In 2009, I finished what I think of as a final draft of a decent novel, which I call A Perfect Wife. in 2010, I set out to follow some advice I read in Betsy Lerner’s book: you are better off if you have a new project under way when the rejection letters start rolling in. After experimenting with a couple of things that didn’t quite gel together, I started a new project — but the new one was really a continuation of the old one.
A (perhaps former?) friend of mine who read the manuscript of A Perfect Wife told me that she didn’t think it was finished, that she wanted to know more about what happened after the last scene that I had written. Pharisee that I am, I took her to mean that the book was too short, and I’m afraid I reacted rather badly. It’s possible that she was right however — I mean in what she really meant to say and not what I took her to mean, that is — it’s quite possible that the story wasn’t finished. That might explain why the only project that really got any traction for me was a continuation of the first one, a novel with the working title of The Burning House. It’s the same characters, same place, just a year and a half later.
I’m grinding away at The Burning House, probably about a third of the way into the rough draft. It’s slow going,but there have been times when I’ve thought to myself yes, this is really it. But that’s passed. I’ve shopped A Perfect Wife around a bit and haven’t gotten much interest. I’m going to continue doing so, but it seems possible that there will be none. If that’s the case, I am writing a sequel to a novel that no one wanted to read in the first place.
I’ve considered abandoning The Burning House. But I’m too far in to quit — it would eat at me and I’m pretty sure I would finally pick it back up again down the road after it had gone stale. It’s important to me to finish things, which means dedicating a steady amount of time and attention to them. So, I’m going to finish.
I have other resolutions, mostly the same as everyone else (pay off the cards, don’t be such a lazy shit), but here’s the only one that’s really important: I’m going to write a draft of The Burning House. I have most of twelve months left, I have some idea of how the plot will play out, and I have the ever-diminishing sum of the days of my life.
[...] I had read some advice somewhere (probably in Betsy Lerner’s book) that the best approach to submitting a manuscript is to get deeply involved in a new project at the same time. That way, when the rejections come in, you have something else to think about (other than killing yourself). With that in mind, I started one project and then another, but never could find any traction. Finally, I followed the only course that made any creative sense: I picked up the story of the characters from A Perfect Wife a bit later in time. That turned into The Burning House. Which, for those keeping score, was a sequel to a novel that no one wanted in the first place. As futile as it seemed, I felt good about what I was writing. I resolved to finish it in 2011. [...]