By Dame Kaz
Recently, one of my favourite authors posted this quote on Twitter (of all places):
“If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.” (A.M. Homes)
I think this is a wonderful quote, and I couldn’t get it out of my head when I first saw it. But reading it hit me right where it hurt: in the first 10,000 words of my current work-in-progress. Let me explain.
I’m writing a book that is totally on-spec and just something that Agent Dame likes the sound of in theory (based on a tiny blurb). In the process of writing the opening 10k, I have been wrestling with the material – almost literally, to be honest. No matter how much I try to make this into a single-POV, first-person, reasonably straightforward urban fantasy – with a nice serving of detective/noir fiction on the side – it wants to be something else. More specifically, I want it to be something else. I keep wanting to write it in third-person, for a start. And I want multiple POVs; I’ve never done that before! In fact, the old post-apocalyptic road trip novel is resurfacing every time I write a scene, and a world that seemed based on a reasonable facsimile of our own keeps morphing into a post-apoc setting.
Part of me feels like just giving the book its head and allowing the manuscript to take the form it needs to. As I’ve said before over here, it’s not like I have publishing deadlines yet. I could just write three solid chapters and an outline, and then see where I am from there. Even if I did have Actual Publishing Deadlines it’s not like I couldn’t write the book I really have to write. I know authors who write their contracted books six days per week, but then allow themselves to work on something completely on-spec and potentially crazy on the seventh day. I could learn a thing or two from them, I think… I’m good at crazy. 
But seriously, A.M. Homes’s quote tells us something important as writers (and maybe even about life in general, too). She reminds us that we should always write the book that we absolutely must write. We should listen to our hearts and not compromise when it comes to our writing/art/dreams/ideals, otherwise it will creep into every other aspect of our lives. I still dream about the scene that first came to mind with my post-apocalyptic urban fantasy idea. Even though I first thought of it well over a year ago, I actually wake up with the landscape burned into my memory. I know this is something I have to write. The setting is right there and I only don’t go for it because I am afraid.
Fear… writing what scares us… I think that’s a blog post for another day, but for now I am satisfied to take those powerful words to heart:
“If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.”
The book I am trying to write is not really the book I have to write, and that’s an important distinction.
What about you? Have you written the book you have to write? Do you do that each time you sit down to begin a new project? Or, if you’re honest with yourself, are their times when you compromise that vision (for any number of reasons) and, if so, what happened?
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Tags: Karen Mahoney, writing
I’ve finished three novels, and started about twenty. Whenever I get that feeling that I’m writing the wrong book, I stop, do some reading, clear my head, and start over on the right project. Happens every year!
Currently working on the book I have to write. The fear can be pretty debilitating but when I put the writing down, the characters start nudging me to start again.
I’ve written three partial manuscripts and I’ve tossed each one out half way through – none of them kept me on the edge of my seat wanting to continue to write. Not that they were bad, they just never really “hooked” me in.
Last year, I began to write the book I HAD to write. In less than 3 months I penned 173,000 words and had a fully complete novel. I’ve edited it once, but have placed it to the side to write the second book I HAD to write (it piggybacked off of the first). The ideas keep coming, the characters are complex and quite intriguing to me. I never know where my fingers will take me. I even have ideas for a 3rd and 4th book spinning in my head based on secondary characters in the first two books.
Great post!
For the past couple months I’ve had writer’s multiple personality disorder. I write spec-fic/romance but I’ve always WANTED to write women’s fiction instead. So I decided that this year was it, the year I would write a book outside my comfort zone, a women’s fiction mainstreamy novel. And I started it, and I’m 1/3 and it’s good. My voice is good, the characters are good, my readers love it. And it’s been sitting at 1/3 done for the past month. I just can’t write any more. I’ve picked at it, tweaked it. It’s like while I do love the idea (and have other WF I would like to try), I know my heart’s not in it. The challenge was to write a non-fantasy book, not to write THIS EXACT book. I want to finish it – I do love the idea and the characters, but I don’t know when. I’ve been going back and forth on what do I want to write – I know I need to focus one way or the other if I’m ever to be published, but which way? and suspect that the stoppage of all writing for a month may be a clue. I’ve been tinkering with a fun fantasy idea, even wrote 15 pages. I wrote! I think that might be my answer. I’ve dedicated myself to finish the other book but if I don’t, I don’t know how upset I’ll be, because it’s taught me that the grass isn’t always greener.
My second book was the one I had to write. I had no idea if anyone else would want to read it, but I loved writing it so much. I wanted to be writing all the time. Then, it landed me an agent.
Now I’m in the middle of writing another one I have to write. I love it, especially my MC. Even with her serious flaws.
What’s interesting to me about this is that sometimes the book you have to write is not a book you necessarily want to write, for whatever reason. I’ve been stalling on one for a couple of years now, pushing other projects ahead of it, and am very curious to know what will happen when I finally *do* write it, even as I dread it.
“If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.” (A.M. Homes)
Boy, that is so true. Now I know why have so many unfinished novels on my hard drive. I only finish the ones I have to write.
I’ve start roughly seven novels and finished four to date. The second (which is currently awaiting verdict from agents) and the one I’m editing now were both ones that I HAD to write. It was almost a compulsion and the story/characters didn’t fight me nearly as much as it did on the other two I managed to finish.
I’m loving these replies so far, thanks!
Tiffany: I know what you mean – that’s a really good point.
