There’s something totally thrilling about typing out the
first few pages of a new book. Will it
fly? Will it have legs? Will the characters develop well enough to stand by
themselves eventually, and even question their author’s choice of actions for
them? Will the plot come full circle without resorting to some silly deus ex machina loophole, as do so many
bad novels? Or, as often happens, will it peter out after 50 or 100 pages and
be relinquished, with others of its ilk, to the back of the book closet? Every
author has great ideas that came---and went--to naught. It’s part of the trade.
For a writer, a book is a world, and he or she, for all good
purposes, is that world’s creator and god. In time, the writer speaks of the
characters as friends. They have a backstory, if only in the author’s mind, and
their existences, their lives, are certainly more important than those of real
and passing acquaintances. After a while, the book’s development transcends fiction
and becomes reality. Winston Churchill, no slouch in the writing department,
once wrote, “Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an
amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it
becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled
to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”
I have a friend who recently finished writing a novel, and
for months that was all he could talk about. It got to be boring, but necessary.
When you choose to create an entire world, peopled by the men and women forged
by your imagination, and you hold these people’s fates in your hands, well,
what else can you possibly think about? These are your children, the offspring
of your mind’s fancy. Without you they become orphans, purposeless phantasms
blown apart by the slightest breeze.
All this to say I have recently begun writing a new novel,
and I’m excited.
This project is uncharted territory. All I have right now
are three brothers who decid to go into business together. They all have
different expectations on what this partnership will bring. There are some
vague notions attached to the not-yet-conceived plot. There will be love and
humor and sex and conflict, because that’s what books are made of. Hopefully,
the brothers will develop minds of their own and enter into dialogs willingly. Their
conversations will make sense and be fun to read, their interactions
believable. They will do, generally, what I suggest, but in their own way, and
all I will have to do is watch and take notes. They may rebel, God bless ‘em,
and take off on unexpected tangent, and I plan to do everything to encourage
that. I will document the twists and bends of their lives and may nudge them
from time to time in the right--or wrong--direction.
This is made more exciting by the fact that I’ve just signed
on with a new literary agency that will represent my work. I’ve had agents in
the past, and my most recent experience was not a happy one. I’m hoping this
one will be different. These guys seem enthusiastic about my writing, which,
frankly, makes me really feel good.
So off I go on another adventure. I’ll keep you up to date.
No comments:
Post a Comment