11/02/2003

Slowly the electron fog coalesces.

For those who don't know or haven't been keeping up with the series, I lead a double life. Like many starving artists, I have a day job and a real job, although at the moment my day job is a night job. The night day job is what brings in the money but what keeps me sane and will ultimately (if I'm lucky) put me on the road to merriment, money and mayhem is that I am a science-fiction writer. I have had one book published as an e-book so far (available at www.fictionwise.com under the title Machina Obscura) and its sequel Aquaria completed but currently going through my "editorial commitee". When my friends and I have gone round and round about what needs to be fixed and changed, I will then begin sending it out trying to acquire that keymaster to sci-fi fame and fortune, the literary agent. Thus, again if I'm lucky, one day I may see my books on the shelves at Barnyards and Nobles.

At any rate, as I said, I finished my last magnum opus back at the beginning of August, so I've been at loose ends for a while with nothing to do. I would lay odds this happens with every writer -- you spend months or years on a book, then when it's done you can't write word one for several months while your batteries recharge. This is when you do the idiot work of writing, doing the synopsis and updating the glossary and doing research and editting. As doing a synopsis is somewhat akin to pulling serrated steel needles through your cheeks I have avoided doing it until a few days ago. But a week or two ago I started getting the first few vague glimmerings of a new story beginning to emerge from what I call the "electron fog" -- the nebulous cloud of potentialities from which my characters and stories seem to emerge like yarn being spun from the mass of tangled wool strands. Events, images, relationships, emotions, conflicts, a jumble without coherence. As time goes on the ideas will get clearer, but to be completely honest I will not know exactly how it will go until I write it. Each time I begin a new story I have no conscious idea what I'm doing. Yet if the thing is ready to be written it will come out as if I'm merely taking dictation. If it becomes difficult I know I'm doing something wrong. I don't do outlines. I did one for Aquaria and realized six chapters in that I couldn't go on. It was only when I chucked the outline that it began to work again.

And it seems like everytime I go through this obligatory recharging cycle I start wondering if that's it for me, if there's nothing left in the noodle and it's curtains for the Great White Hope.

Maybe the magic has seen fit to desert me this time.

Unless you have something that moves your hands and mind like this, you wouldn't understand. And if you do, there's no need to explain.

Anyway, I'm starting to see shapes in the fog again. So it's only a matter of time.


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