The Dread visits

Yeah, I'm deep into it on Overthrowing Heaven. The book is moving along, I'm over ninety thousand words into it, and though I couldn't tell you how long it will be, I can see the end somewhere in the distance. I should be perking up. I perked up at this stage on the last two books.

Instead, The Dread is sitting on my head big-time. Each day, I write a chunk, and I know the chunk is what I want it to be (minus the huge amount of editing and polish I still have to do, of course). Despite that knowledge, however, I'm also terrified that I'm writing the worst, most boring turd of a book ever to have existed.

I don't know any way around this feeling, of course. The only path out is straight ahead, to the end of the book, and that's where I'll head, one day's work at a time until I finish this draft--and the next draft, and the next, until the book heads off to publication. Then, I'll treat myself by starting the next book.

Doesn't this make you want to be a writer?

A different way to be neurotic about my writing

I'm well over forty thousand words into Overthrowing Heaven. I'm not at all sure how long the book will be--it'll take as many words as it needs--but I figure I'm somewhere near a third of the way along. So, it's only natural that The Dread should visit me. Right now, I should be realizing that everything I'm writing is utter crap, more boring than a nutrition label for a jar of salt.

Except I'm not.

Well, not exactly.

You see, the problem is, I'm really digging what I'm writing. I've carried the overview of the story in my head for so long that I'm very much enjoying seeing how it unfolds in detail, as I write each scene, description, bit of action, line of dialog, or whatever. I'm quite entertaining myself.

Fortunately, I have a new (at least to me) reason to worry. My new neurosis is simple: I'm the only one who will find this entertaining. I've become utterly convinced that should I one day have the temerity to show this piece of crap of a book to anyone else, that person will immediately begin screaming, "Nothing is happening! You've taken how long to get to this point? Don't these people ever do anything? Who gives a hoot about them anyway?" And so on.

I have to confess I like this New, Improved Dread better than the old one, because at least in this one I'm amusing myself. I'm still terrified, however, that I'm producing a turd.

That fear notwithstanding, I'll write more of the book tonight. It's what I do.

On the road again: Portland, day 1

I rose after 3.25 hours of sleep--not enough even for me--trimmed my Grizzly Adams beard, showered, and headed to the airport. The flights were close enough to on time to be tolerable, and sold out but at least not unbearable. So, the trip itself went about as well as modern air travel does.

Much work occupied the flight, the time after the flight, and pretty much the entire day except for dinner. For that meal, we decided to try someplace new, a sushi restaurant named Masu. We ate at the sushi bar and talked as time permitted with Lance and Jules the two sushi chefs. Both guys were quick, nice, fun to chat with, and, most importantly, made very tasty sushi. I definitely recommend the place if you're in Portland and get a jones for some raw fish.

Overthrowing Heaven proceeds apace. I find myself in the odd position of both really enjoying the story as it unfolds and being terrified, as I usually am, that there's entirely too much talking and not enough action. I'm not in the dread yet, but I can see its shadow up ahead. Perhaps this time I'll skip that neurotic phase entirely!

Or not. Maybe the not.

Turning the corner

I think I may finally have turned the corner out of the dread on Slanted Jack and into the dark start of the tunnel, the other end of which glows with the light of a completed first draft. I may be wrong, of course--I won't know for another week or so--but it feels now like I can see the end. I still have a huge amount to write, but at least there is a light.

Not big news to most, I understand, but I'm quite excited.

Beach stuff will follow soon, as time permits.

The dreaded middle

Almost every novelist I know hits a point while writing a book at which he or she realizes, with a deep and deafening certainty, that the book is crap, utter rubbish. This point occurs about a third of the way into the book and lasts until the last ten or twenty percent of the book. No reassurances will help the writer stuck in this pit. No knowledge of past accomplishments will remove the dread.

The only path out is to forge ahead, knowing that what you're writing sucks but doing it nonetheless because, well, what else is there?

I'm in the middle of Slanted Jack right now, and the dread is keeping me company. I work from a fairly detailed outline, and once upon a time, lo these few months ago, the outline seemed to me to represent a good book, a book I'd like reading, that possibly others might also enjoy reading. Courtesy of the dread, I know now that I was only fooling myself, that the book sucks, that I suck, that it's all hopeless.

Still, I'll keep writing, day in and day out, every day, no days off.

What else is there?