Story Tools

            People occasionally ask me: what do you need to write?

            The stock answer is "pen and paper," or, these days, "a laptop" (or iPad or whatever of that nature).

            The honest answer is a little more complicated for some of us.

            I say "some of us," because I stand in awe at the production of King or Atwood, Gaiman or LeGuin, Stephenson or Rowling, Allende or Perez-Reverte.... They just do it. (Or so it appears, anyway.) But the "some of us" dither, and think about it, and get distracted.

Guadalquivir River, Andalusia, Spain

             I've been writing the never-ending-novel since around 1986. Writing isn't just the actual sit-down-and-write part, even for the literary giants. For this book, there was research, which involved travel. You can't get the feel of the air over Chetumal Bay (Mexico) from a travel guide, and pulling information from the Archivo de las Indias in Seville is vastly aided by persuading one of its excellent and knowledgeable employees to give you a hand. Which is more likely to happen when you're face to face with them.

             And then there's the thinking: lots and lots of thinking. And rethinking. Finally you pick up your pen or equivalent and start--only to realize it's a false start... it's not right; the beginning isn't really the beginning. This can happen more than once; it can happen over and over. (Maybe I'm working from another false start now, but at 200 plus pages, I fervently hope not!)

Executioner (Palos, Spain)

            Whatever the legitimacy of the delays, I strongly suspect this book has taken so long to get well and truly underway because of doubt. The story is embedded in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and the people who tell it come from two different cultures, neither of which exist anymore as they then were. There's some historical fact; there are a lot more holes! Can I get these people to tell me their story true?

            To the point: what do I need to write? Experience suggests the ideal is a Yucatec hammock to work in,  preferably hung outside in a warm climate, inside will do, if the weather's too hot or too cold or there are too many mosquitos; blocks of time that let me live in an era and in space molded and shaped inside my head; and relative isolation so I can hold that imagined world steady in its own reality.  

            Finally, and most importantly, I need faith in my characters, who have a story they want to tell. Because if I trust them and listen, they'll give me everything I want to know. All I have to do is write it down.