Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
I was reminded of something the other day. Something that I don’t think about very often or even give myself the benefit of the doubt about.
I’m always writing.
When I’m sitting at the desk, fingers moving furiously across the keyboard to the point that some of the letters are beginning to fade away (“F” is nearly gone on this particular keyboard), I’m writing (obviously).
When I’m sitting at work and suddenly get inspiration to make a couple of pages of notes on scratch paper sitting beside me, I’m writing.
When I’m driving… well, pretty much anywhere and thinking about a story, I’m writing.
When I discuss ideas with friends and family, I’m writing.
And when I’m doing none of those things, I’m still writing.
***
You see, your subconcious is always going. It is always churning ideas over and over inside that squishy brain of yours. Some people “use” it to solve their real-life problems. Or they use it to make a decision which has been difficult to figure out.
My subconcious is doing those things, but I forget that it is also thinking about the various ideas we have going on and looking for connections between things which may not have readily apparent connections. They are solving plot issues I didn’t even know was a problem.
This happened while I was on vacation.
I’m in the process of writing a series. I have Book 1 written. I have a portion of book 2 written. I wouldn’t say I was having writer’s block exactly about one of the plot threads within the book, but it wasn’t coming quite as smoothly as I would have liked it to. Anyway, I woke up the other day way too early and my brain said “what if this was the reason for a character doing X thing”… and all of a sudden things fell into place in a way that I hadn’t even considered.
It was a true bolt of lightning that forced me to hop up out of bed and go to the computer to start typing those ideas, lest they become lost once I fell asleep again (this has happened more times than I would like to admit). In fact, it was on me with such a fury that I needed to write it as quickly as possible. And as I did, more connections between story beats and characters revealed themselves. So I continued letting it go until after maybe ten or fifteen minutes I was done with the thought(s). More than enough core ideas which would need to be weaved back into Book 1 (luckily it wouldn’t take much seeding in that for it to work) which, hopefully would result in some very cool moments for the reader where they’d wonder how in the world did the author plan this all out (without knowing the secret answer is they didn’t know it until much later and then made sure it all fit together like a puzzle piece).
***
Here’s the thing, there was fundamentally nothing wrong with what I have in my draft. I believe when you get the chance to read it, you wouldn’t have thought some additional connections were missing by any means. I wasn’t searching for some mystery connection to help explain a bunch of character motivations.
Then this idea hit me.
These are the moments that are the most fun when I’m writing or thinking about writing. It is something which feeds upon itself. You have one cool “what if” and then suddenly all the thousands of words you’ve written turn on a dime and everything becomes all the clearer. “Why did Character A do this – because of this new idea.”
And the best of these ideas never invalidates what you’ve written previously (although that can happen and you need to allow yourself to make those decisions and cut what isn’t working). The best versions of this are when the idea enhances everything in a way which makes everything all the stronger. It is the type of thing that had I released the first book when I’d finished it wouldn’t/couldn’t have happened.
***
In some ways these moments are probably the closest thing a solo author experiences that comes close to working with another author. The passing back and forth of ideas. One person saying something off the cuff and suddenly the other realizes that the story can go one way or another. To me, those are the most magical moments collaborators can have when working on a project together.
Subconcious and Concious working in tandom. One being out front, doing the bulk of the work, but then… occassionally, the other showing up out of the blue to make everything all the better. To make the story better. To make the writing better.
If I have to work alone, then it’s not a bad place to be.
***
John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.
He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!
Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.
His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.
He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com
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