I read once that writing a novel is like driving on a country road late at night. Your headlights pick up enough of the road to allow you to go on, but you sure don’t see very much on either side.
That seems an apt description. I’m closing in on 100,000 words on a novel I’m calling Collie’s War. It’s set in WWII and it follows the fates of a circle of characters as they go through it. I have a central love story to follow, but the rest —and I still have another 50,000 words to go — is scenery on the side of the road that I sense, but can’t know. Nevertheless, there is pleasure in composition. I like going out to my cabin and seeing what’s going to happen next. The trick is not to overrun the headlights or expect your vision to be too clear. A lot of writing is trust. If you’re lucky, and if you’ve done the work to train yourself, then you can usually hope for a good outcome.
So that’s what I’m thinking about this morning as I cross the 100,000 word mark. We’ll see where the light shines and I’ll try to follow along behind.
