Walking Through Fog

I often compare writing the first draft of a novel to walking in heavy fog. When I begin, I can't see my way through to the end yet. But I can see just far enough to write the first chapter. As I write it, I begin to see where the second chapter will go, and the one after it. Sometimes the fog clears for a space so that I begin seeing how several chapters at once should fit together. However quickly or slowly it clears, it almost always pulls back fast enough to stay ahead of where I'm actually writing. If I suddenly run into it and lose my way, I've generally done the writing equivalent of overdriving one's headlights, and the best thing to do at that point is to slow down or to set the project aside altogether and work on something else for a while. When the project in question is ready to write again, it'll let me know.

Recently I ran into just that sort of problem with Cloak and Shadow, the story of Jan-Pawel Trzetrzelewski's first assignment as an actual Head of Mission. I was running into a feeling that something, or perhaps someone, was missing. However, I didn't have any idea what should go into those holes, or even exactly how big those holes were.

I've learned through bitter experience that trying to force things is apt to wrench the story out of shape. However, by setting it aside for a while and concentrating instead on some other parts of the chronology, I was able to gain insights on that novel. Now I'm starting to get a clearer idea of just who all I'm missing, and even beginning to see some of them.

Now to try to pull these threads together into some kind of coherent whole, and make sure that they don't go unravelling all over the place the way I had happen with Wyrm Rampant back in 2001. (That's one I've still never been able to get back to and sort out, although one of these days I really want to. It just doens't help that it is going to be a huge novel, big enough that I really don't know if any publisher is going to want to take the risk involved in publishing it from an unknown author).