Angst and the Six-Year Project by Peter Aronson

By: Peter Aronson

After six years of writing a book and allowing it to dominate too much of my life, a little self-reflection and questioning is in order. What did I learn from this experience? Did I enjoy it? And would I do it again, allow one project to drag on for so long?

I learned a lot from writing Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma: The United States of Anthropocene, a middle-grade novel about kids fighting global warming. I learned that despite my best intentions, despite following my heart-felt passion by researching and writing a kids’ novel about an essential topic, it led me down a black hole, into a writer’s abyss that created an unfortunate dilemma: prospective agents and publishers didn’t feel the same way I did about the subject.

A futile chase … a waste of time? 

I created a 13-year-old character who knows right from wrong better than most adults and, in 2030, decides to tackle the biggest problem the world has faced. A classic David v. Goliath epic, with the future of the world on the line.

Yet agents and publishers didn’t see it that way, despite a starred review in Kirkus Reviews that called the book “A scathing work and an essential blueprint for youth battling climate change.” And Publishers Weekly’s BookLife Prize giving it the highest possible rating, 10 out of 10, naming it a quarter-finalist in its annual fiction contest, and calling it “well-written in language easily accessible to middle-grade readers.”

This was all good news, made me feel great, but I still felt the sting of rejection. And I wondered, what had I missed?

Should I add dragons or flying broomsticks? 

My book did not contain dragons or mythical spells or dystopian fiction with the characters slinging arrows from bows, or flying around on broomsticks, nor did my characters eat cockroaches or zombies, or, for that matter, each other, to survive. Was that my failure?

I created a new New York, less extreme, less off the charts, with zig zagging canals, palm trees and cactus gardens, a Wall Street under water, deadly hail storms and even deadlier hurricanes, and a park filled with climate refugees. But perhaps I didn’t go far enough, didn’t think clearly through the story lines to find a more commercial path. Perhaps I could have sold the book if I created a New York City with millions of people living entirely underground, below the subway tunnels, below the riverbeds, living in the dirt, the rock, the muck, the raging heat forcing New Yorkers to live underground with the rats, and surviving only by cutting through the Hudson River bedrock and fishing from under the river, instead of above it?

Perhaps I didn’t go far enough. So do we write to appeal to agents and publishers, or do we just write and write and go where our hearts and minds take us — and to heck with the agents and publishers?

Frustrated by rejections over the years, I chose to self-publish. Truth be told, I never sent the current, published version to agents or publishers. I was just too fed up. Chasing agents and publishers is emotionally draining and incredibly time consuming. I had decided I had had enough and was not going to do it again.

Having fun yet?

Despite all the time, the angst and the countless revisions, did I enjoy this experience? The truth is, I loved it. A writing teacher once told my class, “To be a writer, you have to love the process.” By the process, she meant the rewriting …. and rewriting …. And, you guessed it, the rewriting.

I apparently can’t get enough of the process. My more than 20 drafts of Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma is proof of it.

Part of the reason for so many rewrites and six years of time is because of circumstance, and part of it was because I could not let go.

“Letting go” is a writer’s dilemma. At some point a writer needs to say, to him or herself: enough is enough. Stop rewriting. Be done with it. Writing is the most imperfect of endeavors. You can always change a word, improve a sentence, or make another point. Always. But at some point, at the risk of emotional peril, some might say extreme emotional peril, a writer needs to rip the pages out of the typewriter, or, probably, just stop typing and hit send.

For me, I kept rewriting until I finally shouted at myself: This book is driving me slightly crazy, imperiling my emotional well being, so it’s time … that was probably about six months ago. It was time to let the baby go, put it to bed, say bye, bye, auf wiedersehen.

A changing world, a tough act to follow

Part of letting go also meant coming to the realization that world events on such an important subject would always be shifting. No matter how many changes I made to my manuscript, I could never keep up.

In 2015, when I began this novel about kids fighting global warming, Obama was president, it appeared Hillary Clinton would succeed him and the fight against global warming was making progress. And Greta Thunberg and the other heroic teen climate activists were not on the world stage yet. I began writing the book.

