Roadblocks

If it's true that a writer's muse visits only when writing -- not when researching, planning, thinking of characters -- how do you make sure you get to that point? How do you set the table for the muse, create the forest to set yourself to wander, to work, to commune with said muse?

Or, to put it basely, where to the ideas come from?

Mocked persistently as the most annoying question asked of authors, I think there's a very real question of process here, one that I have no idea how to address.

I've written two complete novels, a sixty some thousand word portion of another (I stopped short of writing about the actual apprehension of the bad guy), and forty three thousand words of a thriller that I parked when I realized I didn't have a good way to introduce hero to villain; they were leading parallel plot lines.

Deep in my gut I've always been thankful that novels take so long to write because I have no idea how to cultivate the story for the next book. It either seems to be there or not. History has shown me that if I do nothing, something inevitably presents itself every couple of years. This isn't good enough.

And what's even more frustrating is that while I'm writing a book there doesn't seem to be any shortage of ideas for the next one, but when it's time to do something with them things invariably seem different. The serial condemnations start: seems too familiar, seems too out there, not exciting enough, too pulp magazine-like. In short, it feels like there's nothing to add to the pot that someone else hasn't already stirred in.

At some point I'll bottom out and start thinking rationally. It will occur to me that wehn I think about the plots of recent books I've read, most of them aren't awash with originality. it's the writing, the style, the ways the stories unfold. It's the characters, the dialogue, movement of the text. In short, it's how fun it is to read.

I suspect the curse comes from wanting to be original, to bring something fresh and unique into the world, while at the same time not being so out there that there's no readily available audience (whatever that means). And then realizing you probably can't do it, no matter how you try.

But, you realize, that doesn't seem to stop anyone else. That doesn't keep thousands of books from being published each year, most of which, at best, could be considered only mild diversions.

I've never experienced writer's block while I'm working on a book; I have a hard time imagining how it could happen. But between books, oh, man, I'm half frozen with a self-paralyzing mixture of fear and self-doubt. I censor myself into inactivity.

Perhaps this is why so many writers of popular fiction write one or two wonderful books and then slide into the endless parroting of their own formulas. They surmounted the hump, they climbed to the top of their own Everests, and now the only thing is to butt slide down. After all, that takes far less originality and courage, doesn't it?

"It was a dark and stormy night..." Hmmm.