Just rattling it off

Didn't spend much time writing today, as the early part of the day was consumed with life maintenance. Tomorrow will probably also be a day with little writing done; instead I will receive two crowns--not, alas as Empress of the Universe and Queen of Commas but just as necessary dental work.

What writing I did was mostly on the fantasy thingy I've started playing with again. I made a few minor adjustments on what I wrote the other day and then let my fingers on the keyboard take me wherever they would. It's an interesting process to simply allow a story to happen, like taking a walk in a strange house: one walks through a room, noticing all that's there, then, having no idea what to expect opens another door and sees what's behind it. There is no sense of what is to come next, and the glimpses of the place that is being explored happen only a bit at a time and, as yet, don't come together in a shape that indicates what the whole will be. I open a door, and there's this scene. I explore it, looking around, describing what's there and what's happening, and then ... open another door.

I don't know if that's what other writers do, but for me, if I think I know too much about the size and shape and organization of the rooms before I get into them and walk around, the whole thing starts feeling stiff and stilted and dull. I have to walk into unknowns over and over again.

That's true even of the historical piece I've been noodling with for, oh, probably decades now. With that piece, I do have more sense of what some of the rooms will be and a vague idea of in what order they need to be encountered, but I still need to just open a door and see what's there. And invariably, things end up in there that I had no idea to expect.

I don't write the story, it feels like. The story uses me to get written. If I try to push it, the story will refuse to go forward--or will be so obviously misshapen that I have to back up and try again--and that means listening to the story and where it wants to go.

Very mystical and arcane, this process. But I do know that, if I don't have at least some sense of where I'm trying to go, I won't get very far. Short stories are obviously easier for that reason: I don't really have to have a "there" to get to. A character steps into my mind and says, "OK, let's talk about me," and I do. But I don't have to get the character from point A to point Q, just show this little nugget, this corner of the house.

Ach, I'm babbling. And I'm still playing at "being a writer." I have to remind myself, "Oh, yeah: I was going to stop frittering away my days and actually do something with words." But I'm no more forcing myself to "be a writer" than I am forcing my writing to go in this direction or that. It's all just experimentation, and play right now. And as for what this might all turn into, if anything, well, I'll trot out the phrase I used so often when I was still in the classroom: we'll see.

What's behind this door? We'll see. Is Prof P that thing called "a writer" or just a person who occasionally writes? We'll see.