I so think my story is done (my YA novel that is). I don’t want to go back to it. Yet, I just got more suggestions from an agent who said I was 90% there and said it was too “heavy-handed” with the characters and I needed to eliminate some things.
To be perfectly honest, I really don’t want to. I have re-written this story so much by now that it’s amazingly pathetic.
My only consideration is, “Is this the story God wants me to do?” If so, then I need to obviously take her advice and work on it…again. But, part of me is ready to move on to my next story. Part of me feels this is just such a waste of my time when there are so many other things I could be doing. How long does one follow a pipe dream? How badly do I want to be published? How badly do I want this?
Yet, if I didn’t feel this story wasn’t worth telling, I’d have moved on long ago. Yet something about this one–the potential power it holds–keeps me working on it. At what point do I say, “Enough already?” I am so torn up over this project that I’m having trouble describing how I feel right now. I’m very sad and beaten down by it all–the process, the story, the memories, and the hope (fruitless?).
I know there is something here, but do I have the fortitude to keep digging until it is crystal clear to readers? Part of me wishes someone would just tell me my writing sucks and stop dangling out hope that maybe one day I’ll get it right. It is so much easier to just give up rather than fight through the pain I feel every time I work on the novel one more time.
All I know is it’s time to pray…some more. I don’t have the answers. My characters can’t tell me what to do. It’s all in my mind and I have to determine how best to reconcile it all.
What do I truly want with this story? Is it finished? Is there something more…something missing?
I don’t know anymore–what I want or how badly. I really don’t know anything right now. I’m so emotionally drained from this whole process and adverse to re-visiting the world I created that I’m unsure if I can make it any better or if I can emerge from it all. I don’t know where my heart lies or anything…