Road Trip

I continue to write. Or at least, I did until the holiday whirlwind caught up with me. Now I just think about writing, and gaze wistfully out at the screened porch that our unseasonably balmy temperatures make suddenly inviting. All I need is my laptop and a nice cup of tea...

After Christmas.

One of my favorite writing quotes is from E.L. Doctorow: "Writing a novel is liking driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights but you can make the whole trip that way."

I like it because it's exactly the way I write. How far the light shines ahead may vary; sometimes it's like a great searchlight shining so far over the plains that I can see mountains rising in the distance; sometimes the light is so dim I wonder if it won't fail altogether. Or a fog envelopes the road and all it does is reflect the light back at me, and I lose my sense of direction.

When things are good, it lights just enough of my highway for me to travel swiftly and surely through the darkness.

And eventually I find my way to the end.

Do you write by headlights? Do you follow a map? Do you ever get lost along the road, and if you do, how do you find your way again? If you wander into a cul-de-sac, do you retrace your steps or do you blast a highway through the thorny hedge? What's your method for making that road trip from first line to last?

***

A sudden breeze whipped Saree's hair into her eyes. She raked it away and saw that the creature had flung out a long arm of golden wind. It tore free of her body and curved into an arch. Beyond was a tunnel of darkness.

:here is the first dream, and the easiest. the rest you will find in the mirror. each will require more courage than the last:

Saree stared at the arch and decided she had no courage at all, not for this and certainly not for what might come later. As soon as she awakened, she would take off the stone and drop it in a very deep lake. "No. I won't do this."

The creature's displeasure was smoke-gray and prickly. :if you do not walk into the first dream, you cannot walk out of the last with the knowledge you need to defeat your enemy—and mine:

Saree stiffened. "Whatever bargain you think I made, I deny it. My son will never belong to anyone but me."

:it is traced on the wind and written among the stones that your son will die at the hand of a woman he loves:

"The wind is inconstant and stones can be rearranged."

Amusement rasped like a cat's tongue. :you are both wise and foolish, saree-child: Her eyes were gleaming mirrors and her thought-speech spread into a pool of still, patient blue. :go, woman who sees but does not understand:

After a moment, Saree turned and walked through the arch into blackness. It was not obedience that carried her through, nor courage, but the overwhelming need to grasp the truth and wield it, a sword in her hand to defeat the threatening shadows of her memories.

The tunnel led her into a canyon, a tortuous landscape of black rock with ridges honed like knives and spires that thrust bony fingers into a white sky. She stood at a hub of sorts, with paths branching out in every direction, some straight as the spokes of a wheel, some curling into the dark throats of arches and caves, and all carpeted with powdery sand the color of charcoal. A tendril of wind blew gently at her ankles and drew darting patterns in the dust, in the way of a child tracing designs with a stick.

She felt a spasm of panic, and wondered where she was expected to go, which path she should follow. If she took the wrong one, would she wander forever?

The little wind skated down an avenue to her left, sculpting the ashy sand into drifts and hollows. In one trough she glimpsed something pale, like exposed bone. What had that creature said? That the dreams were white stones on a dark trail…

Saree hurried down the path and when she reached the dimple of black sand, she stooped.

It was not another stone, but only a flower petal, cream-white, as lushly rounded as a baby's cheek. Her disappointment was sharp. She stood and turned back, only to discover that the hub was gone, along with the other paths. Walls rose in great slabs on three sides and the fourth was an open avenue, spear-straight and narrowing into the distance.


(from The Knife-Giver, ch. 44, "The Wish-Seller")