ON SELF-DOUBT  

Q Encouraged by the publication of a short story by a well-known children's magazine, I plunged into writing a novel. Three years and a novel-writing workshop later, I find myself dead in the water with my latest effort of 140 pages going nowhere. I have talent. I have desire. So what's the problem? I have started over three times and am now on my fourth attempt. It's so discouraging that I want to quit and become a normal person. Isn't something wrong with someone who can just toss 140 pages aside and start over (again?). But more important than that, more important than my high blood pressure, the second coming, my impending divorce -- do I have writer's block or what? And lastly, what kind of crazy person wants to be a writer anyway?
-- James

A Dear James:

I have no idea whether anything is wrong with you (other than high blood pressure), or whether you are crazy. However, it's not relevant. Many writers are crazy. And you sure sound like a writer to me.

Look at the evidence:You've published once. You've set high standards for yourself, or you wouldn't have started your novel four times. You believe you have talent. You don't have "writer's block" (or you wouldn't still be trying). And you're in good company: many writers start a novel many times before getting the voice right.

What you may have to do, however, is give yourself permission to be less than wonderful in every paragraph. I suspect you may have started over so often only partly because you're searching for the right voice; the other part may be that you are dissatisfied with anything that doesn't equal War and Peace. But writing, remember, is a skill that, like any other, improves with practice. You can't learn from the mistakes of your first novel if you never finish your first novel.

So finish it -- either with these 140 pages or with the next go. Finish it even if it isn't perfect. Finish it for the learning you'll get. Finish it despite the divorce and/or the second coming. And then start on your second novel.

As for what kind of crazy person wants to be a writer -- all kinds. We get depressives, maniacs, delusionals, neurotics, alcoholics, and serial killers. Writing is an equal-opportunity activity. Only talent and persistence count.

Q I am currently working on a book that I have set in Sydney, Australia. All the events lead up to the 2000 Olympics, but end just before. Is this a good strategy? It is a romance/mystery.
-- Fran

A Dear Fran:

It's a good strategy only if you have finished the book and it's already been accepted.

Consider: This is the summer of 1998 already. A book takes, usually, nine months to a year in production. This means that if your book starts production now, it will come out next spring or summer, and have a year of shelf life before the Olympic games, when it will be of most interest to general audiences. That might work.

But if you haven't already finished it, much less gotten it accepted, then the time squeeze is tighter. Of course, editors might publish it after the games are over -- but probably they won't. So you don't have much time to make it possible to have the novel out there at the time publishers would probably want it out there.

Write fast.

-- NK