Why I'm Breaking the Rules this November

It's that time of year again. It's two weeks before National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) begins and writers everywhere are preparing or eagerly awaiting November 1st. Before October, I knew exactly what book I was planning on writing for NaNoWriMo. Then I was talking to my mother about NaNoWriMo (and how excited I was about writing it), one thing led to another and she had me thinking about using November to finish Traitors & Tyrants. In the end, I decided she had given me some good counsel.

I've put a lot of thought into my decision. I've been working on Traitors & Tyrants for two years; the prospect of working on a different project was refreshing and I spent a month trying to extract myself from that world. Quite frankly, the idea of working on Traitors & Tyrants was unappealing. As I've mentioned earlier, after loosing a lot of edits that were painstakingly added, I had to rush to complete at least half of them so I could finish my Writing Children's Books diploma. After submitting the manuscript to complete the course, I sent it off to my critique partners and decided I needed to take a break.

Now that I've lost my momentum, I've asked myself more than once if that was the right decision. I believe it was and I don't regret it, but getting back on the horse is a lot harder than it sounds. I'm still feeling the affects of losing so much work and its been difficult to begin preparing for NaNoWriMo. I'm two weeks from November 1st and haven't made a single move to prepare for it.

So why keep working on Traitors & Tyrants? After all, Stephanie, you seem to have lost all of your love for it.

Sometimes I feel like that. Sometimes I don't. But something my mom said keeps coming back to me. She read my first NaNoWriMo novel and has been a fan and a source of encouragement for my writing ever since. I count myself lucky to have someone like that in my life - especially a mother like that. As only a mother can, she basically told me to either decide that I'm done with Traitors & Tyrants for good and move on, or stick with it. How could I not ask myself that question after that? Was I done with Traitors & Tyrants? Was it time to close that chapter of my writing life and to move on to something else? Or was it time to see this one through to the end?

I've remarked more than once that I believed this novel could be the one. I've written novel after novel and, out of all of them, I believed that this could be the one I would begin to query - the one I would seek for publication. I still believe that it could make it. I also believe I could let this one sit in a folder I'll never open again if I let it. It'd be easy. In a lot of ways though, it almost feels like by turning my back on Traitors & Tyrants, I'm giving up writing for publication. After all, I've spent two years writing this and only this. Sure, there have been times when I wrote pieces of other stories. In the end though, a scene for Traitors & Tyrants always slips into my mind and I simply have to write it.

Throughout the past two years, I've thought about quitting. I thought I had passed those pivotal moments for this novel, and maybe they were, but I think this might be the decision that matters the most. I don't love it quite like I used to because I know that after losing those edits, the words will never come out quite the same way. I've lost that version forever and I loved that version.

It's been 5 months - almost half a year - since that one moment and I still feel the sorrow it caused. 5 months since I hurriedly patched up the novel so I could close it and not have to look at it again for a while. 5 months since I effectively turned my back on a story I had believed in for so long. These days, I am reminded of its flaws more than I am its virtues. I am reminded that those flaws had been fixed (or half fixed) before that fateful day 5 months ago.

That isn't good for the soul.

Therefore, I keep asking myself if I want to make this my NaNoWriMo project this November. Do I want to commit to it again? In the end, I decided it wasn't time to give up. I've come so far; it would be a shame to give up now when I still can't get my head completely out of the darn thing. NaNoWriMo has a history of helping me complete novels in an amount of time that is seemingly impossible every other month of the year. It has helped me conquer quite a few writing hurtles.

I know myself. I know that, when it comes to my writing, I work best under a deadline. So I'm taking the plunge. I'm going to go back and edit Traitors & Tyrants once more and, hopefully, find my love for it again.

Traitors & Tyrants Draft #4: Commitment

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No man has been more inspiring or has taught me more about revisions than the great Tolkien himself. There is a plethora of writing advise out there. I once read somewhere that a novel should only have three or four drafts. After revising Traitors & Tyrants two times already, I find myself beginning another round of revisions. Once I've completed these I will be four drafts into this novel. I've finally come to accept that it may take a few more until I get Traitors & Tyrants where I want it, and that's okay. Not including the occasional dalliance into novels whose ideas are barely half formed, I have been working solely on Traitors & Tyrants for almost two years. I have never worked on a single novel concept for such a long period of time. The dedication I have to this novel almost seems unfounded to me.

Traitors & Tyrants has inspired me to keep going. It has made me want to give up on it. I've considered giving up on this dream of mine. But it refuses to leave me alone. Almost every single time I want to write, I find myself thinking about Traitors & Tyrants.

Let's cover something for a moment. I have completed five other drafts and have been dangerously close to finishing two more for the past two years. I have flirted with the new stories and have let them float around in my head quite longer than I typically let these type of things float. None of them have managed to pull me completely away from Traitors & Tyrants and I've asked myself why. More than once.

There comes a point when you have to decide how committed your are to a novel. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to stick with this until the very end. I wanted to give Traitors & Tyrants it's best shot before it even had a title. Nothing in my life has taught me more about persistence than writing. Not long ago, I contemplated scrapping Traitors & Tyrants. I've written three drafts and it still needs a lot of work. But as I thought, I realized (although I already knew this) that if I never stuck with a novel long enough, it would never reach that coveted point of perfection I so desperately desire for it.

The unique thing about Traitors & Tyrants is that I believe in it unlike any other novel I have ever written. Every time I contemplate the next round of revisions, the thought strikes me of how much untapped potential it has. It is my belief in its potential and perhaps even all of the time I've invested in it that helps keep me going.

I finished the third draft about two months ago. It's been difficult to get started again because I lost a lot of work. Losing that work was a huge blow and it's been extremely hard to bounce back from it. It still makes me sad to think of how it was before I lost that work. It was five times better than it currently is. I've needed the past two months to get my head out of Traitors & Tyrants though. I've needed this time away from it. I was too close to it.

Recently, I started listening to Falling Kingdoms. I'd originally abandoned it when I tried to read it a couple of years ago. I hated the characters. While my view of the characters hasn't exactly changed, I've been taking this opportunity to appreciate the world Rhodes has developed. She is another author I can add to my list of inspiration. If anything, she has taught me how useful a despicable character can be to a story (when used correctly).

Shortly after starting Falling Kingdoms, I came across an article written by Maggie Stiefvater in which she basically says that writing takes work and not to belittle that. Behind almost every good novel, is an outline of some kind written at some point. This is another inspiring thing for me because it has given me the boost I need to begin revisions for Traitors & Tyrants again. I had success with an outline when I completely rewrote Traitors & Tyrants and will be employing a more extensive one this time as I move towards another round of edits.

My plan this time? Put my goals for this draft down on paper and outline the novel with these things in mind. This more extensive outline will force me to seriously contemplate each new direction I consider for Traitors & Tyrants; it will help me strengthen the plot lines, characters, and settings that are already in place. I am eager to dive into this round of revisions, and have actually already begun this process.