There’s a wonderful sense of freedom that comes at the end of a book project. After being locked into one idea for a year or two or three, you’re free to do whatever you like, experiment, play. But then, at some point (the point I’m at now), you’ve got to decide on THE NEXT PROJECT.
Once you’ve settled on it, you know it’s going to be with you for a long time. It’ll be the first thing you think about in the morning. It’ll wake you up in the middle of the night demanding to be tended to. So choosing the right project is very important.
Right now, I’ve got three potential projects on my desk, and they are all appealing in different ways:
Project A: My space novel
I’ve been working on this novel, set partly in space, since Instruction Manual For Swallowing came out in 2007. I’ve rewritten it from scratch three times now. And it’s still faulty. A fourth draft will have to be started from the blank page again.
I put this novel down at the end of draft three early in 2011, when I won the Arts Foundation Short Story Fellowship, to spend a year writing short stories and finishing The Stone Thrower.
I’m in love with the idea at the core of the novel, and I keep exploring it from different angles, setting the start and end points of the story at different points in time, trying out different narrative methods. But every time it falls far short of my vision for it.
I worry that it’s beyond my current capabilities, and I couldn’t bear to spend years more on this thing and have it beat me again.
Project B: The goose novella
I’ve mainly been a planner throughout my writing career so far. I like to know where the story will go before I start it. My early attempts at making the story up as I go along were failures – I’ve got three abandoned novels hidden in my attic. But I kept reading interviews with other writers who said that making it up as they went along was the only way they could work (my hero, Haruki Murakami is in this camp), so I thought I’d give it another go.
I sat down this summer and began writing about a girl re-organising her flat and just let it flow out from there. I wrote 25k words in a couple of months, not putting any pressure on myself to build a story, trying to let my unconscious do the work.
I got into a good flow with it, but was then interrupted by some other writing commitments. This novella has sat half-finished on my desk every since.
There was something liberating about working without a plan, but now that the story has gone cold, I’m not so excited about it as I was before. For some reason it has a goose as a central character. I know very little about geese, and I’m not sure I’m sufficiently motivated to invest time in researching goose-care.
Project C: New short stories
I like nothing better than to sit in front of a blank page at the start of a new project. Those first stages of a new story are always wonderful, when you tug on the thread of an idea and it all comes flying out almost too fast to get it down.
Short stories are my comfort zone. They are a pleasure to write. With short stories, I’m free to take risks, to experiment. The creative potential is enormous. And there is the satisfaction of regularly completing something. Plus, my Evernote folder is full of story ideas awaiting development.
Where to go?
A big part of me is very keen to start on new short stories. But then another part of me pines for the bigger canvasses of my longer projects. (And to not be beaten by them.) And after investing so much time already in the space novel especially, I’m anxious about abandoning it and losing what could be – if I succeed in realising it on the page – exactly the kind of book I would most like to read myself.
I guess what I’ve got is FOMO. Fear of missing out. That if I choose one project, I might choose the wrong one and never know whether one of the others would have been more successful.
I can’t just line them all up and work on one project at a time – there’s a potential four, five, six years of work sitting on my desk. Over that time, I’ll have other ideas I’ll want to pursue.
I’m really lost with it. Indecisiveness is my character flaw. One of my flaws. You should see me trying to decide what to buy for dinner in a supermarket. It’s embarrassing.
I sometimes imagine what inspirational mentors might say if I chatted through problems with them. Right now, I’m imagining sitting in Starbucks with Seth Godin describing to him the dilemma I’ve just described to you. I’m pretty sure he would advocate the high-risk, high potential gain of the space novel.
But then again…
I don’t know. What would you do?
I vote for the high-risk/high-potential gain space novel.
Look at that big pile of papers! That’s a lot of love and work, it would be a shame to abandon it now!
Practice makes perfect, or so they tell me. I’m trying to be a writer. Possibly my book will never make it, but it’s also possible that it will, and even though the vision of each story, the ambition of it, outweighs my current ability, the reason I keep trying is because I have to believe that eventually, these stories I’m writing will get somewhere close to that perfect vision in my head.
My point: You said yourself that short stories are your comfort zone. Imagine how much greater, how much more wonderful that sense of freedom will be, if the book project you’ve just finally finished is the space novel that has confounded you so far.
Thanks for the encouragement Dan. And good luck with your stories – keep on keeping on!
Adam,
I would suggest option two, you have written two brilliant coolections so far, if it were me i’d do that either now or after ive got three collections under my belt, of coure its up to you, you know more than me but it might be nice to do it perhaps only for yourself, I find writing as challenge to be fun.
Thanks very much John. Yes, I agree, if there’s no challenge, then there’s no satisfaction when you finish the damn thing.
Hi Adam. Very much looking forward to reading The Stone Thrower having enjoyed the title story online. As for your next project, I am totally intrigued by the ‘space’ novel and would agree with Dan Edwards about your having another crack at it. I’ve really enjoyed your unique take on genre fiction in stories like Testicular Cancer and The Behemoth and Meaty’s Boys. A space novel by Adam Marek would have me hitting pre-order without a doubt.
Thanks Dan. Glad to hear you’re intrigued by the space novel too – that’s reassuring. It’ll have at least two readers then if I can wrestle it into submission!
Hello Adam,
Firstly, congratulations on the new book.
Secondly, I really like this blog.
Thirdly, what would I do?.. Well, I certainly wouldn’t give up on the space novel, given you’re in love with the central idea. I’d give it at least one more shot. If it still doesn’t work, give it a decent burial and write a different novel.
This is probably not much help, but you did ask.
Supermarket sympathies, Phil Corker.
Thanks very much Phil. And thanks! For the last couple of days I’ve been working on the space novel again, draft 4, scene 1 – it feels pretty good so far, and new ideas for the book have been coming steadily, as if they’ve been waiting in the wings for permission to come out. Just got to hang onto that feeling now and not get distracted by other shiny ideas.
That’s great Adam, I’m sure you can crack it, Phil.
I’m in a similar situation Adam. I’ve got this novel that I’ve worked damn hard on and have revised many times but those short stories ACK!! That is where my heart is. Although, I suddenly get a ‘novel head’ and I’m back in writing furiously.
If you can do both you will be sated I feel. Space novel & the occasional short story.
I’m biased, about your short stories because I enjoy them so much – but I’m intrigued to see what you can do with a novel :-))
Either way, I will buy whatever you produce from that wonderful mind. (Oh, stop the fan mail already Avalina!!)
I hope you come to a conclusion without the aid of drugs or self-flagellation. (well at least the drugs).
Thanks Avalina, that’s very kind of you 🙂
I’ve since been working hard on an entirely different novel project, along with a couple of short story commissions. I’ll keep you posted when it’s ready for release!