Travelling hopefully into the fog

The BM has just set out for work. As I do every day, I went to the door to wave him off and watched as he drove down the road. But I couldn’t watch him for as long as I usually do. Today, he disappeared far more quickly than most mornings and I couldn’t watch him till the end of the road because he got swallowed up in the fog that has come down overnight and is still lingering this morning – waiting for the sun to burn it up and drive it away. The fog is there because it was a beautiful mild day yesterday but overnight a chill descended, bringing a touch of frost and the resulting drop in temperatures has brought the mist.

So the Babe Magnet is setting out to work and he can’t see the road he needs to take very clearly. In fact he can only see short stretches of it ahead of him at any one time. But he has a good car and he knows the route, and so he’s setting out confidently into the fog. And I know that once he gets further away from the low lying land this town is built on that he’ll probably get into much clearer driving conditions – or that later in the day the sun will burn that fog away.

Which is really rather like writing a book. And it’s very like the stage that I’m at with the particular book I’m writing. Yesterday was a pretty good day. Slow to get started, but once I got going the words came down on to the screen with a nice steady pace. I knew where the scenes was going, what was happening – what the characters needed to say – what one of them in particular needed to learn – where I was heading. And I got there. So I went to bed with a nice feeling of satisfaction – and a small niggling worry.

I got my characters from A to D . Now I have to move on from F to – hopefully – J – but first I have to write E and E is the transition. One character has walked out (Raul of course- who did you expect?) and he never wants to see Alannah, the heroine, ever again. But of course he has to or there ill be no story. I know what happens when they get back together – I know just what suggestion she’s going to hit him with and how he’s going to react. But I don’t quite know how that’s going to happen – not yet. It’s in the really foggy bit at the end of my road.

Liz Fielding once described her way of writing as ‘setting off hopefully into the fog’ and that’s how I feel this morning. But, like the BM, I’m not setting off without knowing where I’m going – I know where I’m heading in a general sort of why – I just can’t see the specific turns in the road ahead – and I won’t know what’s ahead of me until I get there. And I have one strong thing on my side.

My characters.

My friend and scarily prolific writer Kate Hardy said to me about her books:

I see mine as a film script so I get the whole lot and I'm a planner so it
works best for me that way. The idea of doing it your way - as a pantster -
sends me into a flat spin!

So, yes, here I am being a ‘pantster’ ie writing by the seat of my pants – but the truth is that I’m not really. I know my characters so well. I know what they want and why they want it. I know what they think they can’t have and why they can’t have it. And, most importantly of all, I know a tiny little secret that they don’t know – not yet. But I know exactly how they will react when they find out about it. And the way they react will take me into the next stage of the story.
The thing I have to do is to get them back together again.

While I’m writing this, I’m also mulling over my options. If he comes back to her, it will mean one thing. If she goes to him, then things will start on a different footing- they’ll get to the same place in the end, but the mood will be different and so the way that the scene starts off will be different – and the way that affects their relationship, at this stage in the story, will be crucial.

So although I’m blogging, I’m really working. (Honest, I am, Michelle Whip-Cracking Reid – and equally whip cracking editor!) The transition stage is at the back of my mind weighing up pros and cons – this way or that. And I think I know what will happen – because there was one tiny thing that happened in the scene I wrote the day before yesterday that means it has to happen this way. I love it when that happens – when you write something that doesn’t seem to have any significance at the time, but now you realise is absolutely vital. You see, in these very short, concentrated books, you can’t waste time and words on something that isn’t going to matter. And remembering what I wrote suddenly brings the sun. The fog is thinning, the road is becoming clearer and like the BM, I find I know just where I’m going.

Now all I have to do is to write it.