Month: May 2019

Magical writing

PeterLeave a comment

There are many things in writing that appear pretty random but almost certainly aren’t. I’ve taken a stab at trying to figure out where stories come from, but I don’t really know. One day, they’re just there, though you can bet they’ve probably been a long time coming.

That’s how it was with the story I’m working on now. One day, I woke up, and it was in my head. It came pretty complete. I didn’t have all the details, but the frame was all there.

I remember I wandered into work pretty much like any other day. I got my coffee and mentioned it to my offsider. He looked at me, his head tilted, figuring out the story in his head as I told him of it. Then he nodded his head. “That’s a good story,” he said.

I was still working on my first book then, so I shoved the idea into the stories to write part of my brain.

Generally, when I have a novel like this in my head, I’ll have the beginning and the end and bits and pieces in between. I’ll know what the story is about and what I want to say, but there will be a lot of gaps in the storyline. It’s like planning a trip from Melbourne to Sydney and knowing you’ve got to go via Upper Kumbucta West or somesuch, but otherwise, you don’t know what route you’ll be taking until you’re in the car driving; what stops you’ll be making, and what’ll happen along the way.

I started writing this one about seven months ago. The first few chapters were clear, and I was happy to let them guide me the rest of the way. There’ve been times occasionally when I’ve felt uninspired and struggling. On one occasion, I had to return to a previous fork in the road and try the other way. Once or twice, I’ve felt so outside the story I felt like shoving it in the bottom drawer as well, come a better day. Naturally, there’ve been moments I’ve doubted the whole enterprise, including my skill as a writer. Who’re you kidding, Peter? You’re just a plodder, mate, get over it…

The thing is, with the sort of writing I do, while it’s important to have a good plot, it’s really about the ideas. I’m not motivated by seeing my name in lights or my book in every store. I’d love to make a fortune, but, yeah, nah, it’s the ideas I really want to explore. The story is the vehicle for that.

So it was with this story. I started with ideas – themes if you like – but they’re pretty general initially. While the plot was clear to me, many deeper, underlying themes only became evident as I began to write.

That’s the difference between being inside the story and outside it. Outside, you see the outline of what you figure is a cool idea, but once you get inside the story, it begins to take on its own life. You advance carefully, feeling your way. Many times, you retreat, knowing it’s not quite right. That’s when you sit in front of your screen looking blank while your mind goes a million miles an hour. You feel it, then. It’s heavy and complex, just like people are. While you search your mind – there’s a lot of sheer figuring things out – you can feel it in your gut, too, and your gut doesn’t lie.

You’re searching for truth, but the truth comes from the story, the text, and not anything you impose upon it. By now, the story has its own life. It’s your job to understand and to chart it. I know that sounds a bit of a toss, but that’s how it is. Quite often, I start off writing, thinking it’s about one thing before discovering there’s more to it than that, and my job is to listen well and get it right. There’s a different, more intimate truth you’re after – and there are multitudes in it.

Halfway through writing this, I had a small epiphany. In my spare time, I was reading of Homer, and specifically, of Achilles, the mighty Greek warrior. As I read, I began to discern reflections of my character’s journey in Achilles. It was a surprise, but it excited me too.

In the Iliad, Achilles is nearly invincible. By myth, he was held by the heel as an infant and dipped in a magical pool that made him immune to injury. As an adult, he becomes a proud, somewhat arrogant character, though capable of great complexity. Ultimately – beyond the pages of the Iliad, he will perish victim of his only flaw – an arrow to the heel left unprotected.

But what Achilles doesn’t perish? What if he lives on well after the sacking of Troy and the death of so many mighty? What if he passes into middle age, a warrior of legend but creaking and aching and grey now? His days of might have passed. He has defeated thousands in battle, but in middle age, he has settled into an existence where he wonders what it all means. Looking back, he knows it was real, but it feels distant now as if then he was a different man. It is this he must reconcile.

That’s what my story is, in a way, though inadvertent. It’s modernised, and instead of being a warrior, the protagonist is a once great sportsman.

I’m not far off finishing this novel, though there will likely be a couple of rewrites before I’m happy. The point is I started with an idea, which still holds true, but as I’ve gone along, I’ve found unexpected complexity in it. It’s like the act of writing reveals truths that were always there but hidden from the eye.

In itself, that’s not surprising. Like I say, to write is to go on a journey. What surprises me every time is that I learn from my own words. I sit back and read what I have written and wonder where it came from. There’s depth and knowledge and even a kind of wisdom, or so it appears – and I wonder if I am that man. It feels almost like a form of automatic writing, but I know the effort that has gone into producing it – there’s nothing automatic about it. But it is magical.

