Obsessions are like lightning, and never seem to strike the same place twice.
Things still get written, but at a slower pace while my internal thoughts churn over mundane, non-fiction concerns. When I’m not obsessed, writing is a chore that must be scheduled and suffered. All available brain-bandwidth is utilized so that the writing expedition can progress. When I’m obsessed with an idea, the toughest writing work gets done all day long, not just in the few typing sessions that bookend my day. I don’t always realize my brain is working over narrative problems on a subconscious level until I have a sudden epiphany (“I fixed a plot hole!”) out of seemingly nowhere. While my body is physically out for a run, or grocery shopping or vacuuming, my mind is immersed in some other fictional world I’ve created. I’ll lay awake mapping my way through the scene I’m going to write when my 5:30 AM alarm goes off. I can usually tell if I’m in a novel for the long haul when I’m thinking about it all the time. It can be difficult to gauge obsession levels. However, my fleeting interest in Everest hasn’t managed to sustain me through a novel-length work set at 8000 meters above sea level…yet.
I can effortlessly summon fascinating facts and images, but I still lack important emotional and plot components that will bend a story into that essential peak-shape of rising tension and release.ĭifferent levels of obsession sustain me through different writing projects, and this particular setting has me gripped enough that if I decide to give this story the week of focus it deserves, I could probably mold it into a few thousand interesting words, and maybe I’d even stumble across an adequate emotional payoff during the writing process (I’m picky about my emotional payoffs). What I’ve got so far amounts to a decent research paper or vivid vignette. Every few years I take it out and kick it around, just to see if any new connections jump-start it to life. I’ve tried writing a story set on Everest-I even have a concept, a tentative character and a title. Temporary insanity provides sanity, oddly enough. Obsessions are nearly impossible to explain to others not in the grip themselves, but can afford us a deep well of patience, focus, and endurance. Writers, like mountaineers, relish single-mindedly hurling ourselves toward pointless pinnacles. While I have zero interest in donning crampons and oxygen mask to climb into the Death Zone myself, I feel a connection to such inexplicable obsessions. The annual assault on Everest by climbers from around the world fills my Twitter feed each May, prompting me to cram more books with titles like Into the Silence and Dark Summit onto my already cluttered bookshelves. Every few years I get on a reading kick about extreme mountaineering.
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