Writers: Renew Your Vows to a Troubled Novel

This guest post is written by award-winning writer, my fellow alum and friend, Diana Muñoz Stewart, on a wonderful panel discussion from the recent AWP Conference in Chicago. Any writer who has thrown their hands in the air over a novel will appreciate this! (Haven’t we all?)

The Resilient Artist 

 If you’re a writer, disappointment is probably a familiar feeling. Unless, you’re one of those authors that wrote a novel in two weeks then sold it a month later. If you are, although I’m sure you’re a lovely person, I hate you. If I wrote a book in two weeks it would be a disjointed stream of consciousness.  Something whimsical and obsessed and laced with ADHD moments of, “Squirrel!”

 It took time for me to adapt Light Bringer from a short story to a novel, and there were stretches when I didn’t want to mess with it anymore. Many writers know this feeling and that’s why the enormous lecture hall AWP 2012 gave the panel, Unrequited Love: Renewing Your Vows to the Troublesome Novel 
was packed. The room itself was beautiful full of vibrant reds, sparkling lights, and a wall-sized portrait of a woman wearing all white. Her portrait hung behind the panelists, reminding me of a looming ghost. Appropriate since the specter of finished and forgotten novels filled the room.

Struggling? you’re not alone

The panelists’ job was to give hope to a seated, self-conscious group of struggling writers. Authors who had worked hard to craft a novel, but had yet to see it published. And give hope they did. It was heartening to learn that successful authors, Elizabeth Brundage, Stewart O’Nan, Jenna Blum, Alice Elliot Dark, and Carole DeSanti had grappled the writing process completing a project they truly loved only to face rejection so obstinate that in some cases their work was given up for years. Given up, but not forgotten. Jenna Blum who wrote the acclaimed Those Who Save Us told the audience she had eleven outlines and nearly 1100 pages on this novel. It took her ten years to write, and at one point she put it aside. But the novel stayed in her mind, calling her back to rewrite. She persisted, and ended up with a stirring, passionate, and successful work. She wasn’t the only one who had put her work away only to come back to it years later.

Carole DeSanti longtime editor wrote her first novel after many years in publishing. She sent her finished work out to everyone in the business that she knew, and on Sept 11, 2001 she waited a response. The way the world changed on that day echoed within her, even as the rejections and deafening silence to her work began to also leave their mark. Ms. DeSanti put her book away and did not write for many years. As she told the audience, “We lose our books when we lose the original feeling. To get it back, cultivate and identify why you first wrote the book.” Her ability to recapture that passion resulted in reworking her debut novel, The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R., which, according to her website, “chronicles the loves, losses, and awakening of consciousness of a 19th century woman in France.” How long did she wait for the passion to reawaken? Almost ten years.

 Feeling hopeful yet?

The openness and generosity of the authors on that panel gave us hope. They stood before a group of mostly strangers and unwrapped their wounds of writing for all of us to see and share. They did so having come out the other side, which gave us both a lifeline and a shining example. They made us, or at least me, feel as if we weren’t doomed to fruitless passions.

We all know writing means time lost with spouse, family, and friends, and there is no guarantee of success. The end result can sometimes be a sour disappointment. This can change you as a person and an artist for the better or the worse, but as the panelist reminded the audience, those negative feelings rob you of time and passion. Perhaps the poet, Hafiz captured their sentiments best in The Vintage Man:

The
Difference
Between a good artist
& a great one

 Is:

The novice
Will often lay down his tool
Or brush

Then pick up an invisible club
On the mind’s table

& helplessly smash the easels &
Jade.

Wereas the vintage man
No longer hurts himself or anyone
& keeps on
Sculpting

Light.

That belief was transferred from the panel to the audience. Hope so strong it even survived coming home to read three stories on Querytracker, about newly published authors who’d spent relatively short times writing and getting their novels published. And yeah, one girl actually did say she’d written her book in two weeks. Sometimes it takes weeks to write an entire novel, and sometimes, it takes a longer dedication. As author Jenna Bloom said about coming back to two troublesome novels, “If you really love a book it will come and ping you and pinch you and make you write it.”

 ________________________________________

Diana Muñoz Stewart is the Amazon #1 bestselling romantic suspense author of the Black Ops Confidential series, which includes I Am Justice and The Price of Grace and The Cost of Honor(Sourcebooks Publishing).

She lives in eastern Pennsylvania in an often chaotic and always welcoming home that—depending on the day—can include husband, kids, extended family, friends, and a canine or two. 
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