Of course a drawback to maintaining a public image while working on your novel is the fact that often you have no idea what you’re saying and therefore often appear to contradict yourself and look foolish. What you have to realize is that there’s nothing you can say with any certainty, especially something like “The novel is finished.”

Because it isn’t finished, the novel. That’s exactly what I’m saying. That, at least, I can be certain about.

The realization came at two separate moments, in two very different stages. Sometime in June I became all too curious and picked up Rebellious Bird—this manuscript I’d queried eight literary agents about early in the year—and read through the first few pages. It was like encountering this friend from high school who’d been tolerable then because you too were a loser, but now, with so much behind you, his presence had become shameful. It didn’t at all seem like a book I could’ve written, but this was all due to very minor things. I started editing the novel and found that only a few alterations could make all the difference in the world, could breathe life into it and make it less formal and stuffy, because it was formal and stuffy, like it was trying to be another writer’s book. So that’s what I started doing, reading through it, picking apart sentences, experimenting with language.

Meanwhile I’d given the book to my significant other. This was back in February or March, I don’t remember. He’s not a literary person, meaning getting him to read fiction is sometimes like convincing compassionate and educated human beings to vote for Michele Bachmann. So he read it slowly—and this was my first warning. By the end of July he’d finished it, and we sat down in the back yard to talk about it.

Taking criticism from a loved one is no easy task. A writer I know has a longstanding friendship overseas. They’ve known one another for over a decade—she’s always recounting fond memories of their apartment in Chicago, years ago—yet when it comes time for them to edit each other’s work, they stop speaking. They stay out of touch for weeks. My first reaction, when my partner and I discussed my novel, was rage. You didn’t read it closely, I was thinking. You missed the underlying themes. You didn’t give it the attention it deserves. Instead of saying any of this I sat there fuming, listening to him tell me that he wasn’t invested in two of the three central characters, that there should be tension where there isn’t, etc. The novel, he said, is stretched out over too long a time span, and it suffers.

An instinct you may have, as a writer, is to try to process criticism as it’s happening. You may hear something and instantly try to think of a solution. What’s terrifying is when you reach the point where everything you’re hearing is overwhelming, when there is no solution—at least no easy one. That’s the point at which you shut down and give yourself over to the moribund arc of the fabled literary bipolar disorder.

When the anger faded, I was crushed.

Here was a book I’d worked on for thirteen months straight. Here were six drafts of varying severity that were torn apart and stitched back together. Here were characters I’d grown to love and admire, and most of them elicited nothing more than apathy. How could I have wasted so much time?

But the time wasn’t wasted—not at all. After we came back inside and I moped for a while I came to the realization that this was only my first attempt at a novel, that while I’d written dozens of short stories I’d never completed anything like a novel before, so how could I expect to have done it without flaw or failure?

I started thinking about it in the shower, the novel. I started coming up with all these solutions—these avenues to explore, these changes. Without any warning I was no longer depressed—not even upset—but invigorated. More than invigorated—you could even call it ecstatic. I had an opportunity again. The novel had more potential. I could be creative again. I could pay attention to all the nagging little voices that had been in the back of my head for months. They’d been there, the voices, and they’d been saying all those same things that Michael said, and I hadn’t listened. I could take the novel and make it cohesive, make it fluid. I could write a better fucking book, and that thought gave me an entirely new outlook on life (as dramatic as that sounds).

Since that day at the end of July I’ve been pecking away at a revised outline for the novel. A lot of the same scenes are there, at their root, but they’ve been altered to better fit into the story as a whole. One character’s sexuality has been flipped, and suddenly he’s sympathetic, while at the same time giving more depth to another character. I feel like I’ve been freed from the confines of the novel I wrote last year, and that now I can use my imagination. There’s nothing like it, imagination. I recommend it.

The next few months are going to be given over to rewriting. I have a six page outline with extensive notes. The first six chapters have already been revised (they didn’t change much), and the twelve chapters after that will all be rewritten. Sometimes you have to realize—you being the amateur novelist—that nothing you put on the page is permanent. Sometimes you have to get over that fear of changing everything, because once you change everything, you understand just how magnificent it is to have that freedom.

I’ve missed writing my novel, and I’ve missed talking about it. Let’s make the last month of summer the most literary month of all.

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Photo by Casey David