Persistence through deep uncertainty

I heard the perfect description of what it is like to be an author of novels the other day, a phrase which encapsulated exactly the emotional tension I struggle with and which I think of now as the “author equation”; ‘persistence through deep uncertainty’.

These four words sum up what spending approximately six months in the pursuit of a story feels like! There remains deep uncertainty in all of it. This is true even on my very best writing days - when the story flies at me so fast I can barely type quickly enough, and writing feels physically satisfying, like eating a hearty meal after a brisk winter walk.

Will my choice of words work? Will my choice of character, the tense I chose, the point of view perspectives, will they mesh pleasingly? Will the emotional arc be compelling? Will it all hang plausibly together? Will it make sense? Will it be worth it? All these questions are impossible to answer with a knowing beyond any doubt. The whole endeavour of writing a book is built upon unknowable foundations.

The only way to ever be sure on any of these questions is to put the story out into the world and ask for others’ opinions on it. Even then, these readers, be they ‘experts’ like literary agents, editors, or publishers, or a ‘pleasure-only’ reader, may only provide their personal and highly subjective viewpoints. Ask for more than one opinion, which obviously is advisable, and the one certainty is that I will receive widely differing thoughts and advice. There is no dazzling singular and forever true ‘correct’ answer to any of it.

That leaves only persistence.

Now this, at least, I have control over. Persistence is an active verb. To continue steadfastly, as persisting requires, I must make an active choice to behave in this manner. That’s the good news within the author equation. Ah-hah, I say to myself, I just have to be persistent and get through the uncertainty, or maybe it is keep my head above the uncertainty? Tread water long enough so as not to drown in the uncertainty?

It doesn’t sound like too much comfort, does it? It still sounds like a lot of effort, heartache, hard-work, and confusion, doesn’t it? Well, yeah. It is.

I am planning my sixth manuscript this month – I feel by turns skin tingling excitement versus stomach turning dread. I must re-write considerable sections of my fourth manuscript, if I am to improve its chances of being ‘commercial’ (although even with the changes this is by no means guaranteed). I must complete the first of many edits of my fifth manuscript. With each of these three main projects I am uncertain of how and what my approach will be, what is the ‘best’ option. When friends ask me how its going, and I tell them the truth, I sound like a naïve teenager asking who their one true love will be, opining at them “but how will I know?” No wonder they stop asking!

I write this to you to remind myself that authorly success – though this surely applies to any challenge in life – is ninety-nine percent about simply turning up and doing the graft. By doing this I hope (and more accurately, pray!) that the magic final one percent will fall into place, and I will have written a deeply compelling story (indeed, stories) that will touch the hearts of all sorts of readers in the world. And when this happens, I imagine how the highfaluting critics will turn to me and ask me how I knew that was the ‘thing’ to write about, how did I nail the exact feeling of the zeitgeist and conjure a character so right for the times we now live in?

How to answer them? Truthfully of course. I simply persisted with uncertain ideas until I felt I could not describe them better any other way.

Rachel x