I don’t know what it’s like for other writers – I can only ever speak for myself. I know the satisfaction of having written something pretty good and look forward to the day when it is more generally acclaimed. That’s pretty conventional, I think. No one would be surprised at that. But there’s a deeply personal aspect that is just as satisfying, if not more so.

Writing is a form of self-discovery. You go into the depths of yourself and, from the darkness inside, drag up nuggets of truth you didn’t know existed. And while it looks good on the page, you can’t help but reflect on what it says about you. The meaning of us, I suspect, is more profound and complex than we understand. We get few opportunities to see more deeply within, but in writing, I catch a glimpse of that self inside me, both mysterious and somehow holy.

That’s as good as any reason to write that I can think of.

First words

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I’m trying to remember the day I sat down and began writing my first novel. You’d think it would be something you’d remember, like your first kiss or your first day in a real job. But then maybe it’s me. I can’t remember the first time I had sex, let alone my first kiss – as for work, well, that’s a mystery. Likewise, the day I sat before the screen and wrote the first words – I got zilch.

What I can remember is about twenty years ago when the idea for the storyline first popped into my head. I wasn’t looking for an idea, but there it was, and I knew it was good right from the start. There were times in the years after I made juvenile attempts to write the book, all for naught. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready until a day somewhere around four years ago when I decided to get serious and write it. And I did.

It took a long time to write that first book. I had an imagination, and I was okay with words, but putting them together as a novel was a different challenge altogether. Basically, I learned on the job, but I kept going. After I finished the third draft, I figured I had to let go of it and let people read it. Anyone who’s ever written seriously knows how spooky that is.

The good news was that it was well received. I got told I was a great writer, told that it was a fascinating story, told I should go out and get it published, I’d make a mint! Whoa, guys, I said modestly, secretly delighted. Just knowing it wasn’t a total disaster was reason for relief, but I wasn’t buying the superlatives. I knew it was good enough, and I knew it wasn’t great. The response gratified me, but I knew there was a lot of work still to be done. Maybe I was on the right path.

What was more surprising was that many of my readers associated the story with my recent experiences. I’d endured challenging times, and they thought they could read it in my words. Except – as I explained to them – I thought this up years ago, way before any idea that I would suffer such angst. On the surface, it seemed a strange coincidence.

It’s not as simple as that, though. I don’t remember how I thought up the plot in the first place, but figure it was informed by my experience of film noir. I love those old movies. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been more attracted to the flawed anti-hero than the pristine hero, who is generally dull.

I like the darkness of these tales. There’s a complexity to the protagonists. They’re not perfect, but they’re real. Often, they’re stubborn, unwilling to accept what’s been dished up to them, and more aware than everyone else. There’s definitely an existential appeal to these characters, which isn’t for everyone but very definitely was for me.

Oftentimes, these characters are doomed, and the story about their struggle to defy that fate. In a way, that was my story – about a man who sets out on a path not knowing where it would lead him but finding an unexpected opportunity for redemption along the way. And that was the story I thought up then.

When I finally wrote it, it was from today’s perspective, not twenty years ago. In the years between experience had shifted my perspective in general, but recent experience had directly informed the character development and the writing. The book I came to write was different from the book I would have written then, and though I couldn’t see it, there was truth in my friends’ belief that it was my story.

All that was about two years ago: I wrote another draft after their response (I’ve become much more efficient since), and it sits in the bottom drawer of my desk (actually my hard drive), waiting for its final revision. There, it’ll stay until I’m ready to go back to it. I think it’s pretty good, but it can be better. I can’t make it better until I get some distance from it. When you’re writing, you live the story. I imagine it’s a bit like method acting. You’re in the characters and the story and lose all ability to see from the outside.

That’s why I’ve put it aside. I wanted it to settle in me. I hoped I might even forget it a little. At the end of that time, I want to come at it and read it objectively. It’s been sitting in my bottom drawer for the last year and a bit, and I reckon there’s been enough distance for me to come at it clearly. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since, but I haven’t forced anything. I’ve let the thoughts come to me. Right now, that means when I sit down to write the final version, it will be pretty different from what’s there now. It will be more intimate and compact. I’ll simplify it. It will more closely align with the classic film noirs, a personal journey the protagonist must endure and ultimately surmount. That’s the idea.

What’s it about? People ask me, and generally, I tell them it’s a bit of a combo between True Detective and Heart of Darkness. But I can see a bit of Out of the Past in it, too.

I won’t get to it until I finish the book I’m writing now (more on this next post), maybe 2-3 months from now. I’ll be ready, though and looking forward to it.

How I came to write a novel

PeterLeave a comment

I started out writing stories. Later, I wrote a few travel pieces and some essays. I dabbled in some poetry, too, just for the hell of it, but I’m no poet. If it counts for anything, I also wrote a bunch of white papers when I became corporate, and for years, I’ve had a side hustle as a freelance copywriter. And I’ve written plenty of content for the web.

