Creative Infidelity

I confess. I’ve been unfaithful. I’ve let my heart wander onto other people, enveloping my brain around spending time with a new family of characters. I am starting to think about a new novel. 

I have a lot of friends who are artists. Well, pretty much all of them are in some manner, shape, or form. I see how they marry themselves to their projects - whether it is my own interests in writing and theater - or music or crafts or photography, etc. I observe the intrinsic joy that spending time with these tasks brings my friends. The passion with which they thrust themselves towards completion. It is a love affair. And like all love affairs, there is the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Right now I feel like I am committing adultery against my novel.

Four months ago, I finished the third draft of my book. That’s when I went public because I was so proud of the fact I achieved this thing. I was in love with my characters. Each and every one of them. Even the annoying ones. Even the baddies. Because, at the risk of confessing narcissism, each and every one of them has a piece of me. A more interesting, more wicked, more capable, more pathetic, more beautiful piece of me. I loved those characters so much I couldn’t stop reading their story. I read and reread my manuscript week after week. Which… considering the length of the tome… is a pretty committed infatuation.

I completed a fourth draft by which time I realized it needed some trimming. Deleting required me to step back and let go of some of those characters for whom I had affection. But the distance I had to put between myself and a few characters has put a gap in my affection for the novel overall. That and a shift of my focus to determine the business side of writing. It’s like the honeymoon is over. Now the marriage begins. 

So I let my mind wander to the possibility of another creative affair. 

But the relationship with my novel doesn’t end. Like any relationship, it requires work, and sticking with it when one would rather not. I don’t think it has to be exclusive. If anything, a little time with some other characters and plot may help shed some light on what doesn’t work in one novel. Or, at the very least, it reminds me that the initial romance of writing will always be mine. Always, always, always. So when I turn over my beloveds to the brutal process of editing and promoting, I won’t lose that simple joy of creating.