I will never know the feeling of labor and childbirth. Mind you, I’m not bemoaning that particular white space on my life experience checklist. However, a writer, regardless of sex or the numbers of child-shaped “trophies on the shelf” he/she might possess, understands the metaphor for labor when it comes to crafting a story.
Today, a story that was long overdue broke my water and began to really shift things into gear for me.
When you know you’re pregnant, there is that first stage of trepidation, fear, and the sense of limitless possibility tempered with the fear of the unknown, or worse, fear of the known that takes shape in the form of all the horror stories of terms gone wrong. Writing is similar. When you first conceive, the tiny germ of a story begins to multiply in your mind, arguably the story’s womb (I’m sure this metaphor has been beaten to death by others with a much better take on it, but as this is a blog post from a guy who is very much in the moment, I’m going to go forth, un-googled on the matter), at an alarming rate, but nothing much changes on the outside, initially. Your inner self is giddy with where this is going, but still plagued with pesky signposts like story arcs, credible characters, and the like. But the optimism of the first trimester buoys you along and those minor inconveniences are forgotten for the time being.
Time has a way of changing all that. You begin to swell and hunch over with the growth of the story. You walk differently, your body changes with the added responsibility of this new parasitic (not a cute and cuddly word, but let’s face it, nonetheless accurate) thing thumping inside your melon. Your blood volume expands as you are taxed to nourish it, to protect it in its pre-natal stage. You become fat out of a sense of protection. You relent to the stretch marks the strain of the thing has left on you. You begin to suffer real physical pain from this baby that has, thanks to snap-shots shown to you by your writing group/peers/editors, enamored you with its barely audible heartbeat, little vertebrae, and the self-comforting act of sucking its thumb, an act it has no idea brings you such unchecked joy. You know now that this baby is coming, and you only have so many days to prepare for it.
When the due date comes and you still have unfinished pieces, you start to panic. What is worse is that when the due date passes, and you are informed that your story is a high-risk pregnancy; you begin to panic not for the baby’s future, but for the baby’s life.
Then the most glorious release that can happen begins. When whatever needs to be poked or prodded in that Rube Goldberg machine in the mind kicks in and the process starts, without error or need of reset, when everything becomes clear just seconds before it needs to, there is a bliss that comes from seeing the end clearly in sight. There is a knowledge that this will all be over soon, and that it will end successfully, healthily, naturally.
Today my most problematic pregnancy to date, one I thought I might lose at some point, kicked inside me, turned itself headfirst, and made no apologies about what it wanted to do. Every questionable element has seemingly fallen into place.
News at eleven.
