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the nature of inspiration
Dec. 2nd, 2011 08:14 pmI don’t usually write up an outline for a book, but I have a general idea of where I want to go and how I’m going to get there. What happens along the way becomes clear as I write. What amazes me, always, is how it crystallizes as I’m writing it.
I first noticed this effect while I was writing The Sunbird. The scene where Telemakos hides in the air flue above the toilet? I didn’t know any of the physical detail of that scene until I was writing it, and then it was like I was remembering the whole thing - the way it smelled, the way the walls felt, exactly the way it was constructed, how you’d climb up there.
I’m experiencing a similar effect in the book I’m writing now. I’ve taken 100 pages to get to a particular point on the map, but every time I’ve tried to imagine how that point would look when I got to it, it’s been veiled in lack of detail. Now that I’m there - now that the character is there, telling about it - it’s like memory. My character’s memory is inaccurate and she’s up front about that, but essentially she knows what happened and is telling it in a way that’s grittier and more palpable - and, indeed, more plausible - than any of the possibilities I imagined before I got there. And now, as a writer, I know that *I* am there in a deeper way than I was when I planned the plot. I am *in*.
I always worry that I won’t be able to pull off whatever it is - that it won’t work as effectively as I want it to - that the prose will be mediocre or the details too vague - or that I won’t be able to keep enough balls in the air to effect whatever grand scheme I have in mind. But once I am *in*, the balls keep themselves up almost effortlessly.
Apologies for being so vague about the book itself. Bear with me as someone new drags me along on her personal journey to hell and back. I might have to escape for a virtual coffee here from time to time.
I first noticed this effect while I was writing The Sunbird. The scene where Telemakos hides in the air flue above the toilet? I didn’t know any of the physical detail of that scene until I was writing it, and then it was like I was remembering the whole thing - the way it smelled, the way the walls felt, exactly the way it was constructed, how you’d climb up there.
I’m experiencing a similar effect in the book I’m writing now. I’ve taken 100 pages to get to a particular point on the map, but every time I’ve tried to imagine how that point would look when I got to it, it’s been veiled in lack of detail. Now that I’m there - now that the character is there, telling about it - it’s like memory. My character’s memory is inaccurate and she’s up front about that, but essentially she knows what happened and is telling it in a way that’s grittier and more palpable - and, indeed, more plausible - than any of the possibilities I imagined before I got there. And now, as a writer, I know that *I* am there in a deeper way than I was when I planned the plot. I am *in*.
I always worry that I won’t be able to pull off whatever it is - that it won’t work as effectively as I want it to - that the prose will be mediocre or the details too vague - or that I won’t be able to keep enough balls in the air to effect whatever grand scheme I have in mind. But once I am *in*, the balls keep themselves up almost effortlessly.
Apologies for being so vague about the book itself. Bear with me as someone new drags me along on her personal journey to hell and back. I might have to escape for a virtual coffee here from time to time.