Finish Line

Finish Line

I’m On Fire: 134, 443 words. DONE.

Here we come to the end.

A couple of times, I thought I wouldn’t be able to push through. I think it happens to every writer, every once in a little while, those dark nights of the soul where you know with certainty that you’re simply not good enough to live up to your ambitions. Those moments pass … but when you’re inside them, man are they debilitating.

I read somewhere recently that the mark of a good writer is someone who sits down and gets words out without being inspired. Inspiration is grand, but it’s rare. If you’re lucky, it hits about a dozen times over the course of a book. It’s those moments you live for, where the course of your novel lays itself out as if from somewhere divine. But the other days, when you’re faced with a bunch of story behind you and a bunch of white space ahead, where you have to sketch out some necessary backstory that you don’t want to do, and you have to make it interesting – those days count, too. They might count more.

Writing is work. It’s good work. It’s rewarding work. But it is work. I find it hilarious whenever anyone says to me, “I have a great idea for a book. All you have to do is write it!” That type of thing assumes (1) I don’t have great ideas, and (2) writing is just some frivolous mischief I’ll busy myself with for a couple of lazy afternoons and then boom, novel. That’s just not how it works.

Confession time: I have never liked rewrites. Ever. I’ve always been, “I just finished a novel? Time to jump right into another one!” And that’s fun. That’s how you get to say, “Oh, yeah, I wrote 17 novels in 12 years!” But you hamstring yourself. Going through a novel once and then leaving it behind does a disservice to both you and it. I wrote I’m On Fire in 1999. It was my second novel and I was still learning. Jumping back in thirteen years later opened my eyes. Words choices I made seemed juvenile. Big twists that seemed so shocking then seemed less effective now. Most characters seemed flat and my main character grew from a cipher to unlikable. Stuff needed to change. So I changed it.

The book has a new ending. It has a new character. The villains have new shades to them, and I added some new, diabolical toys for them to play with. I pulled fewer punches: bad things happen to nice people, and they happen brutally. That was sometimes hard, and I had to be sure I was on the right side of the line between valid storytelling and gratuitous violence. I think I’m okay. I hope I am.

It’s a better book. A stronger book. And doing the rewrite has made me believe I can take on some of my other efforts and make them stronger, too … and also move on and create new things. I have a novella I’ll be working on throughout the summer, as well as a new nonfiction book for my publisher. I’ve got a lot coming up, and I can’t wait to jump right in.

To everyone who helped make this happen: thank you. Art makes us forever. Here’s to eternity.

Kev