I met Randy Susan Meyers on Backspace (bksp.org) and she quickly became a friend and a mentor. Her writing insight and advice are only rivaled by her fiction. The Murderer’s Daughters is a captivating, sweeping drama about two sisters, and how a violent event from their childhood has repercussions throughout their lives. If you haven’t read The Murderer’s Daughters, look it up, flip through the pages, read the back cover, and decide for yourself. In this blog post, Randy shares with us her books that did not get published…and the courage it takes to move on.
Please welcome Randy to Women’s Fiction Writers!
Books In The Drawer: Go Back Or Let Go?
How do you know when to put a book away and when to keep on plugging? Is it an ingrained personality trait (stubbornness?) that keeps one going? Does an innate wisdom kick in and tell you to give it up? How do you know whether you’re throwing good money after bad or giving up too soon?
Arthur Golden spent ten years working on Memoirs of A Geisha ,which then spent 2 years on the NYT bestseller list and sold millions of copies. Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne passed an ultimately never-published book back and forth for years. Bestselling author Janet Evanovich admits to having three books in the drawer that will never see light.
Nichole Bernier, in Beyond The Margins, reveals that Amy Bloom yanked back a novel which was accepted for publication, admitting in an interview, “It was my warm-up … It wasn’t anything of which I had to be deeply ashamed. But it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. Once I saw that, then I wanted it not in print.”
I have three books in the drawer (not counting half-hearted starts, odd-ball attempts, and a co-authored near-miss.) One of the three is from many, many years ago and I would be terrified to open it. After I finished that book, someone convinced me to show it to their ‘connected-published-cousin-in-law’, who, after he read it, told me directly that it was awful and a waste of his time. (Poor guy, huh?) His particular tough-love sent me away from the keyboard for years.
My second book-in-the drawer I think of as part of my trilogy:
Book One: The book in which I learned proper techniques for sharper writing and characterization, but forgot about incorporating sub-plots. I carry much tenderness for this book, for the characters, and am still in love with my opening paragraphs. I got an agent with this novel (not my current agent.) While this book was out on submission, I began writing my next one, which I quickly saw was a better book. This was:
Book Two: The book where I learned multiple points of view and how to weave major and minor plot-points, but where I didn’t learn that tiptoeing and/or being polite can weaken a book. I still had a reader-over-my-shoulder with this one. (I’m still attached to the story and the characters.) While this book was out on submission (former agent and I having made the decision to pull Book One in favor of Book Two,) I began working on Book Three.
In the midst of this, my agent (who was now concentrating on YA) and I amicably parted ways. Soon after I finished:
Book Three: The one where I became published: The Murderer’s Daughters. After all my downs and downs, this book sold quickly. As the long publishing process unfolded, I began my next book. Why did I choose to begin a new work and not return to my previous novels? First, I had a new story bubbling to get out. Second, I needed to be certain I could do the proper surgery needed to resurrect either novel.
Arthur Golden tore his book apart after six years: changed point of view, where the story began, and God knows what else. Obviously, he was able to approach it with the cold eyes one needs to perform a truly great revision.
I’d written Book’s One and Two quickly and without the store of knowledge, technique and voice that now comes to me more easily than it did previously. If I resuscitate either of these books, I’ll have to be laser-cold and read them as dispassionately as I would a novel picked randomly from a bookstore shelf.
Letting go of a book takes a certain kind of courage—the ability to consider those years as a self-schooling. Even if the story never sees publication, the time put in feeds one’s future work. However, putting in the years, as Golden did, to shape and craft and stay with a work takes a different kind of talent, patience and love. Perhaps it is a personality test—I know myself well. Maybe it wasn’t courage that led to my shoving my books in the proverbial drawer, but impatience with the idea of ripping apart and refashioning them.
Possibly, inner-tuning forks tell us when to move on and when to hold our cards. Despite loving Book One, I think (despite those fantastic two paragraphs and all those slick, funny lines) it will sleep with the fishes. Much as I heave a great lazy sigh of ‘not again’ at the idea of cutting and then re-stitching Book Two, it continues calling me.
Friends have gone in both directions—starting over or holding on. At least three writer-friends I know are reaping the rewards of sticking with it. Others are feeling free and hopeful because they’ve started new projects.
How did you make the decision to keep on going or start over? What brand of courage did you need to grab? My new book is done and off to my editor and I’ve already begun work on another book, but like the one who got away, those books in the drawer still linger in my mind.
Photo Credit: Jill Meyers
The dark drama of Randy Susan Meyers’ debut novel is informed by her years of work with batterers, domestic violence victims, and at-risk youth impacted by family violence.
Randy Susan Meyers’ short stories have been published in the Fog City Review, Perigee: Publication for the Arts, and the Grub Street Free Press.
