{"id":702,"date":"2010-08-09T13:15:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/2010\/08\/09\/hopelessly-devoted-to-you-wip\/"},"modified":"2010-08-09T13:15:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T13:15:00","slug":"hopelessly-devoted-to-you-wip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2010\/08\/09\/hopelessly-devoted-to-you-wip\/","title":{"rendered":"Hopelessly Devoted to You, WIP"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
It’s been ten years<\/a> since I started writing Dindi.<\/p>\n

I’m in even worse shape than Susanna Daniel, who wrote on this a while ago in Slate.<\/p>\n

This means that the time from my novel’s conception to its appearance on store shelves adds up to a staggering 10 years. An entire decade. Between, I graduated and spent a year on fellowship (during which I wrote a lot but only half of it was any good); then there were the teaching years (during which I wrote very little, hardly any of it good); then there were the Internet company years (during which I barely wrote at all).<\/p>\n

Stiltsville is in good company, which is reassuring. There are oodles of novels that took a decade or longer to write\u2014including some famous examples, like Junot D\u00edaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. D\u00edaz spoke in interviews about his own decade of active non-accomplishment. He said that five years into the process, he decided to give up on the novel and start a graduate degree (in what, he didn’t say). He said his life improved: no more torture, no more fights with his fiance. Oh, Junot, I thought when I read this, I understand! Still, something pulled him back, and another five years passed, and then he was finally done.<\/p>\n

…The thing is\u2014one-day-at-a-time is the most painful way for active non-accomplishment to happen. It’s the psychological equivalent of death by a thousand cuts. A painter I knew told me once that she’d reached a point when she said goodbye to painting, much the same way Junot D\u00edaz considered doing\u2014she said it was the kindest, most generous thing she’d ever done for herself.<\/p>\n

… I woke one night in the midst of a minor panic attack. It wasn’t unusual for me wake in the night, anxious and scared\u2014and I always knew the source of the panic right away. But it was rare for my heavy-sleeping husband to wake at the same time. And instead of reassuring him and letting him get back to sleep, I told him the naked, humbling truth. I told him that if I didn’t finish my novel, I thought my future happiness might be at risk. He wiped his eyes and yawned and said, “OK. Let’s figure out how to make this happen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, WIP! (Wipes tear from eye.) I dedicate a this song<\/a> to you.<\/p>\n

(Bad karaoke begins.)<\/p>\n

Guess mine is not the first heart broken,
my eyes are not the first to cry I’m not the first to know,
there’s just no gettin’ over you
Hello, I’m just a fool who’s willing to sit around
and wait for you….<\/p>\n

My head is saying “fool, forget him”,
my heart is saying “don’t let go”
Hold on to the end, that’s what I intend to do
I’m hopelessly devoted to you.<\/p>\n

But now there’s nowhere to hide,
since you pushed my love aside I’m not in my head,
hopelessly devoted to you
Hopelessly devoted to you,
hopelessly devoted to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been ten years since I started writing Dindi. I’m in even worse shape than Susanna Daniel, who wrote on this a while ago in Slate. This means that the time from my novel’s conception to its appearance on store shelves adds up to a staggering 10 years. An entire decade. Between, I graduated and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}