Full Up: The Small Idea

This happens every so often. I've been out filling my well today, working and writing, and I'm full up with things to say and sort out and realize.

Behind the scenes, without much talking about it (primarily because I have little to show for it yet), I have been working away at Summerlight. There were three things I wanted when I started this novel:

• an ensemble cast
• a novel of Vardin
• a story that captured the scope and the heart of Vardin and its tentative relationship with the nations around it

I got that with Summerlight, but the more I dug into this story, the more it seemed to snake its way just out of my grasp. It's too big and too scattered and, oddly enough, too heartfelt. The core of the book should be bound into the title and I can feel it there, but it won't come out and glisten.

Cue a break from working on it. Instead I've been plowing through the world of Breath and startling myself at some of the richness playing out in shorts that will eventually see the light of day, I promise. (I can't publish them while they're on submission, so coming soon...ish.) But while I took a break, my brain has apparently been working.

First, Rabia Gale made a prezi, and seriously, you all should watch it. It's an amazing example of how to really crystallize what excites you about and drives a novel. I took my own stab at one and immediately learned something about my story and also learned that I needed a more cohesive immediate story arc. The subplots can be interwoven, but the core of Summerlight should be immediately available to me. The subplots too need deeper integration. This was a good start, but not yet enough to run with.

Let's continue with the tipping point: The Big Idea: Michele Lang. This is what I read today and made something click in my mulling, broody, writerly brain over here.

Summerlight cannot be about the big idea.

There it is, my shocking realization. The fact is what draws me to Vardin isn't the big idea, except as it informs the little ones. What draws me to Vardin is the intimacy of the characters, their stories, their struggles. They compel me. And somewhere in the attempt to show others what I love about Vardin, I forgot that it wasn't Vardin I loved, but those who make their homes there.

I'm still behind the scenes with this book and I don't know when I'll update it next, but there you have it. I think something's going to break soon.