November 27, 2005
I started working on a new novel a few weeks ago. I'm writing it under a pseudonym (which is better than writing it under duress, I suppose), and although it's a thriller, it's rather different than anything else I've written and I hope (hope, hope, hope--is there an echo in here?) that it'll get published and turn into a successful series. I'm about 45 pages in.

Ahem. So?

I don't outline. The few times I've tried that it hasn't been successful. I'm much more of a, here's a title, here's a character, here's a premise, here are the things I think should happen, let's go. Driving across country in the dark, following my headlights, knowing I'm gonna hit Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Dallas and hopefully get to my destination, say, San Diego. Preferably without going from St. Louis to Chicago and back to St. Louis, then back to Chicago, then over to St. Paul, then back to Chicago, Detroit, then to Indianapolis to Chicago...

I have no reason to doubt what I'm doing.

Except of course I do. Where's the damned story? I ask myself. Here's the main character. I'm getting to know her. Here's the secondary character. Getting to know him. Here's the plot. The setting. But ... where's the damned story?

It's there. In fact, I know it is. Here's the real trick. Stephen King said once that writing for him is like archaeology. He sees this neat thing sticking up out of the sand and it's his job to carefully dig it out without breaking it. He's not always sure what it is he's digging out of the sand. He's not always sure of its size. Maybe it's a short story. Maybe a novella. Maybe a novel. He has a pretty good idea what it is eventually, but not until he gets it all brushed off, out of the ground (unbroken), cleaned up and polished off is he completely sure what it is.

Bingo!

I've got a chunk of my story out of the ground. It seems strong, but you never know, they do break when you least expect it. It's an interesting story, what I see so far. I've got a lot of digging to do, though. Not just cleaning and polishing, but actual digging, to get this sucker out of the ground. And I feel like I'm writing blind.

This isn't entirely unusual for me. It's a rare novel--The Serpent's Kiss was one--where I knew pretty much what it was when I started it, and it lived up to my expectations.

Somehow I've worked my way back to a "leap of faith," that omnipresent theme of this blog, along with, "what is success?"

Best,
Mark Terry