Ahead

Well, I'm not much of a much for making resolutions, and last year I made two, one of which I summarily busted....that being to finish the re-write of my novel.

For years, I always felt like a failure for not having written the novel (or novels, God willing) I have inside me. Finally, about 5 years ago, I buckled down and did it. Took me almost 13 months, but I finished writing my novel. Roughly 80,000 words worth.

Then I put it aside for a month, to allow my brain to let it go. Then I read it with (seemingly) fresh eyes.

And it sucked.

I don't say this to inspire anyone to tell me "Oh, I'm sure it was fine", or any such encouragement. It actually did suck. All of the writing that had felt literate and poetic and deep (when I was writing it) felt like a guy TRYING to be literate and poetic and deep. Yeah, it sucked....and the feeling I had as I realized that a year's worth of work sucked is hard to put into words. Made me want to give up any and all aspirations of artisty of any kind. Awful.

I picked it up again a while later, and tried to re-read some of it, and I realized it was salvageable (I think, anyway). Beneath the overwrought imagery and too-too precious language was some decent writing, telling (I think) a worthwhile story. Basically, I needed to machete the kudzu out of it, so the trees weren't so damn overgrown.

I worked on that some last year -- and I think the results have some promise -- but I didn't do enough. This year, I really need to finish the re-writing and get it into an agent's hands. I honestly won't be too devastated if it never gets picked up, but I WILL be devastated if I never have the stones to finish the thing.