It was on March 7, 2012, that I began this blog and posted an entry. That is, more than ten years ago I wrote:

“I am working on a new book. It’s so new it has no title, and to be honest, I’m not sure what will happen. Certainly, no ending is in sight. But it’s different, I think, than anything I have written before, so I’m having a good — if hard — time.”

I’m unclear what book I was working on back then (Perhaps Catch You Later, Traitor) but if I were to write a summary statement as to what I am doing today it might read:

“I am working on a new book. It’s so new it has no title, and to be honest, I’m not sure what will happen. Certainly, no ending is in sight. But it’s different, I think, than anything I have written before, so I’m having a good — if hard — time.”

The curious truth is that every book I write feels different (even sequels) and every book I write is hard to create. The fact that I have been writing for more than sixty years doesn’t make the ongoing work any easier. What all my experience has taught me is that if I keep working, I get somewhere though I am unsure what that destination might be. I just want to get there.

Because if there is one thing that allows me to keep going — other than the need to make a living — is that each story is different, with a different situation, and a different cast of characters so that every tale is new for me, too. I love stories, and it must be understood that I am telling myself a new story each time.

If I am at the stage when I am working with an editor, I am (hopefully) being pushed to know more about the story, more about the characters, and more about the emotions that flow from it all. Many a time I am pushed in such a way that I discover more about the story I am working on even as I am revising it. This happens when the characters become separate from me, develop a life, and demands of their own, so that I am — as it were — observing them from some distance. That is writing — for me, anyway — at its best.

It may sound rather simplistic, but I am writing so I can find out what happens. In other words, when the writer in me becomes the reader, I am exactly where I want (and love) to be.

If I could sum it up, I might say writing for me is — finding a new story. I only hope I like it.