Temporary? Insanity

I didn’t think it would be easy. I have my issues with not thinking things through, but this was something I thought I had pretty well figured. Writing a book was going to be hard work. When I was ten years old and writing simple stories about fairies or mermaids, or little blue men who live under the earth’s crust, I may have thought it would be easy. Everything seemed so achievable back then. You decide to do it then you do it. Simple.

I had no idea how being a “grown up” would throw the proverbial monkey wrench into my plans. How could I possibly know what a confusing welter of emotions my thirty year old self would be? How hope and doubt would battle it out with each other, using my cranium as the battleground. How some days the words would come so easy, and the next day it would be like swimming through molasses? And the technical aspect. The humbling process of learning that writing a book transcends every other writing project that has ever crossed my path. The short stories, poems, letters, and blog posts, have been nowhere near adequate preparation.

A book is so much more.

I’m not surprised to discover that mine is not a natural talent. For me, talent has always been an acquired thing. I achieve it through struggle and failure. Trial and error but mostly error. I used to be miserable on a regular basis because of this, watching those for whom it seemed to come so easily. Now, a wee bit older, perhaps a wee bit wiser as well, I’m grateful that it is this way with me. I am lazy by nature, and have a long established pattern of taking what comes easy for granted. What few skills I have struggled to learn in this life are precious to me because of how difficult they were to acquire.

It will be the same with writing this book. This book that has shifted and morphed so many times since its inception that I hardly recognize it. It’s been painful, there’s no denying that, but seeing how my writing has begun to improve is encouraging. If I can focus on that instead of how far I have yet to go, I may just endure long enough to see the finished product.

One of the classes I took at the LDS Storymaker’s Conference was hosted by the lovely Janette Rallison. Not only does she have a delightful sense of humour and an entertaining presentation style, but her class was perhaps the biggest ah-ha moment that I experienced during that weekend of enlightenment. She gave us a formula for a good book that opened my eyes to, well, to why mine wasn’t one (yet). I quickly realized how many of the key components were missing in my own plotline.

The formula is this:

When (main character) finds herself in (situation), she (goal). But will (antagonist and obstacle to goal) make her (consequence of failure).

My main character? Had no goal. She got swept up in the tide of events and, for no reason any reader could discern, decided to go along with things. The antagonist was just a vague force, nothing concrete, and there was no clearly outlined consequence of failure.

I now have a new main character, and a clearer understanding of her motivations, her obstacles, and her enemies. The world I’ve created is slowly coming to life in my mind, and my main character seems to live and breathe in ways her predecessor never did.

My original story?

When Kat finds herself transported to a magical world, she is recruited to help save it from the evil forces conspiring to destroy it.

Not exactly gripping is it?

My new concept?

When Bryn Adamson finds herself transported to a world created by human imaginings, she is recruited to help save the dying world. Fiercely independent and convinced that friendship is an unnecessary distraction, will she be able to overcome her issues with trust and help the others fight the forces aligned against them? Or will all of Earth’s stories, including her own, disappear along with this magical world that she is slowly coming to love? And what of the nightmares that have plagued her since childhood? The nightmares that, in Taigaea, are able to come to life?

It’s better. Not perfectly conceived. And a long, long ways from complete, but it’s better. It hasn’t been easy, and it will continue to be difficult. But despite the constant affliction of self-doubt, I’m realizing I wouldn’t trade it for anything. When I stop writing, in some strange way, I stop being me. Sense of self is worth a little pain and struggle, I think.

And at the rate I’m going, you can look for me on bookshelves sometime after the year 2020 . . .