Breaking Hard Ground: A Commentary on the Writing Process

As I work on my first novel to be shared with the public in October, I am surprised that the writing process has very little to do with my own "effort" and so much more do to with just being willing to notice the truth when it appears in subtle ways.

Sometimes I hear people say that they get an idea so complete that it pours into this world like a waterfall from somewhere unseen and unknown. Mostly for me, an idea pours into this world more like tar; slow, sticky, messy and requiring much labor to force it into a form that will eventually lead to something worthwhile.

It is these tar ideas that are the most exciting and the most able to spark a shift in perspective both for myself and those who read them. These tar stories, however demanding and laborious, are the ones that grow me personally and spiritually during the writing process. Hardly ever do these ideas end up telling the stories I thought they wanted to tell in the beginning. Instead there is some larger truth that wants to be known through them; a truth that doesn't care what I started out to write about.

To be honest, tar is probably the wrong analogy because tar is man-made, lifeless matter. Perhaps tar ideas have to begin dead because of my own tendency not to recognize that ideas are, in themselves, living things. But once the tar is mixed with the gravel of my own experience a road can be paved that actually leads to something semi important even if it isn't alive.

But for the real truth, the life itself to appear, I have to wait. Just like wildflowers, real truth grows without actually being planted by any"body". In fact, this process has nothing to do with my own efforts whatsoever, except that I am open to seeing them. Not creating them. Not planting them or growing them, but merely noticing them there and then pointing to them so others can see them too.

Finally, wild "life" grows itself throughout the whole of my tar and gravel pathway. Those wild truths exist there on display against an unlikely habitat for all to see. A daisy here. A dandelion there. The hope is that they will be noticed and those who take the time to appreciate them will be a little better off for having had the chance to see. Otherwise its just a road.