Quoting a Writer

Benjamin Franklin, 1767, by David Martin

The hardest thing about writing fiction is coming up with a witty quote for which you'll later become famous.--Melanie Sherman

Okay, so I admit that might not make me famous. I've been worried about this for about a month. Were I to obtain a spectacular agent (and, of course, any agent who offered representation would be spectacular--just saying) and the agent were to sell the book to a brilliant publishing house, naturally there'd be calls from Oprah and The Today Show, the local 5 PM news, and my parents. They would all want an interview and they would all expect a quote. Authors always seem to have them.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.--Mark Twain

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.--Ben Franklin

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Is that a bulletproof vest? See, now that's so insulting. That's like saying I'm not smart enough to shoot you in the head." --Janet Evanovich (Seven Up)

At first I thought writing the book would be difficult. That wasn't nearly as hard as rewriting it. Six times. But even that wasn't as bad as the query letter. I thought that was the worst of all, but I was wrong. Coming up with an amusing, charismatic quote is like a senior citizen expecting to still have a full head of hair after pulling out the gray ones.

You don't suppose I'm merely procrastinating on my revisions, do you?

A fight to the death

English: Fight between the French Confiance (Robert Surcouf) and the HMS Kent.

Am I a bad writer mom? I'm halfway through a major revision and I'm ready to hole the ship and watch it sink with all hands. It would cut my words from just over 100,000 to about 50,000 and that's a good thing, right?

This is my first revision since I began sending out query letters. Before that, I did about six full revisions and I'm really sick everyone in the novel. They are annoying me. When I wrote the book, the characters took on a life of their own. All I had to do was record their actions. It was fun. It was exciting. It was surprising. Sometimes the next day, when I read over what I had recorded, I'd be astounded. Where did that come from, I'd think. How did that get on my page?

It was magic.

In revision, however, everyone in the manuscript seems inept and unable to do anything for themselves. They are milling about on the stage, waiting for the director to force them to their positions, and hoping the catering truck will not be late. They have to be taken by the hand and dragged from place to place. I have to put words in their mouths. I have to make things up. It is like having two sets of newborn quintuplets to care for at once. It is exhausting.

Is it wrong for me to want to the wipe them all out? Have any of you other writers experienced this desire for a fight to the death during revision?