants to write, not some sanitised version of it that editors/publishers think is the book that the majority of readers will be happy with. A lot of the books that I really love have got a scene in which I think is really brave, and where it's clear that the writer is writing something which he/she really feels has to be written, and that the book just HAS to be written that way. They're always the scenes which stick out in my mind as memorable - Ken Bruen's THE DRAMATIST has such a scene, Eddie Muller's THE DISTANCE is another, and also that scene in FOR THE DOGS. They make an impact, but it's an even more powerful impact because it fits - nothing else will do. For me, if it fits, then anything goes. If it makes sense in the context of that plot and those characters, and the writer thinks that's how it should be, well...then that's how it should be. But then, what do I know? :o)
Donna

[Dave Zeltserman]

I don't think I've ever let any persuade me to make a change that I didn't believe in (as Al G. can attest to ;)), but I do listen carefully to feedback and will make changes if it makes sense to me. In His Shadow/FAST LANE, for example, I got a couple of people commenting that Johnny Lane was such as asshole (which, stung a bit since he's sort of autobigraphical - not in action, but in thought), that maybe I should add something to make him more likeable, at least at the beginning to allow readers to grow attached to him. Thinking about it, it made sense, and I tacked on 50 pages to make him somewhat heroic (even if only temporary). In my next book, I had a very nasty character doing some truly appalling acts that were completely natural for him (and doing anything else would seem unnatural). An agent who had liked In His Shadow gave this book a try and sure enough he was appalled, sent me back a note asking what the hell was wrong with me. As much as it didn't make sense to change that character's actions, I realized I better before anyone else read the book.

-Dave Z.

[Jason Starr]

Kevin,
Regarding getting close to the edge, this is an issue that came up for me with Twisted City. There was a particular scene (and really theme) in the book that I needed to handle in just the right way. I couldn't go to far with it, but I couldn't be too tepid with it either. The usual suspects--wife, agent, editor, editor's assistant--all had suggestions about it, and it required tweaking a word here, a word there to get the right effect. But I only worked on it so much because I thought it needed to be balanced. I never (easily) agree to cut something out that's too dark or disturbing just for the sake of cutting it...As Charlie Stella would probably say, F**k, Walmart.

[Jim Winter]

No one reads the first draft. I may show bits and pieces of it when I need feedback on a scene that just won't wait. I hit up a romance writer whom I've known for 20 years to see if she found a conversation between two characters believable, or I'll bounce something off my wife. But no one sees more than a couple of pages, if that, during the first draft. The door is closed, as King puts it.

Then I leave it alone for 4, 6, 10, 12 weeks. I go through, cringe and whine and do revisions. Then Diane (Mrs. Winter to you), and only Diane, sees it. (My mother-in-law doesn't understand why I don't just ship her whole chapters hot off the press. I tell her finished copies are what get her bragging rights.) I let her hurt my feelings, go through the book again, and pack it off to 3-4 other people who have no vested interest in stroking my ego. (One guy gets a signed Gischler book for his trouble, since I don't have anything out yet.) The first person back usually is the target of the most "Whattayamean it doesn't work!" type rants, which I shield them from. (Hey, they're doing it for free, and I'm just throwing a temper tantrum. No need to expose them to that.) The last person gets pelted with all the questions that the first 2 or 3 people have brought up, along with Diane.

On Second Hand Goods, I went through and spent an hour on each chapter smoothing out wrinkles and fixing continuity errors, which are more common after revisions than before. I'm still finding them in the first two books at this date. (Thank God for editors.)

I may talk about what I'm writing, but I'm basically brainstorming when I do. If I hear part of a tough story out loud, I can sometimes find a way through the thornier parts.

Must be working. Northcoast Shakedown sold on the second query. Second Hand Goods attracted an agent.

Of course, now, there's pressure to perform on the third one. That may be why I don't like it that much. "Oh, God, they'll never sell this!" My wife tell me if that's true. She always does.

[Sarah]

Granted, I have yet to finish a novel, but based on a past experience, I have learned a) never to talk about an unfinished mss, b) never to show people any extract of it till at least a first draft is done.

