I Am With Child And Worry About Its Health

Sojourner is the present manuscript I am enmeshed with, and it is not going well because I have lost faith in it. The second half of the book moves quickly, the first half seems too slow paced, although I have cut here and there. I lack the editing skills to reformulate, to shift chapters here or there, or to delete them entirely. I have let the book “rest” and when I picked it up again, it still did not move itself. Perhaps it is a book I should no longer work on and give it up.  When I wrote this book more than two decades ago and submitted it to publishers, the consensus was that it was good literary fiction but did not meet the fast paced rhythms of the market. Publishers commented on the serious themes presented and went out of their way not to discourage me. In fact, in my naivete I thought it could be a young adult novel until one publisher disabused me of that notion. I was pleased with that, but I put it away not knowing that decades ahead I would come back to it again.

At this point in my life, with two books behind me, I’m at it again because what I have to say has merit. The issue as always is how I go about doing this. I have lost confidence in the book, really a lost confidence in myself. It is hard after remembering all the months I spent on the book as a man in his 40s that I may just have to lay it to rest. One other option has appeared. I could use a reader to give me a sense of how the book plays out. Jane and I have co-edited; Jane likes the book. I have strong misgivings. One blogger who had reviewed my book of short stories e-mailed me that she was pleased that I had won another award. In the same message queried me if I would like a reader of Sojourner as i shared with her I was at work on another book. She has no background as an editor but that may be an advantage as I think about it. It is the public that determines if a book has grit or not. I may very well send her a PDF for her comments. And so in this light, if there are others out there who know of me and my work and are interested in reading Sojourner long before it goes to press or not, let me know. The book may be a stinker; it may be salvageable. I await your responses.

Before I abort said child, I need to go over it once more, but with sufficient notice I could get it to you if you are a serious reader and willing to take a risk with me. I associate to movie producers and directors who screen test their movies and based upon audience comments choose to edit or not. At least I have one reader who is a relative stranger but volunteered to read it. Serendipity!

The final arbiter as always is the writer. A novel, unlike a movie, is not a collaborative effort. However, since I have a fairly good sense of who I am, if someone kicks the tires of this novel and finds them good, I will be energized to complete the effort. And what if the tires are shabby? I will decide then to abort or go to term. The only collaborative effort would be between you, the reader, and the author, and how very intriguing that is.

I will not delude myself, for “one swallow does not a summer make.” Nevertheless, as Forster said, “We need only connect.”