Fanning the Flame

Writers need experiences in order to write

The novel creeps its slow way along, growing when I’m not looking, sprouting new plot lines when I have other plans. It isn’t done, and I don’t completely know where it’s going before it will be done. But that’s part of the process.

Coming along

The long rainy weekend posed many challenges.

I read an article over the weekend about a new book on the notebooks of Agatha Christie. They are meandering things, filled with random notes, grocery lists, and other family member’s scribblings. The reviewer expressed surprise at Christie’s non-linear process. How, she wondered, could such a prolific writer be so unmethodical? (And—my aside—still create characters who relied so heavily upon method to solve crimes?) I have to admit I laughed as I read it. I am no Agatha Christie, but my writing style would also appall the reviewer. I, too, sit in the bathtub in the middle of the day, letting my book gestate in the distant recesses of my brain. I, too, am not quite sure what will happen when I start to write, and don’t always know who will turn out to be the pivot on which the story turns. It’s not the way we are told to write novels. But in the end, my plot lines are complex and intertwined in ways I probably couldn’t have planned, and better for it.

Honestly, I derived a great deal of reassurance from that article. When you’re a writer, sitting alone in a room with just your mind, you can begin to lose heart. You forget why you’re there. You don’t have feedback. You begin to doubt. It’s a usual part of the process, but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling. But this time, I am wrestling with something else.

This book is the most difficult I have written. You would have thought that the long isolation of the pandemic would have been the perfect time to complete a novel. Instead, I felt, during the pandemic, that my entire being was wrapped in packing material. I lived in a mostly pleasant lull, the days passing uneventfully, with no contact with the outside world. I slept when I wanted, ate when I wanted, exercised intensively. Our property made it possible for us to live like medieval monks; our mountain aerie was the woods all around us. It was weirdly pleasant, like floating in the lake on a calm day. No pressure, no bustle, no stress. Time fell away.

And yet, it is the pressure, the bustle, and the stress that give a writer the input needed to create, and my book completely stalled. And meanwhile, the way of life we developed during the pandemic became a habit. Yes, I go places, but I don’t routinely go places. My routine is at home, and my sensory input is limited.

After years with a day job, I had been under the impression that days spent unscheduled and uninterrupted were best for my writing. I have been going to great lengths not to allow my schedule to be contaminated by anything but writing. But now I don’t think that’s the right approach, and instead, I see that outside influences are fuel. As an example, I was annoyed with myself for listening to audiobooks, thinking they were just distractions from my writing. But over the weekend, when a new plot line suddenly burst on the scene, I realized it had come from one tiny element of the books I had been listening to. It had accessed an experience I had actually had, and knew a lot about, and suddenly it popped up, unplanned and unbidden, into a new line.

It’s depressing to have nowhere to go and no one to see. It feels as if I have somehow curtailed my life, and certainly limited the breadth and scope of my existence. I am healthy, vital, and free. But I’ve been behaving like an invalid.

So, in the coming week I have specific plans to get myself out into the world to interact, observe, and experience. I will get up early to write first, and then I will participate in life on earth.

We’ll see how it goes. But I’m pretty sure the book will be the better for it.

I’m damned sure I will be.

And now for your gratuitous dog photo:

We should all be as focused on our goals as Auggie. He doesn’t even care that he has a mouthful of leaves.