Process

In the beginning, I write for me.

Sometimes I begin because of a moment--because a slice of light or a loaded phrase or a little passage of time takes my breath away and I want to describe it, which is another way of saying that I want to possess it, I guess, or that I don’t want to forget it, or that I want to look deep into its center and know something about it.

Other times, I begin with a question. Why would a person? How could I? What if it happened this way?

I was going to say that the novel I’m working on began with a question, but as I typed that, I reached back into my memory for verification and discovered that the question emerged early but not at the very beginning. At the very beginning was simply a drive to tell the story.

There are moments of worth; there are questions that want answers, but what comes to me first is voice. I tend to write first person narrative because it’s the narrator’s voices that I hear first. I feel them like a pressure in my heart and they will not rest until I dictate for them.

In the early drafting stages, the narrators and I live in this floating rule-less world and the only thing that matters is getting thoughts and images on to paper. It’s all white hot excitement and it’s a mess and I can’t really see it but I love it unconditionally.

There’s this moment in my writing process when I start to believe that what I’m writing is the greatest thing that’s ever been written. Shortly thereafter comes the realization that it’s complete rubbish, doesn’t work and is going to have to be picked apart and put back together and that the best I can hope for is the survival of a couple of paragraphs. After that comes the putting-it-away and pretending-it-doesn’t-exist.

This down time is important. During the down time, the idea of someone else’s eyes on the work is unthinkable. I don’t consider it; I don’t mull it over; I go on as if it never existed. I want nothing to do with it. Something happens during this time outside of my awareness. It’s as if there’s a little room in the back recesses of my head or my heart and little writery people set up shop there and with graphs and charts and photo albums. They brew pots and pots of coffee and stay up all night and laugh and talk, but mostly they are rigorous and they figure things out. I know nothing about this. I go about my business of eating and resting and not considering the work at all while they come up with solutions and make lists of things that need to go.

Slowly, I come back to it. I hear it start to call to me again and I begin to consider that maybe I will take another look.

Then, I can see it with new perspective. I feel both a freshness and a distance. I know what needs to be done and I set about to do it. This can mean huge sweeping changes or small tweaks here and there, but it happens in a firey sort of energy. If the beginning stages are dreamlike, this stage is fierceness. I’m both appalled by my earlier mistakes and oversights and energized by the little nuggets of what I got right.

This is the stage I’m in with the novel.

It’s a little bit like craving; it’s slightly maniacal; it’s flowing water and sharp edges. I am removed from it as much as I can be. I am an eye.

I believe that because I have such a primal desire to tell this story, there must be one other person in the universe who needs to hear it.

Now, I write for that person.

Comments

[Mary Ann]

I need to hear it.

Looking forward to hearing your inner voice upon the completion of your novel.

(You have a wonderful voice).

[Cynthia]

I really like the imaginary little "writery people" brewing coffee. I hope there's a place in the back of my head, too, where something's getting done!

[Kate Robertson]

I can't wait to be able to read it so in a sense you are writing for me. I am sure there a whole lot more of us out here too.