My latest excitement is that last week I received an email with the back copy for my book, which is basically the text on the back of the book that entices the reader into picking it up and buying it. My editor included the copy and asked me to check it over and make sure I liked it. 

I think I had actually written the back copy myself some months ago, so I had high hopes that I would like it, plus which I am really not looking for any more work, and so I figured as long as I didn’t hate the back copy, we would all be fine. Unfortunately, when I read it I thought it seemed kind of boring. It wasn’t terrible, I just didn’t feel excited about it (and if the author doesn’t seem excited, that’s probably a bad sign).  

So, hoping I was wrong, I sent it off to my agent and asked what he thought and he said, It seems kind of boring. Which was another bad sign, though it is nice to deal with someone who’s honest. So I looked at the back copy again and thought, All right. I like the basic premise. I’ll just move around some words. Some of the sentences just seem sort of bland. 

I spent an hour fiddling with the sentences and it did read better, but, unfortunately, it still didn’t read well. I really really really did not want to start over. I hate starting over. This is something I talk about a lot in class because often, after a critique, it becomes clear (to me anyway) that what is required is for the author to rethink her premise and this doesn’t mean that everything should be thrown out and you’ve wasted ten years of your life, because all that good work stays inside of you and comes out somehow. But it does mean you have to open up a new file and look at some white space. 

No one wants to do this. But if you don’t start over, then you can spend weeks and months fiddling with something and not make much progress.  

Fortunately, in this case I was just dealing with three paragraphs and not a whole novel (though I have started over with whole novels and I hope I never have to do it again). I looked at the blank screen and asked myself: What is the point I’m trying to make?   This is always a good question. 

Then, I stopped and looked at the page for a bit and I concluded that I would never write anything sensible again and my career was over before it started and then bang, something popped into my head. And I liked it. And then the rest fell into place and now I have back copy that I love and, thank heavens, my editor loves it too.  

Or she did. At the risk of writing a novel-length post about the back copy, it turned out that although the new version was good, it didn’t hit enough of the themes that the publishing house wants to hit—which is to say, more about the mother-daughter relationship and less about the class. So I have to rethink this. It’s okay; it’s all good. I want to sell lots of books. I just wish my brain wasn’t feeling so empty. 

So how about you? Have you ever had to start over?