When to abandon a project

Sketching

When I’m at a coffee shop, on the subway, or with the arrival of June, on a picnic blanket in Prospect Park, I like to notice the artists. They are the ones with paper, sketchbooks, and sometimes a small collection of tools or a specialty canvas, drawing whatever they see they’re inspired by. I can’t speak for all artists, and they’re not only one type, but I know enough illustrators to understand that sketching, drawing, painting, etc. for one’s own sake can be enough. The goal of every sketch is not necessarily to become a piece of final art. And even the final art is not always meant to be put on display for others to see.

The process is a major, if not primary, part of the artistic act. Sketches are easily torn from notebooks, or kept as a record of something that is not intended to be shared elsewhere.

For the writers, journaling is similar. I certainly do enough of that, with the worn notebooks full of messy handwriting that’s indecipherable even to myself later when I try to read it back. But when I think about writing a story, it’s not the same. There is a journey, but the destination is what feels like it matters most—at least that’s true if a writer wants to get their work published.

Versus the writing process

I find there’s something about that goal that can make the writing process feel overwhelming, lofty, and loaded with high stakes. Every draft, every revision has to provide something worthwhile. Nothing can be wasted, because then that’s precious writing time that was spent on something that cannot be used for the final, hopefully published, draft. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately about my work.

There came a moment recently when I was up late on a Saturday night, with a draft of my story (this might be the fifth draft at this point, but I don’t like counting), and I had a realization that was very uncomfortable.

I was plodding through a scene, boring myself with my descriptions that read as trite and familiar, and certain that the momentum and dread I was hoping to build was absent. I was referencing my extensive outline, with detailed plot beats that I’d fastidiously constructed, hoping that if this novel had a plot (which is not my strength), then it would be good.

I’d also just come off weeks of work in which I’d been discussing, at length, with peers and colleagues what makes a children’s book stand out enough to be acquired. Especially now, especially for creators who want traditional kidlit deals in this very, very tough market.

I was imagining this scene in my head. I can picture the setting of this novel, which has a significant emotional resonance, and which I have persistently felt my scribblings were not doing justice to. At that moment, I was reminded of a piece of advice that I give writers.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do for a project that isn’t working is to drag the file to the trash, and start over.

I stopped typing and frowned at the page, as all sad writers in movie scenes often do.

I realized that I was writing a book. But I wasn’t telling a story.

Writing a book is not necessarily telling a story

Painful epiphanies usually beget even more painful epiphanies, and this one did not disappoint.

I had been writing a book about a place that has haunted me since I was a teenager, about a protagonist who was experiencing circumstances too close to my own, with a supporting cast and subplots that were easy for me to recreate from the suburban Connecticut town I grew up in, but which weren’t doing much else except to serve my own nostalgia.

It’s difficult not to feel like I’d spent many words, across drafts and months, journaling. Mostly about ghosts.

Where were the through lines, the takeaways, the feelings that I wanted the reader to experience by the time they close the book? Technically, they were present. I’d written them out at the top of my outline. I put them in bold, as a little north star guiding me along the way.

Writing from a haunted place feels like it should be enough. Emotional truth, personal resonance, a real location with weight are actual ingredients.

But they weren’t working. And it wasn’t just this draft, or this scene. It was the entire make-up of this document, and the ones that came before it. I had been writing a book, but I had not been telling a story.

I know I’m not the only one who has done this.

An uncomfortable question

If you’re in the middle of a project right now, I want to wonder something aloud: are you telling a story, or are you compiling a book? Because those are not the same thing. The honest answer is sometimes very hard to find, and even harder to accept once you have it.

Compiling a book happens when there is material, which may be rich and meaningful, that is being arranged and rearranged in order to finish the task of writing scenes from beginning to end.

However, storytelling is different. Telling a story means there is someone who wants something, and something standing in the way, and there is a reason it matters. It means that when you remove yourself from the equation—your memories, your feeling, your need to get something down, your desire to get published—something is still happening. The character has somewhere to go. Something occurs, and it changes them, or fails to, and either way the reader feels the weight of it.

In stories, the emotional truth is recognizable. Stories are about connection. They are about understanding ourselves, one another, and the world in which we live. Stories give a reader meaning.

If I want my story to be read others, then it has to mean something.

And so I keep thinking about this project that I am abandoning. I don’t want to twist the pieces into shapes that look like a story, if I take off my glasses and squint at the screen. I want to tell a story.

I’m trying to view all of those pages as sheets of paper that can casually be torn from the sketchbook and tossed to the summer winds. Every page, and every word, was part of the process. In my job, I regularly encourage authors and illustrators to not be precious about their work. I ask them to be honest, thorough, and intentional. I’m attempting to do the same.

I’m envisioning the story I want to tell—not the book I think I want to write.