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Category: Writing and Poetry
On archaic maps, beyond the edge of the known world, cartographers sometimes wrote, Beyond here be dragons.
For all they knew, that's what crept beyond the horizon.
During the time I've worked on Novel #2, I too know what it's like to stand in that liminal space, my back to the known world, my eyes narrowed at the darkness. I know what it's like to be both places at once.
Several weeks ago, I was somewhere in a part of Novel #2, close enough to it that I could almost see an object in a character's hand, but far enough away that my cat's terse "meerow" made me bolt a foot up from my chair.
Did she, the cat, perhaps say, "Come back"? I wonder if what I was trying to see, I wasn't ready to behold at all. I do that with this book, push my way into its shadows. But as often, more often in fact, it pulls me into the shadows by force.
This isn't the novel I wanted to write next. I had something else in mind, a character with a good sense of humor. He led me to learn the difference between environmentalism and ecology. He promised to teach me about music. Then he slipped away during the summer and fall of 2006. Into hiding.
So there I was in October 2006, unsure what would take the other project's place. Then I rediscovered something I'd buried long ago. Yes, literally, I dusted off an old box and found a book I'd started many years earlier. I hardly remembered it. As I read through the old manuscript, I found a few characters and paragraphs I could salvage from my clueless beginnings. Within two days, the premise of the novel reinvented itself. Within two months, I'd tapped into a project deeper than any I'd ever attempted. Correction: Any I'd ever choose. Like THE MERCY OF THIN AIR, Novel #2 picked me, too.
Novel #2 has a working title and quite a cast of characters. These days, I can say there are more places and events seen rather than unseen, but there are still pieces that are completely uncharted, territories it hasn't let me visit yet. Connections it hasn't revealed.
Now and then, I'm asked what this book is about, and my reply is, "The book won't let me talk about it." If this comes off as coy or mysterious, that's not the intent. I do have a clue based on what Novel #2 has shown me so far. But this book demands something of me that MERCY did not--an understanding that things crack through darkness as much as light. Think deep space, soil, eggs, wombs. Think a waiting, reverent silence.
I don't know how much more time Novel #2 will take to complete. MERCY took four years, approximately. This week, I'll mark the second year and sixth month of this (renewed) voyage. I've seen beauty that leaves me wondering how I'll find the words to describe it and terrible things that I wish could be left unspoken. Absolutely, I wish I knew when there will be a complete manuscript on my desk, a publication date on my calendar, a final book jacket design at the printer.
Until then, I'll continue to move into the darkness, toward the unknown, until I find what I'm meant to tell the rest of the world I’ve seen. Wish me courage and a safe journey.
12:57 PM
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