I never took any of it too seriously. I was constantly urged to write more often. People told me I was good at it. Sometimes, I thought I was good at it too. It was easy to do, but it was abstracted in me. Sure, I wrote, I enjoyed it, hell, it was something I needed to do, and I might one day commit to it properly – but I had other things to do as well.

Like so often, it took an unexpected life event to change that. I received a shock to the system, and afterwards, I knew – as I never had before – that existence is precarious and opportunities are finite. I realised that there is an end date to everything and that no matter how gifted you are it matters not one whit if you don’t use what you have. I could let it slide by – that would be easy, after all. Or I could choose to make a stand and do something.

The realisation was scary, but it was also stimulating and fascinating. There was no question what I would do. But even as my resolve stiffened, I found myself drawn into the human mystery of it. Having endured what I had, having journeyed from there to here, I found a great well of material to draw from. I had only to look inside myself to observe the intricacies of human nature, and looking outside, I found reflections of that. I’d always been a good observer, but now I had the insight misfortune rewards you with.

Getting serious about writing meant that I set myself on writing a novel. Till then, that was something I would get around to ‘one day’. In the time before, writing a novel was not something I could conceive of. Writing a story was hard enough. Stories were bloody hard, but at least they were short. I didn’t have the mental stamina to write something as sprawling as a novel – but that was before.

I read a lot of stories. In many ways, they’re harder to write than a novel because you have to be pure in the telling. It has to be a distillation of purpose, which becomes expansive in a novel. A story captures a moment in time, a snapshot of character. The long form of a novel allows for more diverse perspectives. It gives you space to develop both character and story. There’s an arc that encompasses both beginning and end and everything in between.

I was drawn to writing novels because I wanted a broader canvas. As I write this, I’ve finished one book and nearly a second. I can report that it’s not as complicated as I feared. Like most things, once you commit to it, it becomes easier – not easy, it’s still bloody hard – but not impossible, as I feared.

The advantage I have is that I’m disciplined. The ideas come easy. The words are more challenging but manageable. The right words – well, that’s another story. But then, if you sit yourself down and apply yourself day after day, you discover there’s always a way. That’s something else true of life in general.

It’s been nearly four years since I stared at the blank screen and began to type. I’ve learned a lot in that time, and still have much more I can learn, and hope to. It’s been imperfect, but it’s been satisfactory. I’d rather not say it, but it feels like something I was meant to do.

In my next post, I’ll try to explain what I’m writing.

Why this story?

PeterLeave a comment

Why do you write what you write? I often wonder that. It’s not so much where the stories come from, more: why these stories? Why do I write stories of this kind and someone else something completely different?

It can only be how you’re made, how you think and see, how you interact with the world about you. Whatever you write today was likely born many years ago and shaped by experience in the time since. What you write is a product of who you are, and the person you are has been a long time in the making.

We share that in common all of us, whether we write or not. We’re subject to the forces of nature and random chance. Domestic imperatives dictate many of our choices, and capricious personality much of the rest. It’s different for everyone, but everyone has a perspective that evolves with time and experience, whether conscious or not. We take on a bias. We learn, or perhaps we don’t. We see through a subjective lens, and from that, we form attitude – and maybe even philosophy. We each become our own distinct character.

Not all of us write about it, though. It occurs to only very few. I can only speak for myself, but curiosity motivates me to write. I want to explore character. I want to travel back from effect to see the cause, complex and shrouded in mystery it so often is. I don’t pretend to understand, but the act of writing – for me – is a means towards understanding. I write, and often afterwards, I’m surprised at what I’ve written. I’ve written things with more insight than I was aware of as if the act of writing dragged it up from some hidden place in me.

But why the things I write? The answer to that is always personal, which the writing seeks to expose. Once more, there’s a distance between what I know and who my true self is. What I write comes from that true self, up from the depths, uninterpreted. The person who writes of it is like an observer trying to make sense of it. I’m like a witness looking in through a window, trying to untangle what my eyes can see.

It’s imagination that makes a story of that. Experience, that inner, actual being, presents a sense of something you seek to explore through the means of fiction. It’s understanding you seek, and you search for it in deconstructing it into the form of a story.

That’s the process, more or less, or at least the best I can figure it. Why these stories? I don’t know exactly, except that they come from inside me, and it’s my job as a writer to decode them.

To be clear, I do this for myself because I want to understand. It may be different for other writers, but for me, it’s personal. These are mysteries I want to engage in. I feel them in me every day, something rich and sometimes bewildering – but vibrant too, as if it has a pulse and is true. I’m grateful to be the man I am.