When is a manuscript finished?

Does a manuscript become a novel when someone finally picks it off a store bookshelf? When is a writer through with changing the colour of a character’s eyes, or sending them off to the outback, or possibly removing them from the story line entirely?

I believe it was Joni Mitchell who once said she could never listen to her songs because she always heard things she wished she’d done differently, and at a writers’ festival, Alistair MacLeod, one of Canada’s best loved writers, said that his manuscripts had to be torn from his hands.

Recently, I read somewhere that a manuscript is complete when you’ve given it all that you possibly could, when the story is finished within you. For now, that is the point that I have reached. Over five years of writing and re-writing, fermenting, thinking, re-writing, changing the colour of a character’s eyes, sending them down new roads.

Time to see what other readers think.

Time for a walk in the mountain. Morning fog is setting in, the leaves are changing colour, and I need to breathe some forest air.

 

 

Spring on Mt. Doug

Like the flowers, I am finding my way back to the mountain. This Easter hike led me to the blooming skunk cabbage, a path and view I had forgotten about, and to a place where rocks define a space. Curious about the rocks in this setting; I’ll try and find out more.

Similarly, in searching for a publisher for the long work (to my mind it will only be a novel when it is published and in book stores) there have been a few discoveries––a few inconsistent rejections, kind personal publisher emails, ‘we like it, but aren’t sure it fits with our list.’ Like the mountain hiking, this pursuit is leading me along some interesting paths. Rejection is hard, but keep believing in the work. Keep the long view in mind.

Strait of Juan de Fuca through arbutus

October Endings and Beginnings

Spring is my favorite month, and many days these past few weeks have felt like March. There are new shoots of perennials poking their heads through the old growth, as I take down the garden and plant bulbs. I haven’t spent much time on the mountain, but yesterday was too beautiful a day to miss––bright, crisp, cool.

As with writing goals, sometimes the path is difficult to see.

I didn’t go looking for them, but there was a crazy abundance of mushrooms everywhere. I used to pick and eat wild mushrooms as a kid, but none of the ones I saw resemble those. I suppose one day I should make a point of consulting an expert on whether or not any of those in Mt. Doug are edible and also why they grow where they do.

These posts try to connect my writing life to the woods where I hike. Some observations may be products of my own imaginings, but in my wanderings and encounters with this mountain, I sometimes have insights that I can apply to my writing life.

I’ve started to shop my novel around to agents and publishers. I even received my first rejection. What next? Can I figure out where the path is leading despite the heavy leaves? Is that one lone mushroom in the woods like my own work waiting to be discovered?