With my “After the Fall” series doing well, it’s time for me to settle down and write a fourth book in the series. The shift from polishing and marketing back to creative writing is harder than going the other way. When a novel is finished, one has a large sense of accomplishment. After all, it is the culmination of months of work. The polishing seems less difficult as one is working with a completed entity; it has structure, a flow, a culmination. Usually there are only portions that need rewriting. Most of the work is polishing scenes or phrases.
When it’s time to move to the next book, I’m faced with the proverbial “blank sheet of paper”. Yes, I have a story idea but it’s often vague and large parts of the plot are missing. Often the picture I have in mind is fairly deep into the story, so I have to figure out how to get there. That is why I usually have to rewrite the beginnings of my novels. I’m learning to not get too stressed about it because I’ve been able to do that successfully a number of times now. In fact, the only book that didn’t need a rewrite of the beginning was “Uprising”.
Once far enough into the narrative an interesting phenomenon takes place. The story comes to life in a sense. It has enough structure in plot, the characters are formed well enough that their story begins to dictate where I go. Out of the narrative, which I create, emerges a path that guides my further creation. I don’t want to make it sound too metaphysical, but I’ve experienced this in all my books. It’s helpful, having a guide, even a self-generated one. When I get to that point, the story can move faster, the word count goes up in each writing session, the scenes flow, one after the other. (One side effect is that more typos occur since I’m writing faster.)
There are gaps in the plot; It’s not perfect. When they occur, I have to “cast around” again for the path. This usually occurs at transition points, a twist or turn in the plot. Then I have to slog through in faith that I’ll get my momentum back on the other side. All in all, writing is a very interesting as well as demanding process. I hope you enjoy hearing about my perception of this process. It’s probably different for each writer. And this blog is more than my analysis of what I’m doing, it is a way for me to be procrastinating since I’m at that early stage where there is no mome
There are gaps in the plot; It’s not perfect. When they occur, I have to “cast around” again for the path. This usually occurs at transition points, a twist or turn in the plot. Then I have to slog through in faith that I’ll get my momentum back on the other side. All in all, writing is a very interesting as well as demanding process.
I hope you enjoy hearing about my perception of this process. It’s probably different for each writer. And this blog is more than my analysis of what I’m doing, it is a way for me to be procrastinating since I’m at that early stage where there is no momentum going on. So, with that confession, I’ll close and get back to my next “After the Fall” story.
