Justin Achilli

I'm back at earnest work on another full-length work of fiction (having not learned my lesson with Demimonde). Over the past several days, I've been gathering the scraps I had previously scribbled in various forms — longhand in Moleskines, pinned unceremoniously into ill-named Google Docs, two stubborn Scrivener binders — and assembling the thing from the morgue has been a great deal of fun. After having been at impasses with the idea for intermittent spells, it all just clicked for me the other day, and the rocky parts came together with the newfound glue of having a good time with it.

That's the shame of it. Too often, I find myself laboring under the effort of making it all work that I lose the ability to step back and just let it work. Because it will. Fiction writes itself, and the writer is just the conduit. As Steven King says in his wonderful On Writing, "Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered, pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible." I enjoyed On Writing more than any of King's fiction, in fact, and I'll sing the praises of its message to high heaven.

So as I sit here, stitching together the unearthed fragments of conversation between Misters Finch and Thrush, the bravado of the American Arthur Armiger, the bittersweet resolve of Rachael, the hubris of Prince Geoffrey of Avalonia, and the honest evil of Dr. Cross, I get excited to see what will come out of the ground next. I promised myself two thousand words tonight, and while I'm not quite there yet, I look forward to going back to the dig.