Doughnuts

Today I finished the third draft of my new book. That might sound like good news but, since it tends to take me about fourteen drafts to write a book, I've still got a long way to go. I'm about to sit down and read through the book to see what's working and what isn't. I already know what the main problem is. I've done what I always fail to do - and what I regularly see my student failing to do. I've neglected to actually tell the main story. I've told everything else. The book has endless sub plots and back story. Pages of accurate description. But the main story is shadowy and imprecise. I call this the doughnut effect. The book with a gaping hole in the middle of it. There are even some published novels, and memoirs, out there which are doughnut books. Either they lack a central story or a central character. But why does this happen? Why do we all write everything else except the real story?
I think the answer is that we're frightened of the real story - and with good reason. We chose a particular story because it has some resonance for us. We may feel sure at the beginning that it doesn't have that personal resonance but actually it does. But then, as we write, we don't push too far into that story because in order to write it properly it will take us to places where we don't want to go. And so we prevaricate and evade and bluster and write anything else except the real story. Some of us even lay down our pens and give up.
But the book will not work until we have the courage to tell that story. The book is offering us the chance to understand something new about ourselves and we have to find the courage to take that chance. We have to peel back layer after layer of ourselves until we can see what it is that we didn't want to see.
Maybe this sounds like therapy. It isn't. I don't write for reasons of therapy. I write because I like to tell a story. But what I do know is that as I write a book I'm always completely and absolutely sure that the book has nothing to do with me. Then three months after the book has gone off to the publishers I suddenly open my eyes and see how the book relates to me.
It's a mysterious process. Don't be frightened of the doughnuts. You've got to write the outside before you fill the middle in. But push yourself inwards. You won't understand it all until long after you've finished the book.