A Brief Intermission
I had something else planned to write this week, but I wanted to take a moment and appreciate everything up to this point.
I’ve looked to the future my whole life with this romantic idea of eventually being a writer, sitting in my home office and working on a story. For so long, that seemed impossibly out of reach. I wasn’t inspired or motivated to ever write, and I was too focused on all the things in life that were holding me back from accomplishing this vision. But I also didn’t believe in my writing. Anything I started, I didn’t finish, because that initial excitement about it fizzled quickly.
So when I decided to start writing this story that I’d been mulling over in my mind for almost a decade, it was my last ditch effort. I knew that if I went for this fully, and I couldn’t do it or see it through, then that would be the end. I would move on from that dream I’d carried with me forever, and find a new dream.
It’s taken a couple of years to get into a groove. I started in 2017 by writing a synopsis and outline for National Novel Writing Month. It was the first time I’d truly written in years, and I spent all my 50,000 words on mapping out the chapters, just letting my mind explore by writing without planning it out too much. I needed to get to the essence of the story, to figure out what it was I wanted to say. Not the characters and the places, or the events that would happen, but what was the real story I wanted to tell? That first NaNo took a lot out of me, and I didn’t revisit everything I’d written until late summer in 2018.
As NaNo 2018 approached, I worried that it would be the end to what I was trying to accomplish. I’m a highly type A personality and I tend to take deadlines or rules seriously. I don’t like being late, I don’t like not finishing a goal. So, I was worried that I would be too focused on just getting to those 50,000 words, than to really focus on WHY I was doing NaNo. I know myself, and knew that I would be forever disappointed in myself if I didn’t reach that goal, but I also didn’t want to waste the opportunity to make writing a priority.
Luckily, as November drew nearer, I was reignited with excitement about the story that I had started exploring the year before. I spent a lot of time sitting down and doing research, filling out some of the details and hard facts of the story. I worked on some character studies, and mapped out a chapter by chapter outline. The last thing to do, was the writing.
I struggled last November to find the balance between getting my daily words, while also making good progress on the story. I told myself that the words didn’t need to be beautiful, they just needed to be a map. The feeling of getting those 50,000 words, and knowing that each one was valuable to the process of getting this story written, was more than satisfying, more than rewarding. It lit the fire within me that has fueled every moment since.
Some days, I’ve poured every molecule of energy I have into research and writing. I’ve gotten headaches, gotten frustrated, and gotten a little off track. But there hasn’t been a single moment of doubt that what I’m doing isn’t exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.
I’m only now reaching the halfway point of having the actual book written and ready for editing, but I already feel so accomplished with what I’ve achieved. The only concerns I have so far, are that I’ve put in too many details, because I’m so in love with the story, it’s characters and it’s world, that I want to put in every moment, every detail. I’ve unwrapped this amazing world that’s been evolving inside me, coming on my life journey with me for so many years, that it’s bursting from me every moment of every day.
With all the excitement and forward motion I’ve had, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for it all to be yanked out from under me. All it could take would be realizing I’d missed a huge plot hole, or jumbled up some characters that could never be disentangled. But one of the most truly amazing things I’ve experienced through it all, has been the magical way that every tiny detail has fallen into place with ease, even the mistakes.
When you work on a piece of fiction, sometimes it has a way of taking over and you get a little off track, wandering down avenues that unravel the story. It can be hard to come back from that, to find your way back to the original path. And this story has been no different, but every time I find myself just writing, diverting away from the map I had created for myself, it’s made it better. I’ve come to feel like a tool for this story that has taken on its own life. I am no longer the author, but the transcriber as the characters have come to life, gaining their own voices and telling me what to say. Random details I’ve thrown in at the start, have uncovered themselves to be vastly important pieces to the whole puzzle. And anytime I’ve had to cast about for a solution to a hole, the answer has been thrust upon me.
I’ve told my husband countless times that this is a fictional story about a world of magic that I’ve created, but the magic isn’t fictional anymore, it is alive every moment that I spend exploring it. I’ve never had a project come together so effortlessly, so flawlessly. Yes, it has been a lot of work, but is it really work if you love every second?
There’s still a lot of work to do, and the finish line is still months away, but rather than looking at the path before me and feeling daunted or burnt out, I feel exhilarated, and excited to see what other mysteries there are to uncover.
The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.
Willam H. Gass
