Doubt

I'm in such a funk. I did a summary and four chapter package on the ballroom book and sent it to David, my agent. My friend Alison, currently vacationing in Europe, too a look at it too. I'm very excited about the book, excited about the concept and the fact I'm writing in third person from multiple POVs for the first time in my little baby novelist career. Of course I wanted both of them to gush it was the best thing I'd ever written or maybe even the best thing anybody has ever written.

Heard from both of them on Sunday. Nice but somewhat lukewarm responses. They liked the basic premise of the book - but they both called into question my use of the multiple POV. Alison called it "distant." David said "It's not what they're buying." They made the same argument. First person's my forte, after all. Why go against your natural tendancy as a writer - especially in light of the fact the market prefers books that are told from a single character's perspective?

On one level I'm like "Why indeed?" I know I'm stronger, or at least more experienced in first person. As my ever-practical friend Dawn says "That's what editors want and you know how to do it, so why are you so upset?"

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. Everyone is being very kind and logical.

So why am I so upset?

Possible reasons:

1. The first person pov can limit the types of stories you're able to tell, especially in a situation like ballroom where I am writing about the need for community and how the ballroom means something different to every person who steps inside of it. You can get a broad perspective with first person pov but it's harder. I don't want to fall into the classic traps like having the other characters talk to Abby way too much.

2. I'm tired of the limitations of first person. Dawn said "If I could write first person as well as you, that's all I'd do." But she's just saying that because she's coming off two third person novels and she's sick of the limitations of THAT pov. There's a plus and a minus to every choice you make in writing, including pov, and it isn't a matter of one being inherently better than another. It's a matter of how you do one for a couple of projects, get sick of it, and when you switch to the other it seems easier - at least for a while. Then you get sick of it and switch back to your original pov for the next project. No nothing is perfect....but if you have some variety in your writing style you can write longer without wearing yourself out.

3. I don't want to be a one-trick pony. Yeah, first person's my strength but I'm ambitious, so of course I want to move on and learn a new skill. In dance the people who jive want to waltz, the people who samba wish they could quickstep. Part of it is our natural human tendancy to downplay our natural strengths - if something comes easily to us we erroneously assume it comes easily to everyone - but an equally valid part of it is a kind of creative restlessness that artists have to have if we're ever going to grow. The jivers might say to the waltzers some variation of what Dawn said to me, i.e., "If I could waltz as well as you do, that's all I'd ever want to do" - but it wouldn't be true. If we're good at something, we automatically look to move on and master something else. It's what gives us heart attacks and also, I suppose, why our species dominates the planet.

4. This is probably the real reason: I'm just in such an anxious state that I'm going to freak out at anything anybody says to me right now. I know that in suggesting I stick with what I know David and Alison weren't implying that I'm incapable of learning anything else. That's what I heard but the 3% of my mind that's sane also knows that's not what they meant. It's just that as the date gets closer when the novel is going to debut I'm getting crazier. Everything feels like a criticism, even the most gentle and practical (and solicited) feedback.

So there you have it. I have a new task. Write the first four chapters in sequence from either Abby's first person pov or a tight, Abby-centric third person pov. And worry. And stew.