The Joy of Throwing Away An Entire Novel

How a 97,000-Word Manuscript Ends Up in the Ditch

June 17, 2015  By Laura Dave - Literary Hub

Shortly after my third novel was published, I started writing a mystery. The mystery grew out of two distinct obsessions. The first was with a news clip. A short news clip of Linda Lay, the wife of disgraced Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, in which she proclaimed her husband’s innocence. The clip was largely forgettable. In that clip though, I saw pathos. I saw hubris. I saw the human range of wishes and wants and denial. For reasons I still don’t quite understand, I couldn’t forget it.

Then there was the bowl. A woodturned bowl I’d received as a wedding present. Before that bowl, I’d known nothing of woodturning: a complicated and difficult art form that involves a woodturner moving wood over a stationary tool in order to shape and design it. I wanted to learn everything about it.

If those divergent preoccupations (turning wood and high-stakes fraud) don’t feel like they naturally coalesce into a compelling and violent mystery novel, you are correct.
And still. To those people who say that you can see things coming? I had no idea that what was coming was 18 grueling months, 97,000 words, and 500 pages of research—all of which I would eventually toss into a recycling bin in northern California, off Highway 12.
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