Back when I was pregnant with Austin, I started planning and writing a novel. I wrote little and infrequently. I found it hard to write with a newborn baby. I found it hard to write with my teaching job. To boost my word count, I went on a couple of writer’s retreats, and every November, I would add words with NaNoWriMo. I kept going and managed to get up to around the 35,000-word mark.
When I started writing it, I had a loose outline in mind. I just wrote and the characters evolved. It meant that the main character shifted to someone else, personalities changed and the main theme of the novel shifted. I was comfortable with this to a point but the more things that changed, the harder it was to maintain continuity. I needed to get some real direction. So I spent hours working out the beats, plotting the scenes and trying to figure out where my flashbacks should go. I looked at different structures, tried different tools to track structure and read a lot of advice. Each time I did this, I would grind to a halt: my story just didn’t have enough happening.
For the first time since leaving my job, I spent some significant time reacquainting myself with my novel. I felt energised and motivated when I was dealing with the first half of the novel but last night, I hit the same problem when trying to plot out the rest. It just wasn’t going anywhere. I had this sense that I just needed to start again. Write something completely new. But I was like a poker player who had already bet so much: I didn’t want to just fold my cards and lose all that time and work.
I wondered if I should give up altogether. I wondered if my obstinate determination to keep writing was like my obstinate determination to keep teaching. I wondered if I just didn’t know when to quit. I felt quite alone in that wondering. Writing is such a private thing – between your mind and the page – that I don’t think anyone I know would really understand.
I am a member of the London Writers’ Salon, an online writing community with masterclasses, forums, writing sessions and more. As a new member, I had never joined in beyond the writing cabin (a 24-hour Zoom meeting where you can join and write in silence with other people – a surprisingly stimulating environment) but last night, I took to the ‘Introduce yourself’ board:
Hi, I am Kate and I feel like giving up. I have been trying to write my first novel on and off since I was pregnant with my son. He just turned 8. I put my lack of progress down to the difficult years of parenting young children and being burnt out as a teacher in a secondary school. I left my teaching job at Christmas and my kiddos are growing up. I have more time to write (and think and be) but I am still facing the wall of my stalled draft. My story is just boring. I love my main character and I want to give her a great story. But maybe it wasn’t stress that was the problem. Maybe it was just that this wasn’t meant to be for me. How do I know whether I should go on or throw in the towel and accept that I am not a writer?
It was a vulnerable act, one that I hesitate to share here because I know some of the people reading this actually know me whereas on that message board, I am a stranger. The responses were amazing. A few different members took the time to leave lengthy replies made me feel better and braver to start over. I spent some time last night saying goodbye to that story and it really did feel like a kind of loss. I know that sounds awfully dramatic but I have spent so many hours in that world in my head, it is hard to let it go. And it is also hard to explain to those who are close to me just how dispirited I felt. Austin realised I was feeling sad and when I tried to explain, he offered to give me some ideas as he has ‘a head full of interesting thoughts’ – his words!
Just the other day, I was thinking that maybe I had chosen the wrong word of the year – that now that I have changed gears professionally and found myself in a happy position, I had no need to hold onto the idea of being BRAVE. But here it is again. Starting over is daunting. But I am folding my cards and dealing myself a new hand.
Notes From My Day 