How Not To Pilot A Submarine

According to my schedule, I owe you folks a blog post.

Here's what we did yesterday.  Beach trip (or 'down the shore', as is said in NJ) to Ocean City.  It was gloriously foggy, so I could sit and dig into the sand with my toes and watch my sister play in the ocean, like she is in that picture, without sweating to death.  There was a stiff breeze that kept me cool, and then when I got bored I could just walk on up to the Atlantic Ocean and wade in it.  After the initial shock, it actually wasn't so bad, temperature-wise.

Yesterday was a day for me to try and figure out things in my writing life, because I've been having issues there lately.  I keep feeling like what's coming out of me and onto the paper (or Word document, actually) isn't what I really want to write.  I feel like I'm cheating not only myself, but all of the people that are hearing me say "Oh yeah, by August.  Definitely by August."  I'm just so lost in it I have no idea where to go or if I've even been going in the right direction this whole time.  There are so many facets that keep coming up, the further in I get and the more I read of other books, that they're starting to overwhelm me.

I don't know if you can understand what I'm saying.  I guess it is somewhat similar to writing a paper.  You're given the topic to write on anything you want, and so you just bustle right in and get working after you get an idea.  Then you stop and realize that you're headed in a bad direction, so you backtrack, and you change your idea a little, write some more, but you simply cannot be satisfied.

...Alright that was an awful metaphor.  I've got a better one.

Imagine you're at the beach.  You're down the shore in Ocean City, New Jersey.  There's a noisy boardwalk behind you but you're facing the ocean in your little beach chair, your bare feet buried in sand.

If you've never been to the beach, I am so so sorry.  You're missing out on something wonderful.  Also, you probably won't get this metaphor.

Anyway, back to the beach.  So, you see a man in a rowboat come out of the fog and touch down on shore.  (There actually was a man in a rowboat on the ocean yesterday.)  He approaches you and offers you a ride on his boat.  You accept, and you climb into the boat.  He shoves off, jumps in, then starts rowing.

You get out onto the open ocean for a few minutes, and it's really something.  Then he takes you back onto shore and you go back to your beach chair and your sand.  It was fun while it lasted, but now you're back on land where you can completely forget about the view of the open ocean that the rowboat man gave to you.  It was just a little distraction from your beach chair.

Now imagine it's not a rowboat, but a submarine.  Or, it's a rowboat, but that rowboat takes you out to a submarine that's just chilling in the middle of the ocean.  And you get into the submarine and then they launch you out with a complete stranger in this thing.

we all live in a yellow submarine...

Now you're freakin' underwater, bro.  You're seeing sharks and stuff.  You know, sea anemones.  Whatever there is underwater.  Then you get back to the submarine, and for good measure they throw you in a shark cage for a little bit.  And then they take you back underwater so you can stalk that shark that just tried to attack you.  And then you go back to the dude in the rowboat, and he takes you to your beach chair.

That's what I want books to be.  I have nothing against pleasant, marginally exciting rowboat adventures on the ocean.  Everything has its place.  Rowboat trips are distracting, fun while they last.  They're a quick little escape from your beach chair.

I named my book Okeanos a long time ago.  Back when I named it, it meant something different.  It was just my nod to Greek mythology, and a good set-up for a long, 5-book series.  That was the plan three years ago.  But now it's taking on a literal meaning.

I want my book to be an ocean.  I want to take you on a submarine ride into the depths of things.  I want to show you all of the weird fish that live on the bottom of the sea, things you've never seen before.  I want to throw you in a shark cage once in a while.  I want you to be involved and entranced.  I want you to see the ocean from a different angle.

The problem is that I have no idea how to work a submarine.  A rowboat is pretty straightforward.  You put your back into it and row until you reach your destination.  I'm not saying you won't get tired, exhausted, even, from doing it.  I'm not saying you can't see amazing things like leaping dolphins or biplanes with messages flapping behind them.  Maybe even a whale or two.  And I'm not saying you won't get lost along the way.  Rowing isn't easy.

But a submarine?  With all of those switches and nobs?  All of the gauges that you have to keep track of?  The building pressure the further down you get?  You need to now how to handle that kind of thing.  I was just sitting on my beach chair half an hour ago, and now they're telling me that I am going to pilot a submarine.  I want to go deep down there, far enough that my head would explode if I went outside of the submarine, but I have no idea.  I keep getting lost.  It gets darker the further down you descend.  There are too many knobs and levers and gauges to keep track of.

I'm getting overwhelmed.  I'm out of my element.  But unfortunately, I'm not content with that rowboat.  I can't resist the siren call of The Deep.

So that's where I am in my writing.  I'm trying to show an ocean but I can't figure out the controls.  I keep skimming the top, climbing back out into the rowboat because the submarine is just too hard.  But then I try to  go back underwater and I get overwhelmed by all of the things to keep track of, and I come back up again.

I don't know how to fix that other than with practice.  I want this book to be perfect, but I realize that I'm not capable of giving it everything I want to give it.  Do I put it on a shelf and work on an idea I don't like as much, because it's not as confusing?  Because I know that I'll be able to keep an eye on the shore so I don't get lost?  I've promised people I would deliver Okeanos, not Unnamed Idea #3.

Or do I keep going, fully aware that I'm not good enough to explore the ocean as much as I want?

Well, I'm trying to keep going.  I know that the middle is supposed to be the hardest part, so it's no wonder that I'm having this crisis in the smack-dab middle of writing it.  I'm trying to incorporate struggles with physical abuse, kidnapping as a child, death, growing up, love, doing what you think is right...  I think I'm in over my head.

Literally.  In a submarine, and the ocean is closing over me as I force myself deeper.  And, you know, I'm also taking the kids to swim lessons, going to the beach, visiting my local library, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, having lunch dates and movie dates and going to church and trying not to fall back into who I was before I went to college and grew up some.

You know.  Having a life.

"GET UP GET OUT OF BED GET OUT OF YOUR WRITING CUPBOARD."

Trying to, anyway.

"Unless you get back in that cupboard and start writing."  -That stupid rowboat man

Until next time, kiddos.