Oh how the months go by… It’s the same feeling I get when I stand up from my desk and find the kids necklace I put on my head hours earlier is still there!
So. I got a very polished version of this second manuscript. (Let’s call it “Crows”.) I’m at that precipice again where I’m reading books for comparable titles and feeling overtly pessimistic about what I’ve done. (Oh the joys of covid isolation.) I’m currently sprawled across beginning chapters of several best seller books of this last pandemic year, trying to determine which to dedicate precious hours to first.
And I’m second-guessing myself. Is my universe too this? Is my writing style too that? What I’d really like is to have somebody in the industry read what I’ve written so I can ask these questions to them, but I don’t know anybody like that (without paying for it).
More importantly, I’m staring into the face of several years of writing, ready with another manuscript that’s taken far too long to polish, and asking, “Is this still worth it?”
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love writing. In fact, I love it so much, I avoid talking about it with my friends because I usually can’t stop myself from talking their ear off. But in this process, I’ve sacrificed weekends on end, year after year, time spent elsewhere, with my kids and husband, instead attached to these stories I’ve built in my own head.
And these questions I have about my writing are foundation ones. Do I need to change my universe? Do I need to revise my style again (as I did last year?) And I can’t move on to another manuscript until these questions are settled, because everything I write can be undermined by the answers.
So essentially, I’ve been stuck, frustratingly stuck, rereading and minutely revising ad nauseum.
Perhaps I should take a break, a whole month break, and read several comp titles.
This afternoon, among the handful of titles I picked out from the best of 2019-2020 lists, I stumbled on one that happens to acknowledge one of the agents I liked from my agent search a year ago. In the various twitter feeds I saw, she always seemed very genuine and compassionate. So, The Obsidian Tower, you’ve been boosted to top of the list.
