It's been awhile since I've wrote on here. Luckily, I haven't stopped writing and I've been working diligently on editing two completed novels. It took me awhile, though, to want to get back on here as writing is a beautiful thing but, the process, is unique to each individual. I am rededicated myself to posting more and starting to develop my craft of short story writing but, first, I want to talk about the process, or what I feel is the process, to writing a novel.
The arch of a book: the fostering of an idea, the nurturing of a sense of structure and flow, the relentlessness of description, the investment in the characters and the story;all of this, you would think, leads to a crescendo at the conclusion; a sense of warmth and accomplishment that is indescribable unless you experience it. Most good things seem to be that way and I get that euphoric feeling at the end of finishing a novel but, it is fleeting and passes as quickly as a bird fluttering by a window or one day of a life. If the books any good or, if you feel it's any good I guess, the fleeting euphoric moment is followed by doubt.
I've always had a pestering mind; to the point that I am very self critical. At the end of each novel I have to restrain myself from reading it the next day; from starting to dissect every word and trying to think what someone else will think of it. That's the horrible part about it, too; that you think about how others would feel about it. There's a small part of you, in those first moments of doubt, that doesn't ever want to speak of the novel again or show it to anyone because you're so afraid of their opinion. You want to print it out, bind it nicely and put it on your own book shelf for display so it becomes another thick bundle of paper to impress the eyes of guests. The doubt you have turns into a fright; that you'll never, ever be able to write anything better; that another idea will never come and that you really weren't meant to do any of this.
The emotions that you poured into the novel; the experiences, the lessons, the people; it has become so much apart of you, so much a statement for a period of your life, a unique treasure you possess that you don't want to give it up. You don't want to tear it apart and hang it in the butcher shop window to see who wants to buy. You don't want to do any of this at that moment and, that's why, as I learned from Stephen King in On Writing (if you want to write, it's a requirement to read) that you have to save it, close it, and step away. In order to come back to it six weeks down the road you have to move on. It has to become another fun Saturday night that is recounted every once in awhile over beers and laughs. The novel has to become something you want to come back to in order to ignite the memories of those past experiences; of the time period when you wrote it.
Then, as with any good time had, you want to do one better. You want to take what you've learned, what you've mediated on those six weeks and apply it to the novel. The funny thing is, you'll surprise yourself when you start to read it. You'll reaffirm you're abilities through sentences and descriptions that you swear you couldn't have written. You'll even question how rudimentary the structure sounds and how, with how you're writing now, there was no way you could have wrote like that. That is what will make it better; combining two phases of yourself: the phase when you wrote it and the phase where you digested the growth from it because you even learn from the bad stories; the stories that you don't want anyone to see. You begin to define yourself as a story teller and, when you're done editing, you don't feel the doubt anymore, you don't feel the fright. The only thing you feel is the instinctual human need to tell your story; to show it to the masses.
I more writing I do, the more I reaffirm that I was put on this earth to tell stories; to share experiences and to digest the great world we live in. Sure, some of those stories might not work out or you may not like them but I'm fine with that. The point is they were shared and that we both were impacted in some way by them. It's good to be back here on the blog and, as I rededicate myself to posting more of my work on here, I hope you continue to check back in because I'm just getting started on writing the story of my life.
