I’ve joined this awesome group which posts monthly in a blog hop fashion and addresses writerly things. Each month, there is a question, so here we go! Yes, I am a day late, but I just joined after midnight, lol.
June 7 Question: Did you ever say “I quit”? If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?
I’ve certainly said “I quit” to particular books that were difficult or that weren’t going the way I hoped. Usually setting them aside for a while helped. The most recent book is the one I’m working on now–Taming the Lion. It’s the third book in my Carina series and I’ve been working on it a long time! I was working on it when my mom died in October and that event really knocked me for a loop. After that, I struggled to even feel creative, much less write a love story where the heroine has an adopted grandmother that takes her under her wing. Very hard.
I stopped and wrote Saving his Wolf for the Carina shifter anthology and that just came out all easy. I was like YAY, I can write again (this was Feb, I think. I honestly can’t remember exactly). Well. I went back to Taming the Lion and NOPE. It wasn’t coming out…AT ALL. I knew the story. I knew how it ended. I had some issues with a particular thing that was happening but those kind of things usually work themselves out in the actual writing. Authors, you know how things just come to you when you are in the flow? Well, I totally lost the flow and started wondering why I was even TRYING to write. I kept powering through, though. Took a few days off and banged my head on my desk some more. Carina and my editor were both super supportive–more than they should be, honestly. They were so nice about the problems.
So that meant I felt even MORE guilty. After all, I wanted so badly to be published at Carina and here I was not meeting my deadlines!!! That is like the worst thing that can happen to a Type A person. One day, in the shower (sorry if TMI), I had an epiphany about the thing that wasn’t working. I was so happy and dug in and worked that out. Finished up and sent it in for edits, feeling pretty good about it. I got my edits back last week, and though that one thing is now working, there are a couple of other things I need to tighten and work on. Which is okay. I now have a full book and it doesn’t feel quite so impossible. I still have a lot of work to do on the book and it’s still a bit daunting, but I think powering through and not giving up will, in the end, make this a better book. I hope so, because I’ve been looking forward to writing both lion twins!
I cannot count the days I wanted to give up. So many. In the end, for me, setting a book aside helped me some, but honestly, powering through and putting butt in chair whether I felt like I could do it or not (usually the latter) helped me get through what has been the most trying book I’ve written. Perseverance would be the word of the book. If I hadn’t already sent the dedication, I would make it out to Perseverance. LOL.
Have you ever had trouble with a book so much you wanted to give up? Not just saggy middle or small issue, but a time when you knew the story but it just wouldn’t come out correctly and you wanted to burn the whole computer? How did you solve the issue?
No computers were harmed in the writing of this post!
Please go to these blogs to read more stories about authors giving up or feeling like giving up, and how they solved the issue.
Kerry
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