Breathing life into old writing projects

I recently engaged in an interesting discussion with a writing friend about whether or not it’s worthwhile – or even wise – to resurrect old writing projects.

The topic was particularly pertinent for us: this summer we’ve both finished novels that were started a very long time ago. In my case, the initial concept for Run Free was drafted as a screenplay around twelve years ago. Anna’s modern-day novel was placed on the back burner for even longer, which meant she had a lot of updating to do. I was luckier in this respect as my novel is set in 1976.

Twelve years a concept: from idea to finished novel

Now that my 98,000-word novel set in Newport is finished, I’m reflecting on why it took me quite so long to draft, edit and re-edit it. The initial idea for the story came from a news story about a woman who vanished after going to meet a friend in a very public place, specifically a bench near the council offices. This would have been in the late 1980s. I remember the ten-year anniversary of her disappearance occurred when I was working as a reporter at the South Wales Argus. The notion that someone could simply disappear in broad daylight fascinated me.

Years later, I started a screenplay that wove the disappearing woman idea into the working-class community of my childhood. The screenplay turned out to be melodramatic nonsense and I abandoned it halfway through. Yet, the idea had taken hold and refused to let go. Harri frequently urged me to finish the project, but something always held me back.

Fast forward to July 2019, when we found ourselves living near the Spanish town of Órgiva in the Alpujarra hills, Andalusia. It was too hot to do much hiking so I decided to resurrect my screenplay as a novel. I reimagined the storyline and wrote an outline. Despite having a detailed outline, I changed my mind about various plot points on a daily basis which meant I was forever adding comments or marking sections of text in red (to cut or not to cut?).

All was going well until my memory stick failed. Back then, I wasn’t saving my files to the cloud. Worse, I had got into the bad habit of leaving the document open when I finished each day’s writing session. I managed to recover nine chapters from my laptop’s temporary file folder, but the rest had disappeared. I stopped writing for months, while I consulted IT experts. Sadly, no-one was able to retrieve my lost work.

The whole experience was so disheartening, I subsequently shelved my novel.

The resurrection

It wasn’t until the summer of 2023 that I finally started working on my novel again. This time I was determined to get it finished. My writer friend was also determined to finish her long-time project and so we encouraged one another to keep going. I finished my first draft in November 2023 and continued to refine it through various drafts until late June. Then, convinced I had done everything possible on my own, I submitted it to a publisher willing to consider unsolicited fiction.

What I find fascinating is that the novel I finished bore little resemblance to my original synopsis or screenplay other than a woman disappears and the novel is still set in a working-class area of Newport. Some changes:

• characters and character names changed, e.g. Alan became Trevor
• an entire love affair disappeared
• subplots were introduced
• a theme was identified –well, it was probably always there, but suddenly it was leaping off the page loud and clear

Resurrecting old projects is challenging

I like a tidy home and an orderly working life. For over seven years, my communication role saw me providing support to over thirty managers and many local charities. I had to be super organised or I’d risk missing deadlines.

The messiness of my manuscript became a significant obstacle whenever I considered returning to the unfinished novel. Those 40,000 words were filled with numerous altered storylines, constant character name changes and too many author notes (in red text). Then there were the endless questions I’d asked myself (again in red text) whenever I was stuck on a plot point or couldn’t decide upon character motivation. Each time I mustered the courage to open the latest document, I would feel daunted by the vast amount of work that I faced just to produce a first draft. Even my ‘chapters bible’ was hopelessly outdated. I found myself reading through a few chapters and feeling overwhelmed by the immense effort needed to untangle the mess I’d created.

Ultimately, it took an enormous amount of willpower to force myself to wade through everything and craft a workable plot. I deleted large chunks of writing and saved them in a separate document, just in case. Then I sat down at my computer and started writing.

Does the project still excite us?

This is the million dollar question.

I was clearly still excited by Halter Necks and Cocky Elbows (the working title of Run Free). I also have two other longtime projects which I really want to finish: a half-written screenplay about Oliver Lodge and Victorian spiritualism and a screenplay based in Cornwall during WW2. As there’s no self-publishing option for screenplays, I’m probably wasting my time, but these projects continue to excite me and I want to resurrect and finish them.

An earlier project I won’t be overhauling is the Mills & Boon novel I wrote in 1995. Stormy Lady features protagonists Rhiannon Jenkins and Morgan Pryce-Thomas and takes place almost entirely on a yacht sailing from an unnamed Canary Island to Wales. I still have the printed manuscript. The rejection letter seems to have gone astray, but I remember the gist of it: my novel was well-researched but it lacked the ‘emotional punch’ Mills & Boon were looking for.

Starting with a blank canvas

Oh, the joy of starting afresh with a new project.

While my A5 diaries wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, they are a pretty good indicator of when I do something. I started jotting down ideas for Run Far on 18 June and started the first draft on 3 July. At some point between those two dates, I wrote a 9,000-word synopsis of the storyline. I have now completed eight chapters and am midway through chapter nine. Some things are bound to change as I get new ideas and go through the editing process, however I’m pretty happy with the overall storyline so my aim is to keep going until the book is finished.

Beginning with a clean slate has been wonderfully liberating. I’ve learned from my previous mistakes and now use two separate documents for chapter planning and writing. Rather than pose questions in the manuscript, I will determine a way forward there and then – the beauty of a first draft is that anything, indeed everything can be changed in future versions.

The end

I guess what my friend and I were debating was whether we should honour our earlier writing efforts and finish those abandoned projects? At one time, I’d probably have answered ‘yes’ – perhaps because my mother always called me a flibbertigibbet (I spent the first half of my life proving her right and the second half determined to demonstrate she was wrong).

Every writer reaches the point when pursuing a new idea has far greater appeal than sticking with what they’re currently working on. It’s the reason we all have those abandoned projects, but it doesn’t mean all half-finished writing work merits renewed attention.

The world moves on. Resurrecting an old piece of writing isn’t always worthwhile, even if you’re prepared to put in the effort. Many issues and themes can date a piece of writing to the extent that it becomes uninteresting or irrelevant to modern readers. Characters created in the 1990s will have different motivations to modern characters. Let’s face it, in 2024, Rhiannon would probably throw Morgan overboard rather than allow herself to be kidnapped by him.

We writers grow and mature too. I am not the young mother of 26 years ago. I am a grandmother of three, with many more life experiences under my belt.

So will I be breathing life into more of my unfinished short stories, manuscripts and screenplays? I think it’s unlikely, although for some strange reason I seem unable to toss Stormy Lady’s 206 printed pages into the wastebin – even if it’s where they belong.

You can find out more about Anna’s novel, Mexican Interlude, by visiting her website at: https://www.annaalcott.com