It’s been interesting here at the retreat from the retreat. I had planned all along to start a new novel. Not only that, but a novel outside the fantasy world I’ve been working in/creating for the last ten years, which not only has its own history and let’s call it magical physics but also its own vernacular or maybe idiom, which I’ve been formulating for most of that time (there was a sea-change moment several years back where the story went from being one thing to being another, which spoke itself to me in a very particular way). Anyhow, after setting aside the epic doorstop and writing what I hope is a quick-and-dirty noir spy thriller, I was ready to flex some different muscles and go back to the near future dystopia with emergent magic realist elements that used to be what I did until a funny little idea for a fantasy story got way tf out of hand.
Then I got Covid. Or maybe the Tinkerer (what I call my subconscious writer self, who’s got this whole workshop full of ideas and half-finished projects) had other ideas. Either way, I didn’t have but the vaguest idea what I wanted to do other than a magic realist-ish road trip through a soft apocalyptic American landscape derived from the worst that could happen if the fash get their way come November.
Now, normally I’m a ‘just start writing and see where things go’ kind of guy. Make the road by walking, as it were. At least I used to be. At least with new projects. But whether it’s the brain fog or the Tinkerer learning new tricks, I haven’t felt the urge to do that so far. To be honest, I’m barely working at all, just fucking around on the soshmeeds (bite-size thoughts being perfect for my current Covid-brained state). But bit by bit, things are coming to me. I’ve got a doc that I labeled an outline. But it’s really more of a treatment, I guess? Call it a description of scenes, with little notes and epiphanies as they occur to me on the way. A map, as it were. Which seems appropriate for a book about a cross-country road trip. I’ve only got the first section blocked out, got a few notions about where it all goes, a couple things I’d like to happen along the way. But it feels right, just letting it kind of accrue on its own when it’s ready instead of trying to make a word count every day. It’s helping me learn who the characters are, where they come from and what they want and where, ultimately, they might end up. It’s also likely to be a bit more personal than my fantasy work has been, because it’s likely to echo some of my own journey and experiences (the trip is from Florida to the Northwest). It’s also kind of fun, thinking a bit more about the big picture stuff before i get into the weeds of words and sentences and paragraphs and chapters.
Maybe I was always going to do it this way. Maybe it’s because I caught Covid, and trying to write coherently for longer than, say, this brief essay seems like a heavier lift than I’m up for. Maybe over the years I’ve actually taught myself one or two things about how to write novels, or at least how *I* can successfully write novels. Which was always what I wanted to do with my life but daunted the absolute shit out of me for most of it, and still does, most days.
Either way, it’s nice to know the journey of discovery continues. And hey, when it comes time to actually write this thing, maybe I’ll half know what I’m doing. What a fun change that would be.
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