The Flea Market

When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me to the flea market. He LOVES places like that. He has easily 10,000 records. You read that number correctly. LPs. All jazz. And we would go hunting. (He is visiting me, and said he recently got airchecks of my favorite--Django Reinhardt--which he is going to give me.) The best thing about flea markets is the hunt.

Once in a blue moon, I still go to the flea market. I think because it reminds my of him and how much I love him. I like going ALONE (a flea market with Demon Baby is a nightmare I don't want to imagine). I wander the aisles in some kind of meditative trance. It relaxes me. I don't collect LPs, but I do buy useless crap sometimes--a pretty plate, or a teacup, or an old book. I sometimes spend an hour just looking through old family photographs there--you know, the old black and whites of families from the 1930s or what have you. I don't know the people, of course, but I wonder who they were. I also wonder why no one wants their pictures anymore. I think of family, and even death. After I am gone, and my kids are gone, and my grandkids are gone, who the hell is going to want my pictures? My crap! Will my junk end up in a flea market?

Anyway, what I love about the hunt is you find something cool, but there, 'round the bend is a table--and maybe there's something even COOLER, some hidden treasure that is just meant to go home with you.

So it was with my work-in-progress yesterday. You see, I have a perfectly servicable plot point. It works. It has a "cool" factor (this is for MAGICKEEPERS, my middle-grade fantasy). But then, out of the blue, I thought of something SO MUCH BETTER. I wavered for a minute. It will mean rewriting a couple of scenes. BUT . . . with this new addition, I know exactly where the book will end. Exactly. My young hero is going to say, "Why didn't I think of this before?"--and he will have an epiphany--just as I did yesterday.

And I guess my point is I can't help myself. There's always the promise of something hidden 'round the next bend. And that hunt, I suppose, is one of the neatest things about being a writer.

Thoughts?

Forest, Meet Trees

Day three of black eye is even more hideous. I look like a strange creature, indeed. But I am somewhat less loopy and feeling more intelligent than my last addled days, so that's good. And now for a discussion of forest and trees.

My new editor was as terrific in person as I could have possibly hoped. He's a thinker--and I like that. He asks probing questions. I like that, too. And at one point, he said to me, "Since this is a trilogy, where does book #1 end in terms of the hero's journey?" And I gave my answer . . . which is that he has a small triumph in this book, but now sees the world is far, far darker than he ever thought, that he is in more danger than he ever thought . . . and that he has to accept the tremendous new responsibilities thrust onto him by his birthright. My editor liked my answer--in fact, he firmly believes that trilogies should end book one with small triumphs but a sense of danger. And therein I had a forest meet trees moment.

You see, sometimes on this blog we talk about themes, and story arcs, and symbolism. Some of us write on a level where we don't think of those things until we're done, or they emerge bit by bit. But for me, I like to, once in a while, climb the mountain, get out of the forest of writing and denseness and plot and action, and get WAY up high and survey where the hell I am. At what point in the journey am I? Where did my character come from, and where is he going?

When I think about writers getting lost in the middle, finding the middle point soggy, or feeling like they have lost their passion for the story, I sometimes wonder whether it's that we have lost the ability to see above plot, to see this clear journey. Like Hansel and Gretel, lost in the dark woods, dropping breadcrumbs, we're moving forward without being sure of what is behind us and what is in front of us.

Sometimes, for me, the very heaviness of a deadline pressing down can make me lose my breadcrumbs, too. I have a pace to keep, pages to write, and I don't feel like I have "time" to sit down with a cup of coffee and just "be" with the hero and look at the journey. I'm too busy writing the journey.

But as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Sometimes, I think it's good to just pause. Climb the mountain. Survey the landscape. Answer some basic questions. Think on it.

Thoughts? Do you sometimes get so caught up in the writing itself that you lose your way? And what breadcrumbs do you drop to find your way back?