I was 19 and I can't even remember why, but it seemed like a good idea to write some kind of serial set in the world of figure skating (I was obviously ahead of my time, since Alina's gone and done it.) The set-up wasn't bad--top skater murdered as he's completing his free skate at Nationals--and I still think about the female cop character who investigates the crime, as she had an potentially interesting backstory, but I uploaded chapters as I finished them and invited people to follow. Naturally, my usual instinct kicked in, and I got completely bored by about chapter seven, (I'd also written the ending, so that really deflated any tension of where to go and how to get there) so I left all those folks hanging. Bad me.

So I have learned my lesson. If I am writing a novel, no one will ever know. At least, at first.

[Charlie Stella]

Had to have my daily fix of Scott Peterson ... okay, now that I’ve shot out the television screen after listening to some defense attorney’s spin (I know, I have no life) ...

Dave: 93 single-spaced pages, to be exact, but I write dialogue driven stuff so it isn’t all that impressive ... plus, the next 93 might take me two months (at least one) and it could 93 single-spaces for the trash heap down the road ... but, yeah, that’s how I tend to write new stuff.

Jason: I’m trying out Russian dialogue again, so the correct spelling would be “Fo_____ Valmart!”

[Laura]

No one way, no right way, but my way is semi-secretive. I believe there are three reasons to show one's work:

1) Because it's done.
2) Because you need help.
3) Because you need money and you have to show/tell something to get that bit of the advance.

I don't believe in showing work because I hope to be praised. In fact, if I even find myself thinking about showing my work because I'm proud of it, I realize that actually means I'm unsure of it. When I finish the next one (fingers crossed) Oct. 1, a third draft will go out to my agent, editor and the one friend who fell into the habit of reading my stuff in mss.

I don't do groups. I don't submit partial manuscripts. I do show a couple of chapters and write a long note, assuring editor and agent that I know what I'm doing, because I have to do something to get paid.

[Olen Steinhauer]

Jason, not only are you alone in your feelings, you're plainly paranoid, and whack.

Well, not really.

The safety net is always there for me too, keeping me about three books ahead so that it doesn't matter how bad THIS book is because there's always the promise of future brilliance.

But I don't share the secretiveness. I know a lot who do, because it'll take away the steam or a word of criticism will halt them (in the case of criticism, I always say, "Well it all comes down to execution," and the critic just nods). I am quiet about my stuff, but because I can't imagine anyone would find it interesting -- I never say, "Should I blow an atom bomb blow up in the middle of Tokyo?"; instead, it's "Should I clip the sentences to a staccato rhythm in the middle third of the book to emphasize the moral ambiguity of the main character?" C'mon. Snore. So I don't discuss my stuff much, but only out of fear of becoming a social pariah.

And don't worry, I'm already hassling Kevin to improve the pace of his output.

[Jason Starr]

Nice to hear that most of you are as peculiar as I am when it comes to work habits. Suddenly I don't feel so crazy anymore.

[Jennifer Jordan]

Which is scary in and of itself.

[Jeanne Ketterer]

The comments are interesting, as usual.

When I first started, I was happy enough chugging along, then later heard about and joined a writing organization and learned about The Critque Group. Apparently, it was advantageous to be in one bec you'd get sold faster bec the CG would be up to the minute on market, what sells, keep you moving on output, networking, etc. And when you sold, it seemed the next important question for those didn't know -- do you have a CG and who's in it?

It didn't work for me -- always go with your first impressions -- so I've been on my own since. I would really like to meet with a couple of people once a month, not necessarily to read work, but a general how's it coming along hour, eh, maybe you can read a few pages to see if I'm way offtrack or instead, once or twice a year for weekend brainstorming sessions. Because lately I've been feeling I'm off alone on another galaxy or something.

David's currently the only one I share my work with. He gets a slight panic attack whenever I ask him to read something or listen -- although, he gets enormous props for patiently supporting moi -- bec the guy only likes to read computer manuals and isn't into fiction, let alone crime fiction. But he tries, which is good.

When I complete the current wip, I don't know. Maybe I'll ask someone to read it. Or maybe send it in for contests -- which I'm not crazy about, bec I think there's writing for contests and writing for selling mss. And a contest critique, I think, can be a minefield -- I wanna know the judge and their credentials.

And, if by miracle, something of mine gets sold, then I really don't know what I'd do. LOL. Although I think by that point the agent and editor should be the only ones to see it.

Jeanne

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