What Is This All About Anyway?

Some years ago, a former professor of mine gave me a stationary set. The paper was lovely: thick and very white. You know, the kind of paper that just soaks up black gel ink like a sponge. On the top of each page was a stark black symbol that contained, among other things, a quill pen. The stationary design was called "Tabula Rasa." As all you very literary women are surely aware, this phrase, translated from the Latin, means blank slate.

I didn't just love that stationary because it was a gift from a woman I admired and respected, nor did I love it because it was beautiful. I loved it because all that blank whiteness represented such limitless possibility. I could write anything I wanted on those pages. And if what I wrote was good then it might touch a life for good or change an idea or clarify thinking or shed light . . .

Or all of those other wonderful things that good writing can do for the right reader.

Writing is a compulsion for me. If I am off-center and out of sorts it is usually because I haven't spent any time at my keyboard or with my pen or even just my imagination. I will sometimes use reading as an easy substitute, but for me, it is the writing that is the real outlet, and it has been for a very long time.

I don't know how old I was when I consciously purchased a notebook for the express purpose of writing down the stories that kept me awake at night and distracted me during my math classes: probably around age 12 or so. At my mother's house, there is still a rather large box somewhere filled with spiral notebooks, each containing dozens of whole and partial stories. My notebooks have long since given way to a computer, but my stories come the same way they always have: my first idea will form with the barest hint of conversation between two people and I begin asking myself, "What led these characters to this conversation." "Where did this take place?" "Why would this person say that particular thing?" and other questions in a similar vein and then I have characters. The events of their lives are filled in later. Perhaps some people think of fantastical and interesting plots first, filling in the characters later as needed, but for me, the characters and their conversations have always been the thing.

I first felt like a real writer (rather than just somebody copying characters and ideas) some years ago when I was working on a fantasy novel. As I was writing, I knew in a flash that my main character had to have something happen to her because of another character's choice. I would have never in a million years have consciously put her through that circumstance. And yet, I knew the characters so well that I could see there was no other way out of the situation. I cried into my keyboard as I broke her heart, knowing that it had to be that way. On that day, I found that when I was at my best, I could write characters accurately enough that they could tell me what they planned to do next. Writing fiction got really fun then.

Until a few years ago, I never thought seriously about publishing. I was writing for me--to rid myself of too much baggage in my head and to focus my imagination and pondering. Plantboy encouraged me otherwise saying, "If you are writing primarily for yourself, then you've already gotten out of it what you need to. So, really, you have nothing to lose." I listened to his great advice and have been on an emotional journey every since. Two days ago I received another rejection letter. It is one of only a handful because it takes a lot of guts to sent your best effort out into the world even when there is "nothing to lose."

And yet, as the rejections pile up, I feel a strange sort of pride that I've even attempted this nearly impossible thing. I think I will keep trying, but I'm ready for a place to "publish" so that discouragement is not a companion for more than a moment. Blogging has taught me that I really do like an audience.

The first series of posts here will be from my book Abish: The Story of a Convert. Be warned, it is historical LDS fiction. If you hate that kind of thing, you may not like this either. But of all the things I've ever written, the basic outline of this story came the most quickly and it is the only one I felt really inspired to work on. I have gained from this project what I can, for now. Maybe you can gain something.

For now, I'm not allowing comments. This story has been read and dissected and looked over by many friends and family members. I think it needs a break, and I need a break from it. When I've finished posting the chapters of this story (a few a week over the next several weeks), I think I will use this blog as more of a writer's workshop, with anyone interested able to both comment AND post their own fiction for discussion and critique--you don't get to do one without the other at Tabula Rasa. As I get to know my regular Nomad readers better and better, I think that there will be much insight and beautiful truths expressed through story and personal essay here. The potential for filling up the white space is enormous.

We'll see how the experiment goes . . .