The first book I wrote was The Book I Had To Write. It was also the first one I finished.
I hope it’s the first of many.
I think the second Circle book was like that…it poured out of me not following the tentative outline of things in my head. It’s turned out pretty satisfying for me…learning to trust the muse more readily and all. But starting book 3 has been a struggle. I know where I want to go with it, but I’m not ’set’. I procrastinated for a week and a half over jumping in, feeling like I had to research something. But the research wasn’t working out. (It’s like a life lesson, I kept hitting my head on the wall marked “BOOK 3″ and going ‘ow’ til I decided to stop hitting my head there. So I hit it on the floor marked “RESEARCH”. Even that hurt. So I watched a few movies, read an unrelated book, and did chores–yeah, ICK–until it hit me: I’m supposed to be doing /something else/.) I can’t ‘dig in’ to a long-term writing effort only to have it stalled by a coming vacation! I decided to look over a past work and ‘tidy’ it up with all the techniques I’ve recently learned. It’s the “story I had to fix.” And it’s going well. I expect to be done by the start of my vacation, and when I get back, I’m confident I’ll be ready to dig into Book 3.
I’m wary of Books of the Heart and Muses and Inspiration and The One. My heart has been broken, my muse is a negligent bitch, The One is The Not.
I had a story that I was absolutely positive would be the one that sold. My Tarot spreads said it was; I had a dream about it; songs on the radio echoed my theme. On the more concrete side
it did well in a couple contests and got requests.
But it didn’t sell. Something else did — the story that wasn’t The One but The Next.
I love the Homes quote, but I also think everything breaks eventually. Entropy is even more of a bitch than my muse. For me, it’s what I do with the pieces that matters.
Great post, Kaz.
ohh, I love PA stories
My friend and I rpg with them a lot over IM.
Fortunately I currently can write whatever I want. I try to stay focused and mostly succeed so generally I can write the book that needs to be written.
Linda Robertson: Thanks for sharing, and good luck when it’s the right time for Book 3!
Jessa Slade: I know I already came by your blog, but again – thank you for giving such an interesting respsonse. Very cool. In fact, I had another thought! *g* Maybe the book we have to write won’t always be ‘The One’ to get us repped or published. I suspect my book, currently on submission with my agent, may not be ‘The One’ to be published. Maybe I’m wrong (and believe me, I’ll be screaming and jumping up & down if that’s the case), but at least it got my foot in the door with a wonderful agent. Perhaps ‘The One’ for me, as far as publication goes, will be the next book I wrote: The Next. But I still had to write that first book – it poured out of me and I was on fire with it!
Um… I am now rambling, so I’ll shut up.
Jessa: Sorry, this one’s for you again! I meant to say how much I like what you said:
“I love the Homes quote, but I also think everything breaks eventually. Entropy is even more of a bitch than my muse. For me, it’s what I do with the pieces that matters.”
I think you’ve given me another quote…
The first book I tried to write was close to the book I *had* to write, but I tried to tweak it to the market a little too much and it flopped 10K in. The next book, the first book I finished, is defnitely the book I *had* to write (one of them, anyway!). Maybe, to the point that several people have made, it won’t be the book I sell, but it’s certainly a better written book than the first one would have been had I pushed myself through to 100K.
Thanks for the inspiring post!
I’m currenty on the third revision of the part one of the Book I *Have* To Write. It spanned two NaNos and is only half finished so far. I thought I was just writing your basic fantasy for my own edification, but during the second revision I realized it wants to be a deep and moving *tragedy*. I’m taking that idea and running with it, and the more sadistic and macabre things I think of to do with my characters the better it feels for the whole of the story.
I’ve also started another project that’s supposed to be geared more towards specifically selling than satisfying that need to pour your heart onto the page.
Can you guess which one gets more attention?
I have two big books I have to write eventually. Don’t think I’m at their needed skill level yet.
Oh, I have read so many opinions on the matter I don’t know whether my two cents will add some fresh air, but it wouldn’t be me. I think there are three kinds of novels that a writer has to write:
1. It’s the creativity novel or the “free spirit” ~ You have to write it because it’s a fresh idea, it crosses genres and it’s unlike anything you have ever seen. You need to write it, make it work and spit in the faces of purists and snobs and adding new blood to the field.
2. It’s the Deadline Challenge ~ for published writers this is a must, since they have signed a contract and must deliver. It is an obligatory “have to”, but one that can be a pleasure and a step in the career.
3. The “GOD” ~ the novel you know you are too lousy to write right now or ever, but you strive to become better and then tackle it, because this is what defines you, what you are and what your career should be about, the sun in the writer’s creative solar system. It’s your essence and one day you simply HAVE to get to it, but it’s a bit fearsome.
I for one try to stay true to myself… I know what is liked, what people roll eyes about and what si absolutely forbidden, but I try to go out in uncharted waters, where there hasn’t been marketing to attract readers. I am a weirdo and would like to be successful one.
Wow, more great replies since I last checked. Thank you ALL.
And a special thanks to Harry for putting so much thought into that reply. You are NOT a weirdo, and I have no doubt that you’ll be successful.
Whenever I try to tweak my novel for the masses, it sounds awful. When I let the words write themselves (so to speak) everything flows. I can really tell when I read something back I have written with a particular audience in mind. Blogging doesnt seem to have the same problems – I plan an article with a certain audience in mind – but my novel just has a mind of its own. I’ve learnt to keep listening to it, because its almost always right!