When to Give Up

I’ve been working on my second novel for about 3 years now. Maybe 4. Honestly, I’ve lost track. I started it in graduate school while I was getting my MFA. During those two years, I wrote most of it. Since graduating I’ve been editing it, tweaking things, and even paid a professional agent/editor to take a look at it. But in truth, I haven’t done much of anything with it for the last year. It’s just kind of sat there, an unopened file on my desktop.

There are a lot of reasons why. For starters, I think I miss the structure of grad school. Knowing that I was going to submit it to a cadre of editors, all with different degrees of interest and sophistication was motivating. Missing that constant feedback and reinforcement has left me a little rudderless. That’s why I hired the editor. And that’s also where another reason for its languish.

The feedback I got was… tough. It’s what I paid for and I’m glad I did. But man. My skin had gotten a little thin over the years. My grad program wasn’t very critical. It was much more supportive than other programs I’d been in. But this editor I hired was pretty blunt in her assessment. It’s not that she said “oh it all sucks” or anything. More that she pointed out things I had been completely blind to. Again, a good thing. Hiring someone who tells me what I already know is a waste. But when she rightly pointed out things that were negative I had previously thought of as GOOD things, it really shook me. Especially my confidence.

I’ve been ignoring it ever since. The file of the editor’s feedback hasn’t been opened since April (I just checked). The manuscript, even longer. I’d set a goal of getting into it this summer but never managed to do it. Part of that was being busy with moving and trips and life stuff. But mostly, it hurt. It hurt my heart to think about the story. It’s very personal to me and I feel like I’m lost in it. Like I don’t know where to even begin.

A funny thing happens to artists when they lose their confidence, at least in my experience. You begin to question everything. Things you were certain about suddenly become suspect. The project starts to unravel. It’s hard to keep focused on working when it feels like the whole thing is coming apart at the seams. You start to hate your work and eventually, you don’t even want to think about it.

That’s where I am right now. I hate the book. I hate that I ever started it. I hate that I told people about it because now they ask me “how’s the book coming?” and I don’t have an answer that isn’t laced with profanity. Mostly, I lie and say I’m still editing it. But really, it’s dormant, doing nothing but making me feel shitty.

But listen. This is all part of the process. Sometimes a project comes together quickly and works like magic. Other times you have to grind away at it. It feels like a chore, like work, because it IS work. If it were easy, everyone would do it. LOL sometimes it does feel like everyone has published a book but me. Still, there are times when it’s best to let something go. To put it in a drawer and forget about it. There may be no amount of work to be done that can fix what is wrong with it. It’s a broken thing, dead on arrival.

That’s what I am debating right now. Were my ambitions too much? Should I have aimed a little lower? Can I salvage the novel by cutting it up and starting over? Am I being too critical? These are the questions that ring out whenever I even THINK about working on it. The floodgates open in my mind and I am drowned in a sea of doubt. So… when to give up? When has the time come to put a thing down and move on to something else? I don’t have an answer.

Right now, all I have are questions.