I am working on a new book

It was on March 7, 2012, that I began this blog and post­ed an entry. That is, more than ten years ago I wrote:

“I am work­ing on a new book. It’s so new it has no title, and to be hon­est, I’m not sure what will hap­pen. Cer­tain­ly, no end­ing is in sight. But it’s dif­fer­ent, I think, than any­thing I have writ­ten before, so I’m hav­ing a good — if hard — time.”

I’m unclear what book I was work­ing on back then (Per­haps Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor) but if I were to write a sum­ma­ry state­ment as to what I am doing today it might read:

“I am work­ing on a new book. It’s so new it has no title, and to be hon­est, I’m not sure what will hap­pen. Cer­tain­ly, no end­ing is in sight. But it’s dif­fer­ent, I think, than any­thing I have writ­ten before, so I’m hav­ing a good — if hard — time.”

The curi­ous truth is that every book I write feels dif­fer­ent (even sequels) and every book I write is hard to cre­ate. The fact that I have been writ­ing for more than six­ty years doesn’t make the ongo­ing work any eas­i­er. What all my expe­ri­ence has taught me is that if I keep work­ing, I get some­where though I am unsure what that des­ti­na­tion might be. I just want to get there.

Because if there is one thing that allows me to keep going — oth­er than the need to make a liv­ing — is that each sto­ry is dif­fer­ent, with a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion, and a dif­fer­ent cast of char­ac­ters so that every tale is new for me, too. I love sto­ries, and it must be under­stood that I am telling myself a new sto­ry each time.

If I am at the stage when I am work­ing with an edi­tor, I am (hope­ful­ly) being pushed to know more about the sto­ry, more about the char­ac­ters, and more about the emo­tions that flow from it all. Many a time I am pushed in such a way that I dis­cov­er more about the sto­ry I am work­ing on even as I am revis­ing it. This hap­pens when the char­ac­ters become sep­a­rate from me, devel­op a life, and demands of their own, so that I am — as it were — observ­ing them from some dis­tance. That is writ­ing — for me, any­way — at its best.

It may sound rather sim­plis­tic, but I am writ­ing so I can find out what hap­pens. In oth­er words, when the writer in me becomes the read­er, I am exact­ly where I want (and love) to be.

If I could sum it up, I might say writ­ing for me is — find­ing a new sto­ry. I only hope I like it.