Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

I dropped by Justine’s blog the other day and had the audacity to leave this comment:

Even though some days I want to throw a shoe at my computer screen, or I feel all insecure and stupid and like my writing just stinks and everybody must know it, all I have to do is remember that this has been the life I’ve wanted since I was in fifth grade, and how cool for me that I actually get to do this for a job. A real life grown-up job.

That makes me shut up real fast.

I am such a liar! Or maybe I wasn’t lying at the time, but now, just a few days later, I can’t “shut up real fast” at all.

Here’s the deal: For the past few weeks I’ve been trapped in an endless rewrite of one of my novels. It’s a novel I used to love to pieces, and now I’ve smeared my grimy fingerprints all over it, and somehow in the process of trying to improve it I’ve managed to totally lose the heat of the thing, and it just feels like this big wet mass of dung.

Not good.

And the real problem is there’s a new novel I want to start as soon as I finish touching up this one, so I keep looking out on the horizon at that pretty new thing, wishing I could go play with it now, but I feel stuck here with last year’s toy and it’s no fun at all.

And to add to the confusion, I’m simultaneously working on two separate versions of this novel–one with a certain secondary character, one without. And depending on which version I go with, the novel will be either a comedy or something else. And so I spend one day rewriting one version, the next day rewriting the other.

I AM CERTIFIABLY INSANE!!!

Look, you all know how I feel about my job as a writer. I agree with that Russian novelist that writing is an eternal vacation. But to tell you the truth, right now it feels like that part of a vacation where I’m constipated for two weeks. And yes, you did need to know that.

I remember when I was a lawyer, I was never so interested in my old cases as I was in the one that had just walked in the door. And I imagine it’s the same for other professions. A teacher gets burnt out mid-year and starts wondering what next year’s crop of students will be like. (Much better, of course.) A doctor tires of seeing the same old patients all the time, and longs for that exotic new disease to show up in the waiting room. (Okay, maybe, maybe not.) But the point is, I know I am not the only writer who ever feels this way, and I’m guessing I’m not the only person, period.

So I spent hours today reworking version #2. Tomorrow I will go back to version #1. I’ve promised whichever version I settle on to Barry by the end of this week, because having a deadline forces me to stay here in front of the computer all day, like it or not. And once it’s in his hands, I can go off and play at his book launch party, then come home and start work on a bright shiny new novel. That will of course be better than anything I’ve ever written, because I haven’t written it yet. This is how the mind works.

Until then, trudge on.

Technorati Tags: Writing, Publishing, Writers, Authors, Books

Posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 5:52 pm under Writing . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.