how to write a book - lesson one

(subtitle:  Do not be like a koala.)

I'm starting to learn a few things about writing a book.  Today I became conscious of something rather important, I think.  I'll try to describe it as best I can and maybe it'll help one of you readers out there.

I think there's a feeling you have for your story before you even write anything down.  It's like an emotional blueprint for the book.  And it's more important than anything else - this is why you can change your main character from a boy to a girl, or a boy to an aardvark, or you can take out 12 pages and put the beginning at the end and the end at the beginning and still be writing the same story.  The emotional blueprint is your story and you are trying to get that feeling out into the world for other people to experience.

When I write, all of my efforting goes toward trying to make the words and pictures express this emotional blueprint.  I know when something isn't right because it's veering from that original sense of the book.  And I go back to that feeling over and over, all the way through writing and drawing and editing.

Ahhh, but here's where things get tricky.  At some point, after all this careful construction, you have a book.  (Hooray!)  And you need to sit (preferably somewhere comfy, with a nice hot cup of coffee and quiet - complete quiet) and read your book.   BUT, you need to read it in the proper way (this is what I'm just learning to do.)  The proper way is to read it like you've never seen it before, like you've never heard of any of the characters.  But even more importantly, before you start reading, you need to completely and totally forget that feeling - that emotional blueprint you started with.  You need to wipe it clean out of your brain.  Because, most likely, you didn't quite capture that original feeling.  Sad, I know.  (But you did make a book, which is cool.)  So, you need let go of your original intentions and start looking at this book as it's own being.  And you need to discern what feeling it IS expressing - and then you need to edit it so that feeling is expressed as best and fully as possible.

Well, this is my theory anyway.  And I think most of life works this way - you have to have focus and determination - but at some point you have to let go and accept what is and be adaptable.  We are humans - we don't have to stick with just eucalyptus.  I'll let you know how it goes.