All I Want To Do Is Open That Door

I enjoy writing nonfiction… but something’s missing

Before I started writing fiction myself, I had this assumption that the books I loved had sprung straight from the author’s mind into their final form. Sure, there was proofreading involved—fixing typos and rephrasing sentences, things like that. But for the most part, authors just knew how the story was going to go. All they had to do was write it down, and after a once-over by their editor, their book would be ready to publish.

Oh, how wrong I was! In reality, most books undergo massive shifts during their creation. Unnecessary characters deleted. Entire storylines stricken from existence. Favorite lines cut because they just didn’t fit anymore. 

In a way, learning this made the prospect of writing a novel less intimidating. Once I finally got it through my thick noggin that I did not have to write a perfect first draft—in fact, I didn’t even have to know how the story was going to end!—writing a book started to feel like something I could actually do. The first draft of the first novel I wrote was a serious mess. But I could sense the glimmers, the gems that shone through all the excrement. I knew I could do better, so I kept on trying. I am not exaggerating when I say that it took about 40 drafts (some of them only slightly different, some involving extreme remodels) to find the story as it was in its final form.

(Hmm, well, I guess that process actually does sound fairly intimidating. But it was slow, steady work over the course of many years. It never felt overwhelming to me because I broke it into small, manageable bits. Plus, I loved playing in that story world, even when I was banging my head against the wall trying to puzzle my way out of plot holes.)

Now that I have four novels under my belt, the process has gotten a little quicker, but I still think of the first pass as a discovery draft—where I uncover the bones of the story. From there on out, it’s all about revision. Each early draft will flesh things out more, and as soon as I have something readable, I’ll gather feedback and use it to make the story better. There always tends to be a point at which I need to strip the book back down to the bones and question everything. This is when I ask, for every scene, “How can this play out in a more interesting, effective, or engaging way?” “Is this too heavy-handed? Can I leave some more room for subtlety?” “Does this line/scene/chapter/plotline even need to be here at all?” I also zoom out to look at the work as a whole and ask, “What am I really trying to say? Does the meaning come through without hitting the reader over the head with it?” And then I go through a few more revision passes before it feels like the story is really done.

Frankly, this is how I prefer to work. I love having lots of time to let things sit, to make sure I’ve examined each piece from many angles, to let the connections zing together and get rid of unnecessary/repetitive prose. But that process doesn’t work too well for the fast-and-frequent timeline of content creation. 

I say this because lately, I’ve been having the hardest time sitting down to write. I find myself reaching for distractions (and not just fun ones, either—even the stack of dirty dishes in the sink has started to take on a tantalizing air). And I’ve been wondering why that is, because I know I need this outlet. 

In the end, I think it comes down to a few things. As noted above, I prefer working on long-form projects where I have ample time to really dig in, go deep and revise to my heart’s content. I feel like that’s where I do my best work. But with the (largely self-imposed, but still present) pressure to keep up a regular posting schedule, I often have to push things out into the world before they have time to fully develop. 

Also important: here, I write for an audience. I start off writing about things I need to figure out for myself, but I always know that other eyes will be perceiving it. And that changes things. It’s much harder to let myself be messy and go with the flow, because I need to quickly hone in on a specific topic and speak about it with both honesty and great care—an energy-intensive process that tends to be rather draining for me.

It’s also tricky because the topics I want to write about are all interwoven, so sometimes I feel like I’m saying the same thing over and over again, or that I need to present ideas in a certain order for them to make sense. I know this isn’t necessarily true; there’s a lot of value in embracing non-linearity and pushing back against the idea that there even is a perfect way of saying anything. But where I really shine—what I love most of all—is to tackle book-length projects where I start with a tangled mass of yarn, unravel it all, then knit it into something cohesive and beautiful. 

However, I also have this “problem” where I cannot work on multiple writing projects at once. I know I’ve mentioned that I enjoy dabbling in many hobbies—roller skating, sewing, graphic design, gardening, etc.— but the common thread that ties these together is a spirit of unambitious playfulness. Once I turn my ambition to something, though, watch out! Then my obsessive brain kicks in and wants to hyper-focus on that project to the exclusion of everything else, and I can’t stop chipping away at it until I feel it has come to its natural conclusion. 

For now, Cracking the Walnut is my chosen writing project. And while I still love it, it’s just not providing me with the escape I crave. In all honesty, I prefer writing fiction to writing about myself. I get tired of spending time inside my head! I also like to explore things from many different angles and viewpoints. All of my novels are written from multiple perspectives, a structure that reinforces something I truly believe: no one person has a handle on the “truth;” we all may have pieces of the puzzle, but only when we put our pieces together can we begin to glimpse the larger whole. I feel like that context is lacking when I write about myself all the time. 

Also, I miss stepping through the door.

A glass door capped with an arched window, pictured in shadow. The sun shines through the panes, allowing a glimpse of the beach beyond. Don’t you just want to step through it?

I think of it like this: we all have a door inside our minds that leads to the imaginal realm—the world that is accessed via the imagination, and which speaks in an often hard-to-decipher language of images and archetypes and symbols. Usually, around the time we enter adolescence, we’re taught to close this door and lock it up, because playing on the other side is frivolous and childish and we need to turn our focus to dealing with the real world.

Though it may sound kooky (unless you are a fellow Jung fan and/or artist who steps through the door often), I know deep in my bones that the imaginal realm IS a real world. It may be immaterial, but it is REALLY THERE. And for whatever reason, this world has been calling to me my whole life, even during the years I slammed it shut and locked it tight so I could try to become a Respectable Scientist. Choosing to unlock the door, only to find my first novel waiting inside, was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. 

For the record, there’s not anything special about me—everyone can access the door, but it does require keeping the pathway clear. This means carving out mental space, stripping away some of the distractions that are abundant in our current age, and showing you value that world by feeding it attention and time. Obviously, this isn’t easy—you have to really want it. Or, like me, be compulsively pulled back again and again, because even when you try to ignore it you can still hear it calling and it won’t leave you alone unless you listen to it.

That seems to be what’s happening now. I keep hearing the call, most often through dreams. (My dream journal from the first three months of 2024 alone is already 58 pages long!) Occasionally, I’ll work on a post that incorporates things that drift through from the other side, but it’s never quite enough. I think what I need to do to quiet the call is to throw the door open, step over the threshold, and declare, “I’m here! Let’s play.” But I know that if I do, this current project might fall by the wayside, and I’m not ready for that yet.

So, I’m going to try to take short sojourns into that world. Maybe I’ll work on some poetry, or other short-form pieces where I can embrace the weird while also getting out of my head for a bit. Over here on Cracking the Walnut, I’ll be aiming for an every-other-week posting schedule, but there may be times when this space goes quiet. If so, I’m probably just messing around beyond the door (and/or dealing with stuff life is throwing at me—seems to be a recurring theme these days!). But I’ll be back, eventually, because I do love checking in with you. And I continue to be grateful to you for being here, for coming along on the ride with me… even when it veers off on strange detours.