Last night I sat with all the pages, handwritten, typed, word-processed, that I have for the story that has been haunting the back of my brain for months, and laid them all out on the floor, thinking, re-arranging, making notes, and it occurred to me that this process of building a story is much like the process of building that godforsaken patio. When I started it, it was exciting - I posted on social media how much fun I was having doing this myself. Then, the muscles began to hurt from digging and leveling ground over and over, from hauling and placing and lifting twenty-pound stones, and then the frustration of stepping back and seeing whole rows or sections off-kilter, needing to be pulled and laid again, of living with dirt constantly in your skin and fingernails and hair. But there is also satisfaction. The satisfaction of finding and filling the pocket that is causing one section to keep sinking, of watching the bubble in the level come out perfectly when you check, of standing back and seeing the pattern you envisioned realized in the stone. The satisfaction of seeing the beauty emerge from patient and careful placing, stone by stone.
The main character in my current story, Tom, has been elusive. As often happens, I thought I knew who he was, what his story was, and just a few pages in, he took over, but he has still been hiding in the shadows of my brain, just letting me know with that little itch, that odd discomfort when the wrong words go on the page, that I have not quite got him yet. So I dig. I do all the things that writers do when a character needs more depth, more focus - brainstorm, character development activities, writing letters to him, trying to coax him to speak back. Page by page, I stand back and I can see when the stones are not level, when I have not been patient enough with placing his words on the page. It is hard work.
Sometimes, a character comes fully formed, ready to speak. Just yesterday, I was at a book fair, and a woman stopping at our booth looked at the cover of my last book and asked, "Who is Samuel Joseph?" And I could tell her - I know him, and could use words to describe him the same way I could describe my best friend. Tom is not there yet, like that pocket under the sinking stones, he is still hidden from me in many ways, but decidedly present. I just need to get my fingernails dirty enough to find him.
