In November 2016, I stood on the beach at Destin, Florida, and got my first look at the Gulf of Mexico. It was awe-inspiring beyond description, the first time I had seen the ocean in my life. I thought about the water I stood in was the same water that had been for millions of years, and how tens of thousands of years of human travelers had gazed upon the infinite horizon.
Then I thought, “The first person to get in a boat and sail toward nowhere was freaking crazy.”
That’s what it’s like (at least for me) to write a book. You’re staring out at all the stories that have ever been told since we sat around fires in caves and shared stories of the last hunting expedition knowing that yours is nothing more than another drop in the ocean…then you get into that small boat and start paddling for the horizon.
The very idea of writing a book borders a bit on madness. First of all, you have to have a bit of a God complex. You will, after all, be creating an entire universe out of your imagination. You’ll create characters for whom you’ll plot out grand adventures with noble motives, but if you’re honest, they’ll act like real people and do what they want instead of what you want.
You’ll get lost…a lot. You will find yourself in the middle of an endless sea of words, not knowing which direction you should go. Storms will also arise all of a sudden, seemingly ending weeks or months of work as you realize this was not what you intended—these characters won’t act the way you want them to if they are to be honest and real (and you have to be honest and real, or you might as well be working for the government), and those complex plot diagrams are now as worthless as used tissues.
But on some days—many days, really, if you keep rowing and turn your sail into the wind—you will enter a magical realm in which your imagination seems to have a life and a power of its own, and you’ll be less of a writer than a reporter, a careful observer who takes pains to accurately record each word as it is spoken, to describe the setting an action so vividly a reader will think she’s there beside you. When you go back later to review the words, they will surprise you, as if you’re reading the story for the first time, and you won’t remember writing it down at all.
This is why I write—for the rush of the experience when I fall into the story and I become nothing more than a willing conduit for the Muse to add a little more water to the ocean. If you don’t give up, you will reach a destination. There is no final destination, I’ve discovered. There are morose, tedious little villages of revision, editing, and proofreading along the coast, its dour denizens endlessly arguing about Oxford commas and plural indefinite pronouns. These places must be visited again and again.
If you’re fortunate enough to win the attention of an agent or publisher, you will go on a different journey, but that’s not one I’ve been invited on yet. Mine is still a solo adventure, although if you’re reading this, you’ve become part of the world I created because you accepted my invitation. I’ve taken this journey twice, and I’m making preparations for the third time at sea. You’re all more than welcome to come along…
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