Burying the Dead

Buried books. Shelved manuscripts. Filed for a Rainy Day. All are evil, undead things and should be resurrected.

When I was 14 or so, I sat down one summer to write a novel. This was when dinosaurs fled the earth, and there was no computer involved. Instead, there was a Selectric Electric Typewriter that has has long since been lost and there was a ream of paper.

I believe I managed 316 double spaced manuscript pages of what can only be called, in all kindness, fecal matter.

I mean, it was BAD. There were dimensional portals, dragons, armor made from dragon scales, griffins, evil sorceresses...if there was a trope, I found it and I used it.

Know what I forgot? Anything that vaguely resembled a plot.

I kept that manuscript for around four years, in an old box that was sealed by rubber bands. Now and then when I wanted to torture myself, I pulled that bad boy out and read a portion of it as a cautionary tale against ever trying to write anything again.

And then, when I moved into an apartment with friends for the first time I threw that manuscript into the dumpster, careful to open the box and scatter the pages much as a vampire hunter might the ashes of the departed and vanquished.

That is as close to a buried book as I have.

The rest of what I have written, with the sole expression of a novel manuscript that rose to the towering height of 40,000 words before I lost it for all time (ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR WORK, PEOPLE!!!!!) has been published. It might take me a while to finish a manuscript, but to date I've sold everything I've finished. I might have sold it for a nickel, but, damn it, I sold it.

There are a few stories out there I try to forget I wrote. They could have used, oh, so much work. But I wrote them, and I sold them.

I don't know if it's talent or mere tenacity. Whichever the case, the skeletons in my filing cabinet have all been aired or destroyed beyond all repair.

Have a little faith in yourself. If it's good, you'll sell it.

Of course, you have to finish it first....