Traveling the Short and Direct Road

There’s a pleasing sort of symmetry in it.
I take the same long walk every day (now pushing the Lucy Factor in an ancient and creaking jogging stroller which lists to the left, rather than carrying her. Better than hauling 26 lbs of leg waggling toddler on my back but this piece of second-hand machinery is held together with nuts and bolts which stick out at the sides and are a hazard to hip bones). Anyway the hike (about 5 miles and 50% uphill) is so familiar to my feet that I don’t have to pay attention to where I am going. Sometimes when the LF is in a contemplative mood and either admiring her new shoes with the leather flower appliques or doodling in the drawing pad I made for her, I can end up back home, pushing the gate open, without remembering any part of the walk at all. Those are nice days, though rare, because it means that the LF was content, I have been so deep in my head as to be oblivious to everything, and my legs have navigated the big, sinuous hill without the usual complaints and twinges. And often when my walk is breezy and simple, I have simultaneously figured out that the problem with my work-in-progress (WIP) is more easily solved that I thought. That’s the symmetry I was talking about.
Amazingly enough and although I’ve written a few books now I am always surprised that the solution is usually something simple and direct—much like the walk.
I would love to write short books. Maybe one day I’ll be a good enough writer to do it. I also like meaty books with thorny problems and unexpected solutions. I’m thankful that I don’t write mysteries. All those divergent skeins of story unraveling and then coming together make my head hurt. It’s hard enough keeping track of a simple hero-dilemma-resolution plot. Writing long, convoluted books might give you more places to hide weak spots. I don’t know. What I do know is that I strive to write books that unwind along a straight course (naturally with enough twists to keep things interesting) but every time there is a moment (or sometimes 2 or 3) when I get mired down. An outline helps me with this. Although I don’t really enjoy it, I do figure out a rough sequence of events before I begin writing. More importantly to me and much more fun, I make quick word sketches of my characters before I begin which helps with motivation and dialogue, and I draw lots of maps to help me see where my people are, so I can move them around and it makes sense in a logical sort of a way. My general outlines are not lengthy though because I like the surprises and the curve balls when things go all wacky and someone deviates from what I think they should be doing, or my bad guy turns into the good guy or whatever. If I had a really solid, detailed outline I would feel as if I was killing the whimsy and the unexpected –this may be very amateurish of me. That being said though I need to know where I’m beginning and I need to know where I’m ending. The bit in the middle is anyone’s guess. I’ll have some vague ideas and some things I want to put in, but I like being all loose and freaky and give myself plenty of room to splash around. Sometimes I have the most amazing dreams about my WIP, and all that stuff can seep in too and make an unholy mess which I have to clean up in the revision process. But that’s ok. I don’t want to be too rigid when I write. There’s already so much discipline involved already.
However even with an outline (of sorts) things can get tangled, and side-tracked and that tightens everything up so that nothing can move, and then I get stuck. I spend hours developing different scenarios, and sometimes introduce new characters, and move things around, and cut big sections out, and generally make things very difficult and unpleasant for myself before realizing in this blinding flash which should appear much earlier on but doesn’t because I am apparently woolly-headed, that it is all so simple. The last time all I had to do was deal more gracefully with my back story and kill off a secondary character who was glutting up the beginning of the book. And the wonderful thing is I recycled her and she will be appearing later in a slightly different role. It is the most amazing feeling after days of worrying over something, examining it minutely, and considering crazier and increasingly moronic solutions (even contemplating deus ex machina which is a major cop out) to stumble upon something so clean, so right and most importantly so true to the story that everything falls into place. My method is an ungainly one but it always seems to work out eventually. So with true unprofessional stubbornness, I won’t be changing my ways any time soon.
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