In October of 2004, I first started putting into words a story I had conceived a few years earlier. I've had several false starts over the years. I tried telling the story from the third person omniscient, discarded that, tried again from one particular character's pov, discarded that ... nothing seemed to work.
Finally, after all these years, the story is practically writing itself. Even when every day life's annoyances get in the way (get car fixed, go to day job, deal with this, deal with that) the story seems to find a way to get itself into words. I feel like I'm along for the ride on this one.
I'm up to 34,127 words and I have a feeling I'm about three fourths of the way to the end. The strange thing is, I don't feel in a rush to get to the end. I don't feel like it's a challenge I have to complete, or a deadline I have to meet. The way the story is unfolding, I know the end will come soon enough -- and I have a vague idea of what that ending will be -- but I'm not 'dying to get there' as so many people who write novels seem to be.
Nabokov once wrote that he just wants to get this one done and move on to the next one. Asimov said he worked in parallel so that if he didn't have anything for one story his day wouldn't be wasted with 'writer's block'. Instead, he just worked on something else. Henry Miller described something like a combination of those two. Every writer has his or her way of looking at it but I think Bruce Lee wrote something once that would fit well in describing the way this work is coming together.
I think it was in The Tao of Jeet Kun Do (and I'm going from memory here, so please forgive me Bruce Lee fans). He wrote, basically, that when he first started studying martial arts, a kick was just a kick, a punch was just a punch. Then, the more he studied the more he realized that a kick was so much more than just a kick, a punch so much more than just a punch! Finally, though, after mastering all he could, he realized -- a kick is just a kick, a punch is just a punch.
That's exactly how I feel. I know most of the tricks and dangers of writing fiction. I know to avoid the passive, &c. But now, I feel I'm "in the zone."
Going back to Nabokov (I love that guy) -- I remember him writing once that, when he writes, he basically follows his characters around with a pen and a pad.
That's exactly the way I feel right now. I'm exhausted and I want to go to bed, but the story keeps wanting to tell itself to me. What to do!? :)
