So, you’re a hack writer.
Worse yet, a hack writer on the seventeenth – yes, seventeenth – revision of your first novel, the genesis of which you wrote for National Novel Writing Month in, oh, it doesn’t matter. Mid-aughts. And you’ve “won” a few times since then. But nothing’s published.
What matters is you’re stuck.
Or I’m stuck.
Or I suck.
Because you may not be a hack writer, or on your seventeenth revision. But I am. And that’s a problem.
It’s a problem of ego. A friend of mine has published three novels in the time it’s taken me to get to the seventeenth revision. Not that I should be comparing myself to my friends. Because I don’t know how many revisions he made to his books.
It’s a problem of organization. I am, in the parlance of writers, a “pantser,” meaning I do not outline, but write by the seat of my pants. Hence the mess of a novel I’ve got.
It’s a problem of self-doubt. Writer and critic Dorothy Parker was right when she wrote the immortal words: “Four be the things I'd have been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt” (Parker). Doubt can be crippling for writers new and old, or so I’m learning and so I’ve been told.
“I have gone as high as 18 revisions, did so on Starbird II,” says Robert Schultz, the aforementioned three-noveled friend. “There is nothing wrong with that many revisions. The problem comes from how deep those revisions are. If you’ve been at the novel for ten years, then you’re taking too long to do your revisions and it’s time to accept the fact that your children have flaws, and they’re always going to have flaws” (Schultz).
I have to believe he’s right. He’s published three novels, all science fiction.
Then there’s the advice offered by Lisa Benwitz, a self-employed scopist, which is an editor who also has a flair for looking at a story as a whole and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
“The number of times you edit, in large part, depends upon your particular process,” she says. “There are so many things to look for. Some writers agonize over every word in every sentence; others prefer to go through for style first and then again for substance. So I think the answer to that question is different for everyone. I think, as writers, we also know when we're growing too obsessive about it! However, that being said, 17 times is definitely too many. You're at great risk of turning your book into something entirely different. Sometimes our first instincts turn out to be our best.”
So my problem might be: I need to get off my duff and figure out what the next step is.
Works Cited
Parker, Dorothy, “Inventory,” The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker, Penguin Classics, April 2010.
Schultz, Robert, personal interview by the author, September 30, 2019.
Benwitz, Lisa, personal interview by the author, October 2, 2019.
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