I did it. I finished a draft of Alabaster, which I have been working on since….oh probably 2019, I am not sure.
It’s always so interesting to reflect on how stories come out. I wrote the first draft of “Viridian” over the course of a single NaNoWriMo, though it wouldn’t see its final form for another two years. Edits took place in that time of course. Then I sold it. Major revisions to that work took me about two months, with two revision rounds from my editor.
I have no idea what Alabaster will look like, when revisions will happen, if it will ever sell. It’s probably the single longest amount of time I have ever spent on a draft, though White Wedding is certainly a close second to that. It’s ironic that both of these books are set in New York City (though they are entirely different books in many respects). I also wrote both of these books “to market” — that is to say, I came up with both of these concepts with the idea that they would be marketable or follow in an existing market I had already had some success in. It seems that when I turn my marketing brain on too early in the creative process I also turn my editing brain on. As many a writer will tell you, the editing brain can really mess you up when you are drafting. You start getting in your own way, questioning how a work will be perceived. Writing takes a certain amount of chutzpah, or perhaps spite, or perhaps general disregard for what anyone else thinks, or perhaps joy. The editor is not per se a joyous creature. Nor is the businessperson. Both are predominantly concerned with appealing to others — to the rules of grammar, to the rules of story, to aesthetic, to commerce.
I’m not sure if I have any advice for navigating this. I know a lot of writers who have no problems with writing to an outline or market niche. Plotters, if you will. I do some plotting, but I spend just as much time feeling my way through a work, setting signposts as I go. It’s a little bit like rock climbing probably — setting anchors, tying in, then sighting the next potential stretch of the route and moving there to set anchor again. (Apologies if I have botched the climbing terminology, it is not a hobby of mine, but you get the idea.) If I am too rigid in my if-then maps of what should be happening, everything feels wooden and unalive and the editor descends in her shroud to explain to me, grimly, that everything I’ve just written should probably be slashed.
That kind of writing is a slog. Moments of desperate inspiration crushed by mountains of words between. You write such drafts with grit and not much more, and only really discover the beauty on the re-read.
May there be beauty in Alabaster. We can hope. For now, another break from the manuscript until I can take some time to diagnose the structural deficiencies and plug in some of the ideas I’ve had for it in the past year. And a tiny celebratory brunch tomorrow!
Amanda J. McGee, Author 