an end in hand

Right now I'm writing a novel, reading one too. Not even one of my own, John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire. I read it a long time ago, at least twenty years, maybe more. I know the outline of the story, but in reading it, it's like I've never read it before.

And certainly not since I've been a writer.

One of the things I love about writing, as well as reading, even if it's a book you've read previously, is the sense of surprise. Of course in a novel you've never opened, there's great intrigue lurking, waiting to be discovered. In writing it's the same, even if you know what's going to happen.

For me, that's part of the beauty of being an author, in that I can have a story so tightly plotted, but still intangible things happen, characters popping up, nuances and twists, all sorts of stuff I'd not considered. This huge open space of the unknown, and while sometimes it's daunting, one of the dangerous parts of this job, it's also exhilarating, liberating, allowing the mind to roam within certain confines, or being naughty and chucking the parameters altogether.

I love John Irving's style of writing, the way he crafts sentences, chapters, but this is tempered, maybe qualified is better, in that I also know he starts with some final sentence, then goes backwards, if you will, aware of everything that happens, or so I've read in some of the interviews he's given.

I could never write that way.

Maybe I'm shallow, maybe I'm, well, not a hack, but there just has to be some bit of wonder, maybe even a little worry, will this turn out, will it be any good? Will it make ANY sense? If I plotted out a novel with too much strength, then I don't know if it could breathe. Not sure I could.

But it works for Irving. Two of my favorite books are by that man, The World According To Garp and A Widow For One Year. I'd forgotten how much I like The Hotel New Hampshire, also a very good book. I can't complain, only to say every writer comes to this craft differently, with methods and purposes only they can own. I appreciate what he does, don't feel obliged to copy it. Having written all I have this past year, I'm feeling comfortable, or at least competent. Maybe I shouldn't want to be too set in my ways, leaving space for what comes next.

But in the meantime, I can read his books, feeling the craft employed, such care. No matter how words are written, if they're from an honest heart, that's all that matters.