I have been thinking a lot about being a writer and what “type” of writer I am lately.  What with the blog post on “It’s All Write to Blog” and working on my methods for writing and my bits of well intentioned suggestions on how to go about the craft, well, one’s mind does tend to focus on self definition.  My biggest reason for viewing myself as a writer is an age old one that I am certain I am misquoting in some form, “I write because I must.”  

Somewhere in the countless pages I have devoured on writing and the craft, I know I have seen so many definitions for why one writes that they have blended together.  I suppose the reasons I write are as blended as the “type of writer” I am.  Right now, I consider myself a simple bifurcation of writer.  (Until recently, I was tri-furcated because I did screenplays as well but now I am only two personalities as a writer.) I write thrillers and I blog; very different headspaces for me.  As a thriller writer I find myself extricating my characters from impossible physical situations, only to place that same pour pica soul into an even more complex and impenetrable mental mess.  Physical danger and mental danger occasionally mix; that is my favorite place to explore the metal of my minions of paper.  As a blog writer, I bounce around like a ping pong ball in a blender.  I write process, I write thoughts, I write reviews but it is all inner headspace.

I recall reading someone put forth that quantum mechanics provides the potential for nearly anything (talk about bouncing around, writing to quantum mechanics).  In some quantum theory, the mere intention of the thing has the power to make the thing happen; hence, the book The Secret and its success.  If all one must do to achieve a goal is to imagine it with enough detail and fortitude, then that thing will come to the person who follows the secret.  Not a theory I fully support, but then who knows, perhaps my visualization of authorial success is possible.  I keep trying the visualizations just in case.  But, I have not put much stock in it, other than a bit of time.  

However, if you extrapolate from the potential of visualization and you mix in neophyte knowledge of quantum realities you might reach the same conclusion I do.  The idea as my understanding goes is this:  The universe (or uncounted multitudes of universes) exists in such a way that every decision you make, that could have gone one or dozens of ways, was made in a variety of universes. A bit of a stretch, but ok, lets go with it.  We are writers after all and exploring potential is a big part of what we do in the game of “what if” that we tend to play.  So, every decision has multiple outcomes, and those are all followed in one universe or another.  I know this must be possible, or at least explainable because I saw it on Star Trek and maybe Stargate as well.  Well hell, if science fiction writers can do it, why not us thriller types?  I can clearly see the episode of Star Trek Next Generation where the hundreds of versions of the Enterprise converged at one place in the time space continuum. If the special effects guys can make it happen, it must be able to happen for real, at least in some universe.  

For example, today I could have blogged a review, or the start of the contest we are bringing to PlotDog Press, or I could have gone with the post I have been trying to do on the tools of writing or I could have written this post on my universes.  In this universe I am stuck with this outcome.  How does this relate in any way to your path (or paths as the case may be) of writing.  How about this:  (and you sci-fi, or fantasy, or magic, or what ever sub group of writers you belong to, can feel free to filch this idea) … every story we write, might be something more than a story in another universe.  If you combine “The Secret” with quantum physics and a touch of Star Trek, could you have universes where our stories are real life?  Perhaps Victoria really is chasing serial killers just like Dead Play.  Maybe the screenplay, “Intervention” is happening and at this moment in some timeless universe Jane is recruiting that crazy chick to help her kill Dick (oops – forget I said that, oh well, you know from the synopsis she’s gonna try to kill him).  Maybe even my outline of “Appearance of Justice” has started Hector towards a fateful game of racquet ball that puts Hector into the place where he is unknowingly ordering his goons to kill his new best friend and so murder the only hope of getting out of his depraved world.  Who is to say it ain’t so?  

All of that said, maybe, just maybe, the writer who is piecing together my extraordinarily unusual existence, is as I type this, figuring out a way to get one of my books to the top of the New York Times Best Seller List.  So, If you are writer god, please move things along on this story; I could use that book contract sooner rather than later.  You, whoever you are, that sadistic author that is writing me, I got kids to feed and a book tour to get on, so get on with the plot of my life.

What could bring my mind to this?  It was of all things a book, Water for Elephants, one that spent time as number one on the Times Best Seller List.  I opened the cover; read a few pages and was completely entranced.  After fifty pages, I wondered, would my books ever make that happen to someone?  Will I be able to suck a reader out of his or her world and into mine, so much that they forget their situation and pull for my characters?  

I have never seen myself as a top of the list sort of guy, but this blogging thing, moving up in rankings, getting authority, and having strangers comment positively on my work has given me a chance to hope, believe things are possible and envision the outcome.  (Back to The Secret I know).  

All of those mental machinations left me wondering if I should change my writing voice to something more best sellerish.  Perhaps I could change my tone, get flow and color the way that leading writer does.  Should I?  Which circles me all the way back to the type of writer I am.  I write because I must.  My voice is my voice and I will stick with it, watch it evolve naturally and see what my “life author” hands me from that decision.  

Right now in another universe I am sure I am changing my writing voice, just to make sure I followed both paths.  In another, perhaps I stop blogging, (I am sure my alter-ego there will regret that decision) and in another who knows what will happen.  I wish I could watch how those lives turn out too.  Perhaps that is the writer’s version of heaven, we get to see what we could-a, would-a, should-a written rather than what we did write.  The only thing I am sure of at this point is, if I don’t write, it will drive me crazy and perhaps stop other universes because I gave up on the story.  

A true writer has to tell the story that has to be told.  That being the case, I am soon to dive into the writing of my next novel, Intervention.  The screenplay is already being posted here on this blog, but my intention is something I hope my readers will enjoy.  I am going to post the process of the writing.  First the scenes from the screenplay that is already finished, then drafts of chapters as I write them as well as my thoughts on the writing process. I hope this experiment is as fun for you as I hope it will be for me.  I can’t wait to see the comments my choices and changes bring.  

This all starts rather soon, so keep an eye out, Writer Boy is coming back to novel form and I hope his cape is up to it.  For my readers who don’t want to see the process, I will clearly mark finished chapters so you don’t have to see how I put the makeup on.  For my readers who are also writers I hope that this helps you accept or improve your writing process, just keep working your own universes. Who knows how the story will be told, but I do know, it should be told by you.

Write on My Friends