Swimming with the fishes

So if you're a swimmer (I'm not)(which won't stop me from using a swimming analogy)(after all, it's not "write what you know"; it's "write what you can imagine") (where was I? Oh yeah...)

So if you're a swimmer, you'll know that when your head is under water you have to hold your breath. You'll also know that with practice and fitness, you can increase your lung capacity, but even so, there's a limit on how long a human being can hold his breath. (That limit is around nine minutes, I'm told. The average person in good health can maybe manage two minutes or so. Maybe.)

Eventually, you gotta come back up for air.

So what's this got to do with writing, you ask? (Or maybe you don't ask, but I'll assume you did.)

The other day, a writer friend of mine, Lori Benton, in a casual online conversation about writing, offered an analogy on what it's like for her to write a first draft. She said:  "I can only sustain it for a few minutes at a time, then have to rest my brain, regroup, think things through, listen... then I dive again and swim with the fishes for a few more minutes."

And I thought, "Aha! That's exactly what it's like!" Putting new words on the page feels like holding my breath underwater. I can only do it for so long, and then I have to pop back up for air. At that point I tread water, float, splash around, climb out for a towel and a cold Coke...in other words, I stare out the window or channel Winnie the Pooh ("Think, think, think") or fix a snack or (heaven help me) check email (which is usually the death knell of actual productiviy). If I manage to resist the lure of email and internet, I can suck in another lungful of oxygen and plunge back underwater.

On an average day, I'll end up with maybe mmphmm* new words (though I will have done a lot of rewriting and editing of words both old and new throughout the process). On a brilliant day when everything's flowing, I might get double or triple that amount. Writing lots of new words is both draining and exhilarating, as if I'd just swum the English channel or something.

Once the words are down and assuming I don't jettison the whole bunch the next day (that's been known to happen), then, as Lori says: "There's a much deeper submersion in the story that happens once something's on the page already." And she's right. Something marvelous occurs. I can breathe under water. I can swim in the story for a long time. Suddenly I have gills. It's deep sea exploration time. Treasure hunting. Diving for pearls. This is when real story development takes place.

Not every writer works this way. Sometimes I've fervently and profoundly wished I could be one of those writers for whom the new words flow** like the Mississippi in a spring flood. But except in rare instances, it's never been like that for me. More like the trickle of a high mountain spring.

Or holding my breath underwater.

But once the words are there... lookout, fishies. Here comes the mermaid.

*Represents a modest number

**Some writers whose first drafts come easily and/or quickly embrace revision with the same enthusiasm as someone might embrace the idea of skinny-dipping in the crushing black depths of the Mariana Trench. This is the cosmos' way of balancing things, I suppose. As for the writers who write fast and revise easily and brilliantly, well...they're a myth, right? Please tell me they're a myth. After all, do you actually know anyone like that? I thought not.
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     "Moriana, there's something I want to say to you."
      She realized he was holding both her hands, and that they were the only warm part of her. She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip. "Not just yet," he said. "Please."
     "What do you want?"
     "I want you to come with me."
     "Riordan can guide you now. You don't need me anymore."
     "No, I mean come over the Wall with me—and Riordan, too. You don't need to stay here. Where can you hide that the Shirin will not find you?"
     She was frozen clear through, but his words struck a spark in her heart. For the first time since running away, she felt a tiny, warming flare of hope. Despite what she'd told him last night, she had no clear plan, no place to hide for long. "I don't know. Where would I live?"
     "I have a sister, about the same age as you. You could stay with her." He released her hands at last. "What could possibly keep you here, after what has happened?"
     "My father—"
     "If your father could save you from the Shirin, you would not be here now."
     That was undeniably true.
     "Think on it," he said.
     As they climbed down and trudged through the snow and lengthening shadows back to the cave, she found she could think of little else. The notion of leaving forever her family and clan—once it would have been a bitter thought. To follow Riordan into exile would be both pain and joy. To live free of fear, free of the Shirin—it made her giddy.
     But it meant placing her trust in a Keldian, an untouchable barbaric outlander…
     …and a man the kyr had favored with a sunfeather.
     She doubted even the Shirin could explain that.
     "Do you know what yesterday was?" she asked. "The day when summer dies in autumn's arms. We sometimes call it the day of change. And much changed." For a moment, the desire to change it all back was overwhelming.
     "For me it was more like a day of wasted effort, I'm afraid."
     "No. I think your coming here was like a great boulder falling into a river. But will you change its course, I wonder, or merely sink to the bottom?" She glanced sideways at him, found him watching her in that unnervingly direct way he had.
     "Perhaps," he said with a faint smile, "I will grow gills and swim like a fish."


(from The Knife-Giver, Book One)