Roll With It, Baby

If you came here from my Facebook page, you might know that I’m publishing a new novel, Watershed, in the next couple of weeks. I’ve been asked a lot of questions about writing over the years–mostly about the process. What’s it like? How do you maintain continuity over the weeks and months required to complete a draft? How do you maintain sanity?

The answer to the latter question is simple: You don’t.

When I first started writing Watershed, it was not itself. Which is to say, it was something completely different – a young adult fantasy novel, to be precise. I was very excited when I started working on it. I did research. I had a concept I thought was an original twist on a familiar trope. The first hundred pages wrote themselves. I was golden.

When I got to page 150, it just fell out from under me.

Whatever I had planned to do with the story, it was gone. Plot threads slithered through my fingers. Place names escaped me; situations stalked out like jilted lovers; character arcs unbowed. I came completely unplugged. I was despondent.

It took weeks of journaling and soul searching to discover the problem. It’s an old problem, an old story, old as the Bible. Older. I was in love with that book, you see. But in the middle of my work with it, I fell in love with something else. A new idea. A different idea. A bolder, broader, darker and more textured idea.

Watershed.

It took me a long time to accept that, just as it often takes a long time to admit that a relationship is no longer working. There’s a lot of fear, frustration, that feeling of wasted time. I wrote 150 pages! 150 pages I can’t use? Months of work, down the drain. Time and effort wasted.

I temporarily forgot my own advice, as we are all inclined to do. I did not remember that all writing is good writing. All writing is practice, even if it never sees the light of day.

Eventually, I remembered that lesson, and set to work on Watershed. I also learned a new lesson: accept what’s happening with your work, trust your intuition, and roll with it.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it’s so hard to follow when you’ve invested time, dedication and emotion. You hang onto it – or, rather, your ego hangs onto it. Your ego is invested in the outcome.

But we don’t write our best work from ego. And we don’t truly control anything. We only think we do. We will struggle against ego if we don’t embrace the idea that we write from beyond it. And there’s little point in being attached to the outcome of fiction writing. Is anything less predictable?

So I say this: if your story changes, let it. If your main character bows out and a secondary character takes over, allow it. See what happens. Let the story be what it wants.

Often, it’ll be something good. It will surprise you.

If it surprises you, it’ll surprise your reader, too.