Breaking Shot
An unbroken game of pool is chock-a-block with chaos waiting to occur. The playable patterns in that chaos can’t be revealed until the cue ball collides with the racked and orderly set of pool balls. Putting all those potential angles and ricochets into motion is very much like starting a new writing project. There you sit, looking after your own business with an already overwrought to-do list, when out of nowhere, an idea breaks into the creative order of your mind. You sense possibilities careening in every direction. You grab a pen. You take notes. The game has begun.
In this breaking-shot way an idea struck while I was away at a writing retreat. Unusual that, as almost every idea for my writing has come to me when I am scrubbing a bathtub and am elbow-deep in suds of scouring powder. This time, however, the Muse landed with sparklers, pom-poms, and a bang as I was doing nothing more than enjoying the silence.
“Listen up,” the Muse said. “Where’s your notebook? I’ve brought your next novel.”
You sense possibilities careening in every direction. You grab a pen.
Within an hour, I had a broad-stroke design—premise; plot; narrators; characters—sketched out in that notebook. I spent the whole of that hour whining at the Muse under my breath. Not now, dammit. Five years of writing the last one, the one I just finished? Remember that one? I need down time. I’m tired.
“Too bad,” my multi-voiced metaphor for inspiration intoned. “You’ve got work to do and let’s face facts, you’re not even an autumnal chicken anymore. Less whining and more writing.”
Not so fast, I say, taking the risk of arguing with the source of my ideas. You’ve been wrong before. You could be wrong now.
“Prove it,” they say, amused.
To get that proof, I run the idea by a trio of trusted writing friends, certain they will disabuse me, along with the Muse, of any illusion that this idea is a book in the works. Alas, my friends think it’s fabulous. All I can think about is the current cost of paper and printer ink.
The Muse is right. I protest too much. This isn’t a bad problem to have. Please accept my apologies for whining.
In my many years of writing, a moment of true inspiration is rare, like having a tiny unicorn alight in your hand. The creature is so enchanting with its glittery-lace wings that you forget the danger. Unicorns have those pointed horns for a reason—to prod you into paying attention. Inspiration is an obligation to work your fingers and heart and mind down to the bony bottom in the attempt to do that little miracle justice. The good news is you don’t do it alone.
If writing experience teaches anything, it teaches the absolute certainty that a great idea requires the efforts of many good people to realize its full reach. Those people in my life stand ready and willing to lend their support and skills. They believe I can do this thing.
I guess I’m doing this thing.
Consider this your invitation to watch the marathon of chaos that is bringing a novel into being. Join me here for the weekly updates and the low-downs of turning an idea into a book while, simultaneously, trying to find publication for the finished new one. In other words, the story behind the story: outlining; first draft; research; revisions; critiques. I’ll share the obstacles and victories, small as they may be. I’ll complain about lack of time to write amidst a myriad of other obligations. Guaranteed, I’ll quit. Frequently. My friends will listen and nod sympathetically as I decry why this project is impossible. They’ll then say, “Okay. Now go write something.”
And I will.
Writing Exercise
Write about a moment of true inspiration in your life. How did it reveal itself? It needn’t be in writing or other creative space. How do you imagine your version of the Muse—if you have one? If you could choose a moment to be visited by real inspiration, where would you want it to show up and in what form?
Photo by Norbert Braun on Unsplash