Wonder Girl

 

Original movie poster

Did you ever see the movie Wonder Boys, with Michael Douglas? It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and here (aside from the Bob Dylan theme song) is why: it's about writers. On top of that, it's an excellent film about writers. Douglas plays a university professor of creative writing who several years earlier wrote a novel which won the Man Booker Prize for literature.

Since that moment of triumph, he has been unable to finish his much-anticipated second novel. It's not that he has writer's block – just the opposite. In one scene, he puts a blank page in his typewriter (yes, he still uses a typewriter), and at the top types in page number 2121. In a later scene, one of his students goes behind his back to find and read the MS. Afterward, she says to him, "You know how you tell us that writing is all about choices? Well, this looks like you've made no choices at all."*

Boy, can I relate. I've been on the verge of finishing a contemporary mystery for the past two years, but the darn thing kept getting longer. I just kept writing and writing, and I could tell plain as day that in the end I'm going to have to get rid of half of what I was writing. But I couldn't stop. I like my murderer and how the murder was accomplished, but I can't figure out how my sleuth is going to figure it out – not in a logical, uncontrived manner, anyway. So I kept writing. I'd try this for a while, then I'd try that. Maybe it'd work better if I did this. I have a bunch great scenes which may or may not go together. Probably not. But I kept going.

This is not the first time this has happened to me, and I must remember that, miraculously, it always works out. As I write the first draft of a novel, my beginnings never match the ending, for somewhere in the middle , I change my mind about this character, or this action, or this story line. And I don't waste time going back and fixing the beginning to fit my new vision. I can get (and have gotten) caught up in an endless merry-go-round of fixes and never reach the end. I just keep going until the book is done, with every confidence that I can repair all the inconsistencies when I'm done.

But this time, I let myself get sucked down the whirlpool and ended up not making any choices. So I've put the MS aside to marinate and started another historical mystery. I'm in my wheelhouse now and feel more confident that I can keep it tight. In the meantime, I know there's a THERE there with the contemporary, so after a bit of rest and rumination, I'll pick it up again. It'll be great. I just know it will.

––––––––––––––––

*I paraphrase