Perfectly Natural Loathing

I received a lovely letter from a Reader the other day. Here’s the kernel:

I just came across an article on your website where you discuss how you stumbled into writing young adult fiction. I recently finished my first manuscript. After the initial euphoria and happy ignorance……my feelings suddenly morphed into absolute hatred for my amateur creation. It’s been almost a month since i touched or even looked at the file. I had an epiphany last week that is marinating and is now letting me consider not burning the usb drive that holds my file.

Which led me to thinking, you know, I have two times when I utterly loathe whatever I’m working on. The first is three-quarters to five-sixths of the way through the manuscript, when it becomes the Book or Story That Will Not Freaking Die Already. The other is somewhere in the middle of copyedits, and the loathing grows into frantic disgust and outright hatred through the proof pages, and only subsides a few months later when I get to see the finished book and forget what a total goddamn deathmarch it was finishing it for publication.

I have decided, after hearing from other writers, that this is normal. There are varying stages where the hatred hits, it’s different for each writer. I don’t know if some writers escape this feeling. But I am of the opinion that a dose of hatred is perfectly normal when one is finishing any huge complex creative endeavor. One gets tired, and it helps one “let go” of the work in question.

Letting go is so very necessary. Writers are inveterate fiddlers anyway, we’ll edit and edit and edit. On that path lies danger, Will Robinson. Perhaps the hatred is a way to make us loosen our deathgrip on our pretty little work so it can go out into the world, so it can fly and be free. Maybe it’s just sheer exhaustion after so much mental and emotional energy expended on the work, which helps us know when it’s time to make one last push and tie off the umbilical cord. (I find this metaphor endlessly amusing because I HAVE given birth.)

The important thing is to not stop writing during the slump in the last quarter-to-third of the book, or to not throw the thing on a bonfire when you’re finished. Both times it’s discipline that saves one, and we all know what I think of discipline.

So don’t throw away that amateur work, my dear. By finishing even one work, no matter how “amateur,” you have already done what 99% of people who “want to get around to writing someday” never do. You’ve stuck with it and created something start to finish. This is completely awesome, and you should be happy over it. Put the finished work in a drawer until you can stand to start revisions…

…and get started on the next one. *tongue in cheek* Hey, you want to experience that utter hatred again, right?

Over and out.

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