Most of my posts focus on things I’ve learned about writing…or at least think I’ve learned. Today’s will be different, a bit more of a confession and reflection.

You see, I’m scared.

After three-plus years of writing my first novel, A Philosophy of Air, I’ve nearly reached the end. It’s so close I can taste it. And part of me can’t wait to shift from writing to the editing/revising stage, which for me has always been massively easier than writing a first draft.

But I’ve realized something: I’m scared. I find myself looking for excuses to avoid writing, to avoid that final step in completing the story. Take this blog post as Exhibit A. 

Across these past three years I’ve experienced countless challenges: plot holes I couldn’t fill; scenes which didn’t work; hours and days where the right word eluded me or where my characters felt lifeless. But this is the first time I’ve felt fear.

Okay, maybe the second time?

There was another moment, just over a year ago, when I felt something close. I had completed eight chapters…at that time about a third of what I’d planned…and had a creepy, nasty feeling that something was wrong. Something felt broken deep in the heart of my story.

In the world of pantsers vs. plotters, I live way over on the plotter side, meaning that I meticulously craft my plot before I begin writing. In theory, I do this to ensure that my story is super-tight before I begin the writing phase.

When I felt my story come unbalanced, therefore, this was daunting not merely for all the obvious labor a rewrite would require. It suggested that my method was wrong.

As it happened, this logjam coincided with a three-month pause in writing as I focused on learning to speak and write in French. (A separate story, but this has been a goal for my wife and me over the past few years.)

This pause turned out to be a spectacular blessing. Spending a couple of months removed from the project allowed me to face up to the reality of the problem. In the end I found the strength to live by my own values: come what may, I put the good of the story first.

My consternation gave way to grim determination. I threw away half of what I’d written, rethinking the plot to retain the essence of my tale, wrapped within a stronger story.

Nearing the end

So here we are, a little over a year later, and my new, stronger version of Philosophy is almost done.

Let’s be frank, though: we never reach done, and certainly not when we write THE END. Those words simply mark a new phase of editing, review, redraft, refinement. After that — if all goes well — there’s everything that goes into publishing and marketing and more and more.

So am I afraid of moving onto the next phase? Not at all. As I mentioned above, I love the editing phase. That’s the point where I get to ditch my worst stuff. Maybe I even get to replace it with better stuff. I certainly get to take my good stuff and refine it ‘til it shines. Who wouldn’t love that?

No, I think the problem isn’t THE END itself. It’s not concluding my first draft. It’s writing the climax, the scene where everything I’ve been working on for the past three years comes to a head.

Why should this frighten me?

Stories are tapestries, many threads woven together to form a coherent whole. If one’s craftsmanship and artistry shines, the product dazzles.

Unlike a tapestry, however, you can’t see a story and its individual threads all at a glance, or observe how each thread connects to others. You can only look at your story a bit at a time. It’s as if you were forced to view the tapestry through a magnifying glass, reconstructing it in your mind later on.

The problem with the end — the thing which frightens me, I think — is arriving finally at that climax, the place where all the threads converge. After three-plus years of hard labor, have I really done the job properly? Do I really have a golden thread which, when pulled, will draw together all my disparate ideas into a cohesive whole? Will I even know?

Those who can’t do…

I can rabbit on from here to eternity about showing versus telling, about making scenes work harder and crossing chasms. I can rub my chin and look thoughtful as I extol the value of etymology, or why heroes need to be underdogs, or why we crave contrast. But in the final analysis, do I really get it? 

I’ve written a lot. I’ve spent a lot of my life learning about storytelling, observing what makes one story work while another doesn’t. When I post, the advice I offer ain’t conjured from nothing. I’m pretty confident that it’s good advice. And when I’m less confident, I advertise that fact.

But at the end of the day, can I walk the walk?

I can rabbit on from here to eternity about how to craft a story…but do I really get it?

It’s a trial by fire. Just as my characters must run the gauntlet at the end of my story, living or dying after a final, critical challenge, so must I. Of course I have an unfair edge: if my first trial fails, I can return endlessly until I get the outcome I want.

But making the dream concrete stress-tests whether this story I’ve cooked up truly merits all the work I’ve poured into it. Is this an exciting, thoughtful tale destined to enthrall readers? Or is it just a limp collection of vaguely related ideas which a few friends will half-heartedly tell to me “they really enjoyed?”

That’s the fear.

Only by pulling on that final thread and seeing whether the pattern resolves will I begin to know whether I can get beyond hypothetical advice and actually spin the great yarn I believe I can tell.

Sage advice?

Not this time. As I said at the top, this post isn’t a how-to. It’s a simple confession. It points out that you can know a lot about a subject and still understand very little.

I will get through this mini-block. My rules for writing are simple. They’ve seen me this far and they’ll get me to THE END. And if the tapestry doesn’t come together, I know what I’ll need to do. I expect (hope) that it’ll all come together in the edit.

If you’ve read this far, thanks. Writing this post has helped me come to terms with this fear, to focus on what’s really going on and persevere regardless.

And yet the fact remains. I am scared. Confronting that is just part of the process.

If you’ve faced a similar setback — or a completely different one — I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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My writing covers various topics, including my home town of San Francisco, my work as a tour guide, my work-in-progress novel, and of course the process of writing itself.

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