I don’t normally write on paper. Maybe that’s the problem.
I’ve been wrestling with a novel for four years. The earliest draft dates to April, 2019. Since then, if I count drafts, outlines, all the scraps and notes and research files, there’s more than 150,000 words (a typical literary fiction novel is about 70,000) but for all that effort, it doesn’t work, it reads dead.
To call a long piece of fiction alive is strange and nonsensical, but at some point, writing it, it does begin to feel true. The words become more than words. The logic machine runs itself. Each character quavering, moment by moment, scene by scene, on the precipice of actualization, nearly getting what they want but thwarted in some way. Those are the moments a novelist longs for, but they’re hard to reach.
Starting a book is unpleasant. The process is mainly frustration. An idea hits the nervous system… but there’s knowing your subject, and you have to figure out what to do about it. Months later, an early draft reads like a beer stain. Middle drafts are all hope and style, the lure of revision, until a sandbag falls from the ceiling with your name on it. (The sand is disappointment.)
I took a getaway in August to write for two weeks. A friend was away, I had the house to myself. All the hours in a day, manuscript in front of me, and I couldn’t find the verve in it anymore. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. The patient had no pulse. I was ready to junk the whole thing.
There are a lot of guides to writing and I’ve read a few, but I haven’t found one that addresses the experience I seem to have each time – after four books, I’ve completely forgotten how to do this thing.
Of course, there’s a way to think into a novel, plan it and diagram it, but for me it’s the wrong way to go. I need to feel my way there. I need to find the hard way there. (If a book comes too easily, something’s wrong). I’m looking to feel both the stillness and the spark.
So I found ways to fill the time. I cooked, I read a lot. I still felt lethargic, adrift across couches. Don DeLillo once said, “A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.” Yes. Then, on a whim, one morning I grabbed a notebook and pen. I’d gone on a night walk the previous evening and gotten an idea. And truthfully I only got it because the novel, finally, after a lot of distracting assignments, was back in mind – and because of that, this new idea connected. I wrote slowly, enjoying the pen. I wrote for hours, filling pages, and ideas found friction, a good sign. Three days later I had the entire story in hand, in mind, a vision I only now need to follow. Even better, two weeks later, it’s just as plausible and exciting as it seemed.
Pen on paper: imagination to hand, hand to gesture, gesture to idea. It made me feel like a shaman and a cobbler all at once. It’s divination, is what it is, and I’m telling myself don’t doubt it.
Making art is sometimes the only magic I really buy.
In tomorrow’s Sunday supplement for supporters:
A new favorite indie pop album, sad singles, and some late-summer jazz moods
Weirdly enjoyable podcasts about pursuits unknown
Short stairs, two-dimensional restaurants, and other favorites from the week in web-browsing
What the what
Meditations in an Emergency is a weekly dispatch from writer Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with 3+ things to love, along with a monthly longer piece dispatched from the road, for some inbox wanderlust. ⛰️
Rosecrans is the bestselling author of Everything Now. His most recent novel, The Last Kid Left, was one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year. Books mentioned in Meditations in an Emergency are stored in a Bookshop list.