Bright & Dark

On Sunday afternoon, after a last push of 20,500 words, I finished the first draft of The Heart of the World with those happiest of finishing words: The End.

I was astounded that the experiment I undertook at the start held all the way through — focusing only on one scene at a time, focusing on the emotion in the scene. 120,000 words is a *lot* of scenes. A lot of emotion. I made a concerted effort to keep my critical brain out of my writing office during all of this, too, giving full reign to my creative brain and allowing my subconscious to be the boss.

The result was as I’d been told it would be but hardly believed. My bossy subconscious planted all the right clues at the right times without my having ever been aware of them.

Those threads of clues shone like gold all the way through without my ever having attempted to engineer them. Until I began to actually write the end sections of the book, I had no conscious idea as to how on earth I’d resolve the story. I mean, I had conscious general ideas, but I wasn’t married to them. The funny thing was, even my general ideas didn’t hold a candle to the ones my subconscious came up with. Twists and turns and where-the-hell-did-that-come-from. Those oh-so-important story points feel much more powerful and meaningful because of all that.

The book is now in my first reader’s hands. Then it’ll be workshopped on the coast in February and out into the world it will fly. The next story is on the horizon, and I plan to continue the experiment until it becomes not just an experiment but as natural as breathing.

Meanwhile, I give you some slam-bang motivation posts from the writer who started me down this particular road. This is number one. Read it and the next. And the next one after that. Great stuff.

Happy New Year!