In Brooklyn, where Randy was born and raised, her local library was close enough to visit daily and she walked there from the time she figured out the route. In many ways, she was raised by books, each adding to her sense of who she could be in this world. Some marked her for horror. Reading In Cold Blood at too tender an age assured that she’d never stay alone in a country house. Others, like Heidi by Johanna Spyri, made her worship her grandfather even more.
Some taught her faith in the future.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith was the only bible Randy ever owned, her personal talisman of hopefulness. Each time she read it, she was struck anew by how this author knew so much and dared to write it.
Randy now lives in Boston with her husband and is the mother of two grown daughters. She teaches writing seminars at the Grub Street Writers’ Center in Boston.
I learn something new every day from this blog. Thank you for the info. I’m on book 3 currently so this was especially timely for me. My first got me my agent but didn’t get pubbed. My second is on submission with editors now and while I wait hopeful, I started another because there will always be another whether the second sells or not. This is what I believe because I have to write or I become depressed sitting around with these people and stories in my head. They need to go live elsewhere! Always look forward to these informative, inspiring posts! Thanks!
I have way more than three “under the bed,” and I still have tender thoughts about some of them. I like your Bible–I’ve read those particular chapters and verses a few times,too.
It’s really helpful and inspirational to read Randy’s journey to publication — I think about my “drawer,” which is a file box in the closet, full of completed manuscripts and “half-hearted starts, odd-ball attempts.” Your post gives me hope that the current manuscript, the one I’m continuing to plug away on, will be the one that helps me reap the rewards. Great post!
THANK YOU for sharing this! I’ve been tormented with the same question… when is it time to put away a story that is dear to me and move on. It’d be like telling my characters, “Now I lay you down to sleep…” The “first” has been told to “sit and stay”, knowing it was my personal tool for learning the craft. Character development became much stronger in the “second” so I will chew on that one until it’s lost all of it’s flavor. LOL New characters slide into my life and talk to me while I drive or when I lay sleepless in the night (much like right now), begging me to write the story. I’m certain there are pills for that… But I’ve started the “third” and i’m beginning a new journey while the second is submitted… and so the story goes.
Thank you all for your thoughts and for sharing your stories. I was just at the Jewish Book Festival in St. Louis, and when asked what the most important traits were for a writer to get published I answered “perseverance” and a willingness to keep learning and making one’s work better. Writing new books and new drafts is how we learn and improve, and how we publish.
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I think the third one is Monet. Thank you Mr. Gurney, for being a champion of Realism. I have learned so much from your blog, and I read it every day. And also,Lucas, an exploration of drapery painting approaches would indeed be fascinating.
DarlingMushI was going to mention Michael’s, too. If you get their emails or see their ad in the paper, they always have good coupons. I’ve found sanding sugar at Ross, too.
It’s my first novel that is being published, but it in no way resembles the novel I started several years ago. I rewrote it completely before even querying and signing with my agent, and with my agent I rewrote it — don’t faint — TWICE. In the interim, I wrote another novel and another partial that are tucked away. I do think sometimes about reviving the first because I just adore the main character. The second book was forced – I was writing what I thought I should or what I thought people wanted to read instead of a story I wanted to tell. And there is a difference. The WIP – let’s call it, affectionately, Book 4, is really organic and although I’d never say that writing isn’t work, these characters and their story are very clear to me. They have something to say…so I’m listening.
Thank you, dear Randy, for your insights.
Thank you, Randy. All of this, I can relate to so well. I have several novels shelved. And, I’m in the midst of editing the latest WIP. I’m hopeful with this one, that this will be the one to pull me across the threshold. Maybe then, I’ll think about the novels in the drawer.
Congrats to you on your success!
Randy, must be the ‘rule of 3’ because I wrote two before my 3rd – it’s in submission now.
But I’m going back to my first…and rewriting it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in writing.
I have the old story, and the new story overlaid – but I keep getting pulled back to the old one…
Ugh. I can’t put mine down now, but if you’re considering doing this – DON’T!
Thank you, Randy.
I too have a book in the drawer. One of these–a picture book–I plan to self-publish (and donate partial procees to animal rescue). The other will never see the light of day. I don’t regret writing it. It taught me many lessons. It took a month to write–from idea to last chapter–and that was the problem–the writing was too forced. Detachment and feedback help me identify the weeds from the flowers.
This is something I have been struggling with. I finished my first book and started my second book, while also trying to send out queries for book number 1. It has proven to be more time consuming than I thought and I am having a hard time putting energy into it because I am so into the second book. I am trying to decide if I should continue to query for the first one. I have had two rejections and a handful of no responses, which seem like rejections to me. I am wondering if waiting out the industry a little will help with getting published like it did with buying a house?
I think this is a decision only you can make, but sometimes you know she you’ve finally hit the right notes and have to go with that gut decision.