It's 3 a.m. Do You Know Where Your Plot Is?

I don’t know how many of you remember the PSA from which I borrowed for the title of this post. Here it is:

It was ominous and creepy and unforgettable. It’s exactly the phrase that comes to me when I wake up in the middle of the night fretting about a problem in my book. I feel as though I should know where my characters and my plot are—if I don’t who can? But lately a central plot point has eluded me, and my confidence has wandered off too.

This is what is happening right now. It’s the middle of the night and I am fretting. I’m sharing this state in case some of you are having the same dark nights of the soul and need some company.

I wonder if I brought this on myself. This year I tried an experiment. Rather than writing every day no matter what, even if it was stuff that added up to nothing (most of the writing over the years), I decided that when I went to teach at Breadloaf this summer and headed into my semester with many Zooms and appearances still on the calendar for Fellowship Point that I would step away from writing until I truly had productive space for it again. I got a lot done at Yaddo during 5 weeks in the spring and I felt all right stopping in mid-August. It seemed mature to make that decision when I knew I didn’t have real time for it. I suspected, anyway, that I was addicted to writing; I wondered if I should limit the practice to the productive only and stop messing around. I wrote through my chaotic childhood, I wrote through grief, I wrote through boring school days, I woke up from a C-section and immediately began scribbling down my anesthesia induced visions. Writing kept me sane, but was I just using it? Should I respect it more and save up the skills for when I could use them to a clear end? Such was my thinking about stepping away.

Let’s call it an experiment.

I picked back up in mid-October when the rest of my obligations lessened and time opened up in the schedule. During the break my subconscious had been on the job, and when I sat back down I found I had a whole new angle on the book—a new plot line that seemed to me to be exactly what was missing. Don’t we love these eureka moments, deceptive though they may be? I spent about a month working out that plot line thoroughly and then began drafting. It went well! This new thread indeed thickened the stew in exactly the places I thought the book was thin. IT WAS ALL GOING WELL. Famous last thoughts. I have never believed that to feel confident is to invite misfortune—it took me way too long to feel confident to afford superstition. But now, here, in the middle of the night, I wonder about this too. Should I have proceeded without saying to myself that I liked it? Should I have…what? Too late now, whatever it was, I didn’t do it, and here I am.

The semester break arrived and I decided I should reread my draft. Dear Reader, I didn’t love it. I won’t go into the gory details; I’ll just say I crashed. Doubt seeped in. The kind of doubt I haven’t felt for ages. The kind I thought I was past, that I’d worked my way out of based on the positive experience of writing a big novel, solving all its problems, and having it be well received. The sick stomach. The strangled hesitancy when picking up the pen or touching the keyboard. The questioning of the whole project, and the middle of the night review of other mistakes made in the past. Why not pile on when I was down? I smelled blood and went for it. Finally, I had to admit that I was in a full blown crisis. What to do, what to do? The only answer I could come up with was, is, keep going back, it works if you work it. And—keep it simple.

I love plot. When I shifted from poetry to prose at age 28 I was imitating the minimalist stories of the era and I was a) not good at it, and b) hated it. The poetic form I’d loved the most was the sonnet and I’d written dozens, starting when I was fourteen. I loved forms and rhymes and constraints, and then when I was living in London during the punk years of the late 70s (now called post punk) and going out to see/hear music several times a week (example below)

my poetry ran away from those guardrails and got long and loose and I had to admit that I’d started to write stories. But once I officially declared that intention I was lost. This is a longer and more complicated story that I can tell here and now, but the headline is that I stopped writing for two years and read carefully, especially trying to understand plot. For some it comes naturally. I had to figure it out. It was exciting to see it when I eventually did. It lifted off the pages and existed by itself in space, a beautiful structure, similar in every novel from Mrs. Dalloway to The Shining. But it was easier seen than done. I have been remembering how hard it was to figure out the plot mechanisms of Fellowship Point, to choose and reject with an aim toward a final inevitability. It took six years to wrestle it to the ground.

It took time. And here I was, back to my old childish hope that I got it right the first time. Do I not know better?

And yet I have learned to trust that if I put all the ingredients in the blender I will be able to find the answer someday. I think I found it tonight. I think I finally figured it out, unloosed the night that obscured the clean clear plot line. Got it down to being something simple yet galvanizing for psychological complications of the characters. There’s only one way to find out if it really works, though.

For the time being I am going back to the daily writing, no matter what. I don’t know if it will stave off doubts entirely, but I do know that when I stay in a book and on this side of judgement I have a better time of it, and the inevitable problems seem more of a fun challenge and less a stark failure. We’ll see. It’s a practice, not a rule.

It’s now 5:30. The day begins.

Recommendations de la semaine

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez. Just finished and liked the most of her cranky old lady books. Well-constructed and funny.

Fellow Travelers starring Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, two gods who are touching actors. Come for the seriously hot sex, stay for the character development and the reminder that we’re better off if people can be who they really are. This is on Showtime to Paramount +, I’m confused, but it’s out there and a good show—aren’t we always searching for a good show?

Interview with Painter Matt Phillips I met Matt at Yaddo years back and loved his work then. Now he has just closed a show at the Anna Zorina gallery in Chelsea. He has hit the big time. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer more talented man.

Hot chocolate with marshmallows. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Mushroom congee and lentil shepherd’s pie. It’s that time of year.