Be Bad To Be Good

Any writer worth his or her salt has written bad stuff.  I know some people believe that someone of Stephen King's or Harry Turtledove's prowess just churns out masterpiece after masterpiece fresh from the computer as they type, but that's simply not reality, and successful writers will be the first ones to tell you so.

I personally have three novels written that will never see the light of day, and a fourth that requires some serious re-writes before publication.  My very first full length novel, On Freedom's Wings, was a novel I'd played around with for year and which I was convinced, upon completion, would be my ticket to the big time.  Looking back at it over 20 years later, I'm pretty embarrassed by it.  It's little more than a cheap Star Trek ripoff, right down to a Scottish engineer(something I didn't pick up on until long afterward...I patterned the character after a buddy of mine who had Scottish heritage, and it honestly never occurred to me the parallels with Scotty from Star Trek).  The physics were laughable, the battle sequences forced, and the moral lessons ambiguous at best(and horrifying at worst).  It will stay tucked away somewhere far away from prying eyes.

The Onyx Cluster and Fight Or Flight will similarly stay out of the public eye.  The Onyx Cluster was based on a dream I once had and is just weird.  It also spun completely out of control, with characters rushing off to small towns in NC, resistance groups showing up in time loops, and the super-scary villains being more cartoony than frightening.  The whole book was supposed to be based on mood, and it never got there.  All it really showed me is that my mind, and my writing, will go to scary places if left unchecked.  And Fight Or Flight, intended originally to be a prequel to Homecoming, started out okay but went down unrealistic paths with a protagonist I ended up hoping died in the end.  Maybe one day as a re-write(much like my sequel to Akeldama), but people who read it would likely never read my stuff again.  Yes, it's that bad.

None of this is to say I regret writing those putrid pieces off garbage.  I learned a lot from them, and I'm trying to apply those lessons as I go forward.  Lessons like...
        - don't rush
        - check your outline to make sure it matches the vision
        - don't be afraid to re-write whole sections when they're bad; many written words doesn't justify badly written story
        - think through what you write; does it make sense?
        - get beta readers early who will tell you if you've gone off the rails

So although bad books hurt, they hopefully lead to better ones from you down the road.  Just make sure you quality control yourself so you don't show the general public that which will turn them from you forever.