Last night, I went to a conversation with authors Sarah Domet and Jonathan Rabb at The Book Lady Bookstore. The event promoted the paperback release of The Guineveres, Domet’s debut novel. For the umpteenth time, I crowded in with the rest of a gaggle of Savannah’s writing and reading community. Toward the end of the conversation, someone asked Domet how she felt about letting go of her first book while moving on to her second.
The Guineveres began in the form of her dissertation before years of work grew it into the acclaimed novel it is today. Domet said she felt very protective over her characters, and an almost maternal fear of sending them out into the world. “My pregnancy hormones might have had something to do with that,” she joked. The Guineveres was released In October 2016, two days before she gave birth.
“The hardest part,” she said, “is that I don’t get to be a part of their lives anymore.”
No character’s life is confined to the timeline of a story. They have memories of events before a novel begins, and—barring a tragic ending—they have a future that goes beyond the words “the end.” After spending years growing alongside your characters, it’s hard to stop writing about them. The draw of a spinoff or a sequel is strong. Even Domet wanted to keep going in the lives of the four Guineveres in her book.
For the last few weeks, a similar thought nagged at me. Despite the many ideas on my mental shelf of novels to write, The Thieves of Traska staked the biggest claim on my time. I revise, rewrite, reorganize. It even took over most of my artwork. Every line I share for the writing hashtag games on Twitter comes from Thieves. Lately I’ve been grumbling to myself: “Why don’t you work on something else for a change?”
Last year, I dove into the first draft of the sequel to Thieves. Okay, that’s not really something else. I made significant headway before going back to revise Thieves. Those revisions ultimately made the half-novel I had drafted moot. Any time I try to start it over, I worry it’s just a waste of time. I’m still revising Thieves. When it gets an agent, that will probably mean more revisions. And then there will be an editor and—oh, right—more revisions.
“Oh god, this will never end,” plays on repeat in my head.
A few months ago, I managed to get out two and a half chapters of a completely unrelated novel. I decided to give it some space when I caught myself doing an info dump in chapter three. Last week, I drafted the first chapter (again) for still another novel. That one excites me; it combines an old idea—the incomplete National Novel Writing Month 2012 project that inadvertently created Thieves—with a new one I came up with last year.
In spite of that, most of my time goes to Thieves. I keep thinking the next revision will be THE ONE. Then it’s ready to pitch to agents. Just as soon as I change this one thing. And this other thing. And, oh, a beta reader has more suggestions! Better make those changes, too.
When Domet signed my copy of The Guineveres, I asked her how she transitioned from the stage of making one more revision to actively seeking an agent.
“I think you get to a point of frustration,” she told me. “I just realized that nothing was going to come of it if I didn’t do something. You can’t get anything done if you just sit on your behind.”
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