"And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." -2 Corinthians 5:15
Long discussions with nobody can only take a person so far. I don’t know if there’s a huge difference between talking to yourself, pretending to talk to someone, or talking to someone that only you can see, but I think I’ve been doing a little more of the latter than would be considered normal.
No I’m not insane (though we've already covered that I might be a little mad).
I just have an active imagination, that’s all. The more that you believe in your own imagination, the farther your imagination can take you.
As a writer, I‘ve figured out a few things about my own writing abilities. Sometimes writing is easy, and sometimes it’s hard.
‘Hard,’ is such a indolent word. I would prefer difficult, awkward, problematical, demanding, challenging, grueling, arduous, troublesome, or even testing, if we were that desperate.
It’s like we learned about in a few of our science classes: there is active energy, and potential energy. Writing for me can sometimes be like the rubber band that has been pulled taut, trembling with anticipation, but unmoving. I have smashed into a solid, brick wall (writers block), more times than I would like to recount. It’s disorienting, and discouraging, two excellent D words that mean wretched things. When I’m actively writing, I feel like I’m flying with silver wings through star-filled galaxies. When I stumble, fall, and go from active writing to only the potential of writing, I can never see how I’m ever going to climb back out of The Pit again.
I’d like to say that the more often I fall into The Pit, the easier it becomes to recognize the symptoms, and climb back out again, plunging into my novel with as much enthusiasm and conviction as I had moments before stumbling. So far, no.
I’m always caught off guard, and The Pit is never gentle with my spirit once it has its grip wrapped tightly around my writing soul.
Oh my, that’s dark.
Don’t worry, here comes the whole purpose of this post. Back in the faraway past, when I was still on page 29 (keeping in mind that the document I was using held approximately 500 words, double the average novel page), I had hit a brick wall, caught by writer’s block unawares, and fallen deep into The Pit.
It was the worst case I’d ever known thus far.
I was working on the very same draft that I’m working on in the present moment, several lifetimes after meticulously creating the 91 pen-written paged story, “The Legend of Swordouminipidity,” which was followed by many other notebook attempts, including a sequel, and draft after draft after draft after handwritten draft, which never managed to survive their first knock-downs. Then there was the typed draft: 282 pages, 115, 237 words. I was so proud of every single one of those 115, 237 words. It was followed immediately by a sequel, which almost reached 30,000 words before I realized that “The Legend of Swordouminipidity,” wasn’t finished, that it wasn’t even close to being finished, that every single 115, 237 words were complete baloney, and that I really needed to either hire an EWIP, or scrap the whole thing, and live a life of misery, dissatisfaction, and incompletion.
I thought this was supposed to be the good part. What does this even have to do with Harper Lee?
Almost, Johnny. In the end, I didn’t give up writing, though it took a lot of scrambling to get out of that particular session of The Pit. I did hire an EWIP, and it took more bravery than I thought I possessed, but I ended up starting over completely, with a cracking good plan to combine two book ideas together, which started a cracking good headache.
This, in essence, was me starting what I feared to be an impossible journey. And my fears were confirmed when I reached page 29, and fell right back into the same Pit that I had been in before.
That’s when Harper appeared.
Finally.
I couldn’t agree more. Harper’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, had been floating around in our house for awhile already. I had opened it up once, but never really started (which should give you an idea of the severity of my condition). My Mama claimed it was an amazing book, one of the best books, but I didn’t get it. I didn’t even know or care. Then one evening, I was in the process of brooding over some bit of stupidity that I was trying to turn into good writing, and probably complaining about it, of course, to Johnny.
Ah yes, I remember that.
And Johnny, eventually, had enough sense to throw a book at my head.
I remember that, too.
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Something happened as I picked up the thick, papery novel, and opened up to the first page, inhaling a delicious, promising smell that I hadn’t smelled before. A new breeze from a different world swept from the pages, and into my bedroom. I all but disappeared from my world for two very interesting days. When I emerged, Harper’s last words were still echoing in my ears and eyes.
I looked at the laptop waiting before me, and I realized that something wonderful had happened while I hadn’t been paying attention: The Pit was gone, and I was free.
That was 126, 492 words ago. The pages that I had written only seconds after finishing To Kill a Mockingbird, are still some of what I consider to be my best writing. Harper taught me many things, valuable writing pearls; how to keep the perilous balance between poetry and reality, how to create tension, and, most importantly, how to write down love.
I owe very much to Harper Lee, and I consider her to be my most reliable friend from the Wall of Writers. Perhaps it’s the way she’s smiling in her sideways way, daring to stare at you right in the eye. She encourages me to write, reminds me how important it is, and I know that she’ll never lie to me, or let me down. And she hasn’t!
Speaking of that sideways smile, she’s doing it right now, across the room from where I write this, and something tells me I’d better stop blogging, and start writing the second-half of Chapter Eighteen, or else.