As the years went by, Thunberg and many others became front and center, and a new U.S. administration took over. The effort to fight climate change was making headlines, but the U.S. and it seemed other parts of the world were going backwards on the issue.

We were moving towards 2020. I felt I had to adjust my story. I had created young teen activists in my book in 2015, and now in the real world, they were a dominant force.

My story, in some ways, reflected too much reality. I felt unsettled with my work. I had first set the story in 2025, but as time ticked, I pushed my story to 2030. And I saw time and again that in the real world, despite all the protests and scientific reporting about the dire climate and what it foretold for our planet, it seemed like the fight was teetering.

So I decided to keep my characters and again adjust my story. And I kept adjusting my story, until I decided, finally, that enough was enough. I could not keep up with world events. I was confident enough that I had created an interesting, compelling story, a mix of real science and science fiction, with unique fictional, teen characters. I decided it was time to get the book out there.

Is six years too long?

My last question is – Would I get involved in a six-year project again? My answer is, hopefully not. But I honestly can never say never. I follow my passion and write what moves me.

Although I also wrote other books and articles during this six-year period, I did let my devotion to Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma get out of hand. The revisions and continuous research in a constantly shifting story got to me.

Sometimes I felt I couldn’t escape the story. Other times I felt I had to run away from it, get out from under its wrath. I know that revisions are part of the process, and that sometimes I thrive in that environment, but I also know, now, that revision after revisions can, if it carries on for too long, become an unhealthy process, really an unhealthy compulsion. I’ve realized perfection is impossible. In fact, imperfection is the rule, the norm in writing.

It doesn’t mean you should omit something you love or keep something you hate. But it does mean knowing when and where to sensibly draw the line, knowing when you have reached a level of satisfaction and accomplishment that the book is good to go. It doesn’t have to be perfect to go, just good to go.

So here’s a new year’s cheer to knowing when to say enough is enough, good to go, knowing when you’re ready to stop typing and click send.

About Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma

Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma: The United States of Anthropocene is a middle-grade novel about young teens fighting to stop global warming.

The story unwinds in 2030 as The Biiiig Heat, the new global warming, is suffocating and swamping earth, causing death, destruction and mayhem like never before.

The only choice is KRAAP – KIDS REVOLT AGAINST ADULT POWER. Adults screwed up, Mandalay and her pals have to fix the problem.

There’s a march on Washington unlike any other. There’s cat and mouse with hundreds of armed soldiers. And then there’s rapping in the Oval Office to a captive president. With five billion people watching, these kids aren’t leaving until they get what they want.

It’s a middle-grade novel for our tumultuous, troubled and overheated times, for kids who care about the future.

Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma: The United States of Anthropocene is available through Amazon, IngramSpark, and at select book stores around the country. (paperback, ISBN 978-1-7320775-3-9; and ebook, ISBN 978-1-7320775-2-2)

About Peter Aronson

Peter Aronson is a former award-winning legal affairs journalist, a former attorney in New York City, and now he writes children’s books, short stories and essays.

Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma is Aronson’s most recent book.

Previously, Aronson had published two middle-grade biographies in his Groundbreaker Series, books about extraordinary individuals doing extraordinary things: BRONISLAW HUBERMAN: FROM CHILD PRODIGY TO HERO, THE VIOLINIST WHO SAVED JEWISH MUSICIANS FROM THE HOLOCAUST was published in 2018. JEANNETTE RANKIN: AMERICA’S FIRST CONGRESSWOMAN was published in 2019. Both books contain dozens of historic photographs.

Upcoming in 2022 … Aronson and co-author Shep Messing, a former U.S. soccer star, U.S. Olympian and now broadcaster for the New York Red Bulls, will publish their trilogy of soccer novels for middle-grade readers. The books are about Teresa Rodriguez, a young teen who learns about life on and off the field when her father is suddenly deported and she must juggle family responsibility, team leadership, friendships and her love for the game. It’s a young teen’s saga for our complex and troubled times.

For more information about Aronson’s books, please see www.peteraronsonbooks.com

All books are available on Amazon and at IngramSpark.

Email: peteraronsonbooks@gmail.com

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