Okay, so leading off with a bad joke—and subsequent necessary apologies to J.K. Rowling—may not be the most promising start to a blog entry. And yet . . . here we are . . . I’ve no doubt some of my previous entries began worse than this! (REALLY don’t need you to agree here!!) Still, I’ve experienced a problem recently and wanted to share it, and its apparent resolution, with you all. Mostly because I’m convinced it’s a rare—though still somehow common—human experience, yet one that we can easily take for granted.
Most of you know, by now, that I’m working on my second fiction novel, and have been writing it in fits and starts, when time and inspiration permit, for over a year-and-a-half now. You’ll be glad (I hope) to know that I’m in the final stage of the first draft, hastening along the editing and eventual publishing process. I won’t be so bold here as to predict a release date . . . but its coming.
This one has been a tremendous challenge to write, primarily because the main character is the kind of person you have to report to the authorities immediately upon meeting. Not least of which because he probably stole something from you! That said, the challenge has been extremely enjoyable, in part because the story is cast in an historical setting I love. Also, because getting inside the head of this character requires examining the depths of human psyche for those dark thoughts and intentions that “good guys” avoid, or at least keep well-suppressed.
Anyway, I’ve had a terrible time, lately, trying to figure out how to get from where I am in the story to where I KNOW I want it to end within the desired page count for this book. In fact, looking back at my original outline, recently, I realized I had about another million pages to write before the story, as conceived, is well and fully told. Having not set out to write a sequel to “War and Peace”, this was unsettling, but I was just having a really hard time making the connection between the existing and desired plot segments without a TON of more writing. In case you’re wondering, this situation doesn’t exactly inspire one to put the time in banging on plastic keys! Especially true since writing relies upon whatever spare time my current duties and family allow.
Now let me back up for a second and explain why this was creating problems for me. I’m a soldier, pure and simple, and have been since 1990. That my heart was military a good fifteen or so years before that can be well-attested by family and friends going way back into the days of Pinto cars, big hair, and shirt collars with a large enough wingspan to generate lift under the right wind conditions! What did I know about writing a novel, or telling a story? But I’ve always been willing to learn new things, and so when I found, to my surprise, that my writing as a form of stress-relief while deployed to Afghanistan was turning into a full-blown fiction novel, I started ordering and reading books on . . . well . . . how to write books.
Apparently there are, I learned, many ways to physically write a fictional story, but two predominant schools of thought prevail. One is more formulaic in nature, wherein a full and very detailed outline is drafted, intended to help the less analytical, more creative author, stay on track. The other, is virtually the opposite, counting on the author’s inherent creativity to take a story where it needs to go without the restrictions imposed by an outline. Both schools have their strong adherents, and as I said, there are many books out there, ironically, on how to write books!
As with most attempts by me or anyone else to place a human being into a box for easy labeling and identification, I found pretty quickly I didn’t exactly fit into either one of those two schools, but rather draw from both. I sit down and draft an outline, and generally follow it, but am more than willing to deviate—even drastically at times—while actually doing the writing itself. For me, the drafting of an outline is, while useful as an azimuth check or compass heading, simply devoid of the creativity that will bring the world I’m writing to life. That seems to only happen while “in the zone” so-to-speak and so I generally allow creativity to overrule format in my fiction writing, and was pretty happy with how that turned out for “Persian Blood”.
That said, this time the gap between outline and creativity was widened by the subject itself. The outline for an historical fiction novel points in the direction of initial research, a period of time that in this case dragged on far longer than anticipated as my knowledge of Republican Rome was far less comprehensive than I’d imagined. But chances are high that my misconceptions were colored by the same pop-historical accounts and movies as yours, and so far more description of key elements of the setting had to be included than I’d expected. While I think this greatly enriched the texture of the story, it also drew out the page count as I went. Now, when I should be writing into the climax, I found I was still a long way from having properly set the stage for that critical event.
I’ve agonized over this for the past month and a half, really, wracking my brain for a way ahead. Preferably a way that leads to the ending I so dearly wanted for this novel! And yet, for weeks and months . . . nothing. Still, with a long weekend in celebration of President’s Day, I sat down to work this morning, ignoring that 500-lb gorilla in the room, focusing instead on ending the scene I was currently writing.
“Scorpion King” playing in the background as always (I still can’t for the LIFE of me explain why that movie helps me write!!), and well into my second cup of coffee, I was struck by an epiphany. The way ahead, without any warning, just opened up clear as day—and I began typing furiously!
Have you ever experienced anything like that? Where the solution to a problem that’s just dogged you for a long time suddenly and without any apparent trigger becomes crystal clear. I wasn’t consciously thinking about connecting the dots—I was full-on occupied with whatever my main character Fulvius would do with his elderly captives. Similarly, there was nothing new in this morning’s playing of that old Dwayne Johnson movie than the thousand times I’ve watched or heard it previously. Yet somehow, the answer was there and I felt . . . well . . . elated.
Isn’t that one of the best feelings in the world? When the answer to your problem just forms before you—without any real effort on your part—and the way clears like the sun burning off the morning fog. The feeling’s intense, and has infused me with the strongest desire I’ve had in months to dig in, find the time, and crank this baby out!
All this to say, I guess, that you’re never out of the fight till you pull yourself out of the fight. Epiphany hits you when least expected . . . otherwise it’d simply be called “coming up with a good idea”. And yet when it strikes—with all the suddenness and unpredictability of a bolt of lightning—it ignites you with all the energy needed to carry out whatever daunting task lays before you. This is what ultimately makes epiphany different. It charges the spirit and soul in a way that simply coming up with a logical solution cannot.
So, when life presents problems seemingly difficult to overcome, don’t give up. Stay in the fight. Keep working on those things you can do in the meantime that bring you closer to your goal. But never rule out the possibility that epiphany can strike at any time and carry you across the finish line in a way you simply never expected.
M. G. Haynes