When You Hate Your Novel

It's Day 24 of NaNo Summer Camp, and it's also halfway through my summer of fewer working hours. I now hate my novel; it's pretty bad and boring. The story is disjointed; readers will never be able to follow it. There is no sense of physical place. My argument that, well, the story takes place in the mind-space, is not going to fly with readers. Readers want stories to take place somewhere, some time. That's why a lot of complex, artistic literature isn't actually read, and poorly written serial cookie-cutter stories sell millions of copies. Stuff happens in them. Stuff readers can relate to in one way or another. I mean, I read two kinds of books: books to learn stuff, and books where lots of stuff happens. OK, stuff happens in my novel. So, I guess that's a start. What I need to do is create a sense of story. The reader needs to follow the journey. If I can do that, then I may still hate the book, and it may still be pretty bad, but it won't be boring. I didn't set out to write literature or the great American novel, just to tell a story.

I remind myself that, right now, all that is required is to finish. Nothing more, but also nothing less. Only persistence matters.

(7/24/2013)