A Complete Failure: My Three Year Attempt At Novel Writing

Three years ago I started writing a novel.

It wasn’t my first as I had written another really bad one about the Holocaust, but I was more optimistic about this one.

That was because I was going to write a romance.  I love the genre, and thought writing a piece of  fluff wouldn’t be as difficult as endlessly fact checking something like life in the 30’s and WWII.  Besides, I had some experience with romance in my own life, and wanted to share.

Of course I didn’t spend the last three years glued to my computer, but I’ve devoted hours and hours of  time to writing my piece.

Only now after writing and cutting, writing and cutting, and then still writing and cutting some more, it seems I’ll never get passed 30,000 words to the magic 40,000, then on to 50,000.  Apparently 50,000 words is the bare minimum for any publisher to read your first sentence, so everything would be wasted if my story isn’t A. Really good and B. Lengthy.

In short,  finishing this thing seems more difficult than climing Mt. Everest in a bikini.

Am I my own worst critic?

Sometimes I look at my work and could swear I’m a genius.  What I’ve written is funny, relateable, and downright publishable.  Then there are other days I look at it and cringe.  What was I thinking.  I’m a horrific writer and should delete everything for fear that anyone I know in real life should come across it and realize I’m a blubbering idiot.

At least I can look back and admit I’ve made progress.  I think of some of the creative writing classes I took in high school and college and am amazed by the lack of quality and insight.  Nothing flowed, and any reader that wasn’t my Mom would likely stop reading after a paragraph.

But then I look at writers like Stephen King and Margaret Mitchell and admit absolute failure.  I wonder how they managed to write so that the reader can feel the characters, all well before they were the age I am now.  Margaret Mitchell finished “Gone With The Wind” at 35.  Stephen King was an impressive 27 at the completion of Carrie.   As I’m already older should I admit defeat? Simply write for my own entertainment and pathetically self publish?  Pay Costco  to bind my book for me so I can see it in print?

Dang, I thought “50 Shades of Grey” was a horrific until I tried to write something like it. I take everything I ever said about EL James back.  She’s a frggin’ genius.  So is every other person out there who wrote anything that got printed and made its way to a bookstore.  I’m officially jealous.

Anyway, I think I should put the novel away for now.  Concentrate on blog posts and come back to it as I’m driving myself crazy.  By no means am I giving up, but I need some time to let my thoughts marinate.  Maybe in 20 years or so I’ll have something to show for it.

For now, I feel like a failure.

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• novel writing
• thoughts about writing a novel
• writing a novel is hard