What's In Your Locker?

[Terence]

Every so often I look at stuff I started writing but never finished.

What's in your back locker? Is it full of unfinished stuff? How did it get there? Will you ever go back to it? Have you any really, really excruciating stuff that mustn't see the light of day? (no naughty answers please)

[Karen]

I've got some elderly manuscripts in the loft - they did the rounds of agents years ago, so that's that. I'm still fond of a couple of them though. I did a bit of a cull recently so a lot of paper has been recycled. Prob the best thing for it!

[Alicia]

I have 1) a finished mystery novel (my first), which needs some rewriting to make the first third a little easier. One of these days. And half of its sequel.

2) a full-length play I wrote for my daughter. Needs to get performed, published - some rewriting.

3) some short stories available on my site, but not cleaned up and made ready for sale.

All I need is time - they are all retrievable. But I won't have time until the middle and last book of the Pride's Children mainstream trilogy are finished and published. And that may take me 2-5 more years.

I learned 'back locker' today. Thanks. I am used to hearing 'trunk novel' for these, as writers used to (apocryphally?) store their unfinished work in a trunk.

[Terence]

Karen wrote: "I did a bit of a cull recently so a lot of paper ..."

A cull always sounds harsh. Currently I'm facing one - no more room for all my oddments of the past half century or so. Ouch!

[Terence]

Alicia wrote: "may take me 2-5 more years..."

I notice Pride's Children comes in 500 pages plus. Sounds to me to be in excess of 150k words. Pretty substantial — I can understand novels that long taking some time to complete. Phew!!
My current offering (The Tau Device) at 87k words, took 8 months just to get to draft.

[Jane]

Now that's a question! Never much thought about all the poor little orphaned pieces I have abandoned.

This thread gave me a shove and I had a look. There's lots and some of it is just plain shocking....

But there are one or two bits I may even revisit.

Thanks Terence.

[Lisa]

One horror novel two thirds through, another started thirty years ago and abandoned after chapter three, two short stories not finished, three plays written many years ago for radio and on the frontburner, several orphan poems and one novel just started.

[Kelly]

Haunting my back locker are a witchcraft fantasy (about 40,000 words in), all outlined as a trilogy but I won't get round to it until I finish at least one more murder mystery.

There's also a finished historical romantic mystery that will probably never see the light of day and another that is outlined but only around 20,000 words in, plus an action thriller, about halfway drafted but outline in place. And some other outlines and scribbles that will probably stay just as they are! I def jumped around a lot from idea to idea.

[David]

I'm slowly going through a process of unpublishing my earlier stuff and putting it back in the locker.

Once it is all in there, I'll probably throw away the key.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Is it Davy Jones' Locker?

[David]

Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "Is it Davy Jones' Locker?"

No, it belongs to Micky Dolenz.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

David wrote: "Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "Is it Davy Jones' Locker?"

No, it belongs to Micky Dolenz."

LOL!!