I’ve been in a fiction writing drought for nearly a decade.
Sure, there’s been epiphanies. Most of which I’ve captured and saved.
Research? We’re talking about nearly 2 million words across a few documents, and that was all without one of those irritating generative AI fuckboys.
Character biographies, including supporting characters such as the relatives, besties, and sworn enemies orbiting around four main characters? Yep. I know their MBTI and Enneagram types. I know their strengths and weaknesses.
I know what they like to eat, where their great-grandparents are from, and what types of micro-aggressions they detest. I haven’t fleshed out the facial expressions they make when they take a shit, but some things are best left to mystery so the reader can fill in the blanks and, anyway, eww. I can’t believe you would even suggest that.
Entire poster boards filled with ideas, scene diagrams, themes, and motifs? All 30 or so are in a big portfolio case in my office closet, probably under the ties I don’t wear.
And then there’s the outlines.
Iterations of countless outlines. Oh, so many hopeful, virginal outlines. He came, he saw, he outlined. Remind me to mention the outlines.
Everything, everywhere, all at once…except for actually writing a fucking first draft or even a first chapter.
Drought, drought, drought.
Because I couldn’t seem to land on an actual storyline and story structure. It was like preparing a banquet feast but never taking the chance of inviting someone to dine and drink at the table. My characters were all Enneagram-ed up with no place to go and nothing to quench their thirst.
It’s been an era of novel-writing resistance, as Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, might say; and the reasons behind said resistance are as numerous as the planet’s proliferations of shy tributaries snaking their wet paths across various landscapes, evading their own geographical droughts and feeding into large rivers that, at some point, reunite with the sea while singing I know now that I love you ‘cause I need your touch, hey, hey.
During the past 15 years I’ve published three of my books on Amazon, the first two being works of fiction: The Book Club Widowers; Narcissus Blinked: Three Novellas; and The 4 Spheres of Intentional Living. But the last time I updated any of those volumes was late 2018. Since then, I’ve avoided the proverbial blank fiction page like Pig Pen of Peanuts lore running scared from a bottle of men’s body wash. Drought.
But this morning, I let it rain.
No more wishing it would rain like Phil Collins. No more blame it on the rain excuses like those lip-syncing Milli Vanilli dudes, and their name sucked anyway but it really was a tragedy for me to see the dream was over because I liked their music. And holy shit…Blame it on the Rain literally showed up on my Spotify right now as I’m typing this! Chills…or is it just surveillance capitalism?
(Suddenly it’s 1989 again and I’m about to head back to college for my senior year and I was hanging near a girl I liked and that Milli Vanilli fake song Girl, I’m Gonna Miss You was playing, and damn I knew I was going to miss her and I did; but a year later I kissed her and that was the only kiss because she was one of them there holy rollers and “God” told her not to see me anymore and don’t get me started on God.)
No. This morning was more like Roger Daltrey screaming, Love, reign o’er me as I knocked out about 1,500 words of that long-elusive first chapter.
Yeah, I know that rain and reign aren’t the same word and I’m mixing metaphors here, but they’re phonetic twins and I was today years old when I realized the Who song actually used reign and not rain…but it’s my Substack and I’ll mix as I wanna, bitch, so go write your own damned first chapter instead of scrolling notes that oughta be on Insta or FB, and maybe one day you’ll reign over writer’s block like I’m doing right now.
There. I did it.
I’ve told you, my Substack community, that I’ve started writing a novel.
I’ve never had a supportive writing community like this, and I’m really hoping that some of you will organically hold me accountable because dammit I am determined to finish this volume and nurture it across some eventual finish line where I land the publishing deal or find a way to publish it myself.
I’m probably not going to talk about it a lot, at least for now, in essays like this after today. And, even less likely, in Notes…with one splendid exception that you’ll learn about before long. You won’t see me dropping ongoing word count updates, although I celebrate those of you who do that if it energizes you and galvanizes support.
However, I’ve been sharing some things with a few of you behind the scenes (you know who you are, you lucky bastards) and that will most definitely continue, unless you eventually find it insufferable and tell me to sit the hell down.
So, after such an extended fiction drought, after all those years of research, outlines, and character biographies without ever finding the right storyline and story structure, how did I end up getting said storyline and story structure?
My recent two-day trip to downtown Chicago to meet up with my oldest friend Bill and see our favorite band, Rush, gave my four alter ego-ish characters a place to go. In my novel, two longtime friends really do meet up in Chicago to see their all-time favorite band. They go to some of the same places that Bill and I literally went to last month. (Note: None of the characters are based directly or even indirectly on Bill or the important people in his life or in my life. This ain’t no Look Homeward, Angel.)
And here’s something that has me unapologetically geeking out. Instead of putting Rush into the story, I’ve fully invented my own fictional progressive rock band.
I’ve already come up with the band name, the band members’ names, their origin story, album themes, song titles, and even a few song lyrics. I’m having so much fun tapping into the high school and college versions of me who scribbled out song lyrics week after week. It’s like a resurrection of one of my early types of writing and I feel born again for sure.
What else happens in the story? I can’t tell you because I don’t fully know, but I can tell you there’s an emerging golden thread across things my characters are unwilling to feel.
Does that sound familiar? If you’ve followed my essays the past several months, it should. If not, check out Things we are unwilling to feel, part 1, and part 2.
You know who else still has stuff they’re unwilling to feel?
Me.
For years, I’ve been unwilling to feel the potential of staring at that blank screen and feeling like I have nothing to say. I’ve been unwilling to feel the reality that my first draft will probably suck, despite that being rather normal.
But beyond fiction writing or any kind of writing, I’m asking myself more and more each day, during little moments, what am I unwilling to feel right now?
As I discover things about my four characters along the first draft journey, as I nurture them and help them grow, I’m counting on growing a little more myself.
Just like I want my writing to touch and transform readers, I want to keep transforming myself; transcending states of avoidance and pushing myself deeper into life’s messy ambiguities and joys and sufferings and all the nuances you can’t curate but can lean into and, as a result, possibly make some fleeting semblance of meaning regarding this temporary existential crisis we call the human experience.
Hello! I’m John DeMarco, a Nashville, Tennessee-based, married GenXer dad of amazing daughters, sharing stories and reflections on growth, loss, and making your own meaning. I’ve been writing since around age 11.
My Substack is reader-supported. While all of my articles and Notes are free to access, those choosing to upgrade to paid subscriptions enable me to dedicate more and more time for writing, reading, commenting on, and restacking other writers’ work. I’d love for Substack to eventually become the only thing I do for a living along with writing books and, perhaps, movies and TV shows.
Thank you so much for your time, attention, and interaction!
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I love the idea that the story finally began moving when you stopped needing to know exactly where it was going. And that golden thread of what your characters are unwilling to feel... there’s something fascinating about discovering that our characters may be leading us somewhere we haven’t been willing to go ourselves. Perhaps that’s part of why the story arrives when it does. Looking forward to seeing where yours takes you.