On Putting My Babies to Sleep
I started writing pieces on in the Thippah’n universe since 2005. First a science fiction NaNoWriMo novel. Then a few really neat long scenes — expandable into shorts. Then another novel and another and another which needed shredding after I published the first online.
I’ve been sitting on editing the second novel for years. Light passes. Blocking and language passes. Rearranging for plot and twists. This last one is a back-to-front, word-by-word edit. And I want to stop.
Writing is about being ruthless. It’s about ripping out what’s not working. For non-writers, it’s like finding a knit where there should be a purl and yanking out six inches of knitting to make it right.
What I’m thinking of doing is like unraveling five sweaters because one doesn’t like the design. After they’re already up on hangars. But they’ve become my albatross, leaching energy from other projects I’d like to do. But it’s such a great universe! But its far more inchoate than almost every other project I’ve got on the drawing boards, in my drawers, under the table, and stuffed into cracks on my shelves.
So is stopping and not scheduling work on them cryosleep? Or euthanasia? I won’t be the same author if I return to them in a few years. Would that be better for them?
A post with many questions and no answers that I can see. Suggestions, however, are always entertained.