There are so many aspects, so many parts to the process. An idea strikes, giving birth to a story–perhaps it’s a short story that can be crafted in a day; perhaps it’s a novel that will take months, even years to complete. But here, now, at the outset, that’s not important. All that matters is the desire, the need, to write.
It doesn’t take long for that to change, and for the situation to become more complicated. I know, for me, if I have written a short story, there is the initial euphoria of finishing it. A job well done. But now–where to submit it? Will anyone want to publish it? A dozen rejection slips later, a crisis of confidence hits. Who was I fooling? It isn’t any good. Maybe it’s not as polished as I thought–so I go back, edit it some more, and then resubmit to a dozen more magazines. Eventually, I have so many rejection slips and form letters, I can wallpaper my office with them. But I keep submitting, keep believing. It just takes one . . .
And as for the novel . . . multiply the above by a thousand. Whereas the short story is a sprint, a forty-yard dash, the novel is a marathon, a test of endurance. At some point, I know, I will question the entire project. There will come a low point, when energy reserves have been depleted, when ideas hide underneath rocks and behind thick, impenetrable walls, when I ask myself–“Is this story going anywhere? Where do I take it? What do I write next?” Writer’s block, while in the middle of a novel, is a grim feeling. All the work already put forth now appears for naught, stuck in the middle of a chapter that refuses to cooperate.
I had to confront this middle-of-the-story crossroads while writing The Eye-Dancers–the point where the novel will either take off and infuse me with a literary second wind, or die on the vine, withering under a sweltering summer sun, thirsting for ideas that never arrive. For me, and for The Eye-Dancers, this defining moment occurred in chapter 18.
I was slightly more than halfway through the novel, and felt pretty good about what I had so far. But chapter 18 was a quagmire. It was a pivotal chapter, and one of the longest in the novel. I couldn’t seem to get it right–everything I wrote came up flat, like soda left out on the porch all night long. I wrote a first draft–ugh. Lifeless and forced. Reluctantly, bemoaning the wasted effort, I deleted every word of the chapter and began anew. The second draft proved no better. I threw my hands up, literally. Was my concept wrong? Should I take a step back and rethink the whole thing? I remember taking a long walk, thinking, figuring, looking at the impasse from all angles. But nothing came to me. Nothing sounded right.
It brought to mind something George Orwell once said: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
Later that day, at a total loss, I flipped through some of my old comic books, looking for something, anything.
I found it.
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When I was in junior high school and began collecting comic books seriously, I never thought I would buy any issues that weren’t superhero-related. The Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, and later Batman and Superman were my focus. But as I learned more about the history of the medium, realizing how rich and layered old comics were, I decided to branch out. One of the gems I later discovered was what collectors often refer to as “pre-hero Marvels.”
Prior to The Fantastic Four number 1 (November 1961), Marvel Comics published a small line of adventure and sci-fi comics–certainly not unique in those days. Even DC, creator of Superman and Batman, incorporated a quality line of non-hero comic books. But what made the Marvels special were the monsters . . .
With names like Grogg, Groot, and Zog, just to name a few, these larger-than-life creatures jumped off the page.
I can easily imagine an exuberant ten-year-old in 1960, at the height of the phenomenon, spinning the comics rack at the local corner store, trying to decide which monster-book to plunk his dime on.
The stories, with titles such as “I created Sporr, the Thing That Could Not Die,” were formulaic, silly, and, frankly, ridiculous. But they were magic, too.
What’s more, they were fun.
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That particular day, seeking something of an escape from the writing process, I opened Tales of Suspense number 29 (February 1962). Tales of Suspense is the same title that, ten issues and just over one year later, would introduce the world to Iron Man–but I wasn’t thinking of the Golden Avenger as I flipped through the story, laughing and smiling all the way through “The Martian Who Stole a City.”
The story was dated, predictable, and by no means a masterpiece. But it was just the tonic I needed. It made me feel twelve years old again. It infused me with optimism, a sense of wonder, and it instilled in me a belief that anything was possible, and that any obstacle to creativity can be hurdled and left far behind in a sun-streaked rearview mirror.
Energized, invigorated, I went back to the book, dared to key in the first word of the revised and revised and revised again chapter 18, which expanded to the first sentence and then the first paragraph. Two pages later, I paused, pumped a fist. The logjam had broken. The mind-block had lifted, disintegrated, like smoke on the wind.
It was a necessary reminder that, no matter what our Amazon sales ranking, no matter what or how many reviews we have, no matter how hard it sometimes is to get our thoughts and visions onto the page, when it’s all said and done, we are doing something we were born to do. Something we need to do. Something we love.
Ray Bradbury once wrote, “Zest. Gusto. How rarely one hears these words used. How rarely do we see people living, or for that matter, creating by them. Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer’s make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto. . . . For the first thing a writer should be is–excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms.”
As I continued to type, the words now pouring out of me like lava, the classic issue of Tales of Suspense number 29 still lay there, in full view, on my desk.
Thanks so much for reading!
–Mike
Eye-Dancers 