Paying for Your Raising
Writing a novel is a whole lot like becoming a parent. At this point I have written around three million words over the last thirty-ish years but with each new project I am reminded just how tough the process can be.
Conception - This is the fun and exciting part. Daydreaming and coming up with story ideas is as exciting and blissful as sex. Every plot, or future child, is full of potential. With every new idea or conjured twist and turn I visualize literary agents beating down my door, editors vying for the rights, book clubs and Oprah clamoring to read my words, best seller lists. Hollywood itching to convert my manuscript into film. Would be parents, visualize their unborn as the next Einstein, or Payton Manning, or Bill Gates, future president, or feel free to insert hero or heroine of your choice. No writer sees his book as just another rejection letter and no parent sees his child as a crack addict.
Birth - Reality sets in when that great idea hits the paper in the form of words, sentences, and paragraphs. Or when you have to slip out of a nice warm bed to comfort a crying baby at three AM. Then you realize that some of the stuff in your head just doesn't work in print. You stare at your first couple of pages and say this is crap. The stench makes you gag like a first-time dad changing a dirty diaper. Oh, but there are those moments. That one great metaphor you come up with, or that exciting new dimension to one of your characters. It's kind of like that first time your child reaches up of their own will and touches your face. You realize, Hey I created this and the cockles of your heart turn all warm and fuzzy. What is a cockle anyway?
Terrible Two's - Okay, so a manuscript can't throw itself on the floor kicking and screaming. It can't yell NO! and kick you in the shin. But a novel in the beginning stages of life can be unruly just the same. Characters that do not develop the way you envisioned. Secondary characters who develop too well and threaten to override their supposed stronger and more interesting rivals, YOUR PROTAGONISTS. Plots can suddenly wither and stop growing. Complications arise that make your entire plot implausible or just ridiculous. Like a young child testing the boundaries, this first rough draft stage is a writer’s test to see if they can remain focused and take a story from beginning to end.
Going to School - Potty training is over. You've laid the groundwork for your baby but now it's time to send them out in the world. Kindergarten or critique group. First grade or a contest entry. Is it any harder to have somebody say I hate your heroine and the plot doesn't make sense, than it is to hear your child bit little Timmy Smith, or I had to send him to time out because he refused to sit down and listen? But just as your child needs the attention and guidance of classroom so does your novel. That is not to say you want a teacher to raise your child or someone else to write your novel, but sometimes it takes that objective unbiased person to take a look and say this needs to be changed.
Graduation - I have experienced that surge of pride of finishing a novel. It is quite an accomplishment just as it is to see your kid walk across the stage and accept that diploma. A finished and polished novel or a kiddo now eighteen and ready for life to begin. Now it is time to send them to college or out in the world via query letters.
Life - I correlate getting an agent with being accepted into a college. Sure there are the Ivy League of literary agents and then there the community junior college ranks of agents. I'd stay away from the online technical and vocational agents since they are likely to charge you fees for things such as editing and what not. I'd associate an editor as grad school and so forth.
I think you get my idea. So you send your little charge out in the world and if you are talented, lucky, and persistent it is accepted, everyone loves the little guy and before you know you're grandparent. Yes, that truly is how sequels are born.
