When is it Time?

Hard writing makes easy reading. ~ Wallace Stegner

When is it time to set a manuscript aside and leave it? Maybe not forever, but for a really, really long time?

What I have crossed out I didn't like. What I haven't crossed out I'm dissatisfied with. - Cecil B. DeMille

Working through Camilla has me stymied. Nothing works the way I hope it will. I add something, work it in, and it's addition seems to subtract something else equally important.

Spending a lifetime writing novels is hard enough to justify in any case, but spending a lifetime writing novels nobody wants is much harder. - John Gardner

I had a neighbor ask me if I was still writing because I hadn't shared anything with her in a really long time. I told her that my novel (actually I think my exact words were: "My bad, bad, stupid, bad novel...") was giving me fits and I had nothing to share.

She asked if I still enjoyed it. And I said I did. That I loved it.

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~James Michener

I don't, however, love Camilla anymore. At all. In any way.

So, it must be time to put her away until I can fall in love with her again. Otherwise, I imagine, she will turn out cardboard and stiff.

So, Camilla goes into the drawer for a bit until I can stand facing her again. I can't hang around with someone I hate.