Monday 16 May 2016

Starting Over

By Nick Cross



When I used to write a blog post every week, it was easy – I sat down on Thursday lunchtime and typed out 500 words. Then on Friday lunchtime, I went through, edited it and posted it. But now that I only post every couple of months, the whole process has become unaccountably difficult.

Let me elaborate. As it’s my 44th birthday today, I thought I would write a post all about getting older and how it's affected my writing. And I did – there’s 900 words of it in a separate Word file. But the more I wrote that post, the more I didn’t want to write it – it was moany and self-pitying and frankly a bit dull. Even so, for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been slogging through it, adding a few words every day but never getting it into a shape where I’d want to actually show it to anyone.

So, with only a couple of days left before this post goes live, I did one of the most frightening and powerful things a creative person can do.

I started again.

Deciding when it’s time to drop a project is something that all writers face. And it can happen at all points of the process: that “brilliant” idea you had last night that doesn’t look so hot in the light of morning, or that point a third of the way into a manuscript where you realise you hate your protagonist, or that day you receive a form rejection from the very last agent on your list.

We’re told repeatedly to “never give up,” that successful writers are the ones who hang in there. But that doesn’t have to mean hanging in there with the same project. I emphasised “have” in that last sentence because I know writers who have found success with projects that they’ve nurtured for many years, constantly taking feedback, honing and rewriting until their manuscript finally landed on the right desk at the right time. And that success sometimes makes me wonder about all those manuscripts in my bottom drawer, though I’ve yet to pluck up the courage to unearth them.

There is great liberation in chucking away your work and starting something new. All that creative baggage swept away in an instant, replaced with the blank page. Suddenly, you are in a world of infinite possibilities, unconstrained by the rules of the world you’d conjured before. Suddenly, you are free.

Except...

We all know people who constantly start projects and never finish them. Those people who talk more about what they’ll write than actually write the thing. Because writing is hard and talk is cheap! If everyone really does have a novel in them, then it’s a grammatically suspect one that ends midway through chapter five.

How, then, to steer a path between the two extremes? How to finish (and revise) the projects that really matter, but to walk away from the less-rewarding stuff without feeling guilty? Here’s a flowchart I’ve designed to help you make an informed decision:



Nick.


Nick Cross is a children's writer, Undiscovered Voices winner and Alphabet Soup maker for SCBWI Words & Pictures Magazine.
Nick's writing appears in Stew Magazine, and received a 2015 SCBWI Magazine Merit Award, for his short story The Last Typewriter.

23 comments :

  1. Brilliant Nick! I love sound advice that makes me laugh!

    And a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

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  2. Happy Birthday, please can I borrow your cat? I think it could type better than me at the moment.

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    Replies
    1. It certainly types more than me. I don't know about better though...

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  3. Happy birthday!! And you are YOUNG. Really.
    I love your flow chart! Alas, around here the cats are already in the garden (they belong to the neighbours), and refuse to leave the Writing Shack. Though I've found if they're sitting on me &/or the keyboard, the best way to ensure a hasty departure is to read my WIP out loud to them. They hate that - it disturbs their napping.

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    Replies
    1. I'm not sure about young - perhaps "not old" is the phrase I should use!

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  4. Happy birthday. I'm currently in the Game of Thrones box, except it's summery activity not telly pulling me away from writing.

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    Replies
    1. Not much summery stuff happening in Game of Thrones at the moment. Every scene seems to be set in semi-darkness and winter is apparently coming...

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  5. Fantastic flow chart! And all true. Happy birthday, Nick.

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  6. Awesome post, Nick. And what a cool thing to do on your birthday - have a brilliant one!

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  7. Genius Post! The re-write was worth it. Love the flow chart, especially the cat bit. & Happy Birthday fellow Taurean, we're practically twins! I was 44 on the 10th May. I wish you a happy year filled with silence, no interruptions and NO writer's block! x

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    Replies
    1. It was serendipity - the cat literally jumped on my keyboard as I was writing that bit! The cat later went over to my wife and pressed on the touchscreen with its nose, changing her Facebook settings :-)

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  8. I now have blog envy as there is no flowchart in mine! Happy birthday!

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  9. Nick this is actually brilliant. Happy Birthday.

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  10. I now have blog envy as there is no flowchart in mine! Happy birthday!

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  11. Replies
    1. Just overenthusiastic commenting, maybe. Candy's comments also seem to appear twice, for some reason.

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  12. Love the flow chart, applies to illustrators too. Happy birthday Nick :)

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  13. Love it, Nick! Happy birthday!

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    1. Um, Angus is my husband and I seem to have become him. My name's Addy (I think).

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    2. *rubs eyes*
      Addy - you've changed

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    3. Hi Angus - good to see you here ;-)

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  14. This blog proves that sometimes starting again can result in great things. Oh, and happy birthday x

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