One of my favorite quotes about writing/the creative process is from American novelist E.L. Doctorow: “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” As a “seat of the pants” writer, this is how I approach my story—I know my ultimate destination and the general direction of how to get there, but I spend most of my time writing in that pool of light, seeing only what is immediately before me—in other words, what I happen to be writing at that particular moment.

The irony is, I do not approach road trips this way. When traveling somewhere by car, one of my most favorite things to do several weeks ahead of time (usually because I’m so excited about going) is to get on MapQuest, MSN’s Mappoint, and pull out the trusty old Rand-McNally atlas (so I can see it larger than 4” x 4”) and either refresh my memory of the route—the interstate numbers/street names, exit numbers for places I like to stop, etc.—or start memorizing and writing out detailed, meticulous “turn by turn” directions when it’s somewhere I’ve never been. I do this even with a trip I’m as familiar with as Nashville to Baton Rouge or Nashville to Dallas. When someone gives me directions to his/her home, not only do I write down what they say, but I get online and look it up, too, to get the image of the map in my mind, as well as see actual calculations of distances, as most people (including me) can’t estimate distance accurately.

I am now at the dreaded “middle” point of RH. For most SOTP writers, this is where we start getting really bogged down. We know where we need to be at the beginning and the end of the book, but because we haven’t outlined or written a detailed synopsis before we started writing, the details in the middle are rather foggy. We need conflict. We need character development. And we need the plot to move ever forward (in the right direction). But really, we’re flip-flopping around like a fish on the beach because all we can see is what’s in that tiny radius generated by the headlights of our imagination.

For me, this is usually when things either start coming together and I get one idea after another, conflict building on conflict, that drives me to the ultimate climax and the ending I knew I would eventually get to; or it’s when I start to realize that the story isn’t working quite right and some major changes are needed—either to the characters, the plot, or the conflict before I can get to the climactic ending I want. So far, RH has been cooperating and new and interesting conflicts have arisen which I’d never imagined until the heat of the moment with fingers on keyboard.

But I just had a daunting realization today. I face writing FOUR middles in this story. As I have planned this as a trilogy, I have three novels for which I pretty much know the beginning and ending points, but the middles are foggy . . . and then on a bigger scale, there is the second book—the ultimate “middle.” I know for certain how Book 1 (Honor) must end. I know the main action, conflict, plot, and ultimate climax in Book 3 (Quest). But I’m not really sure what happens between the end of Honor and the main action of Quest. I have to get them from England to Jamaica, but I don’t know how important the journey is—nor what problems they may face on the voyage. I know Book 2 (no name yet—maybe Crossing) has to begin after the, uh, last event of Honor and before the action that happens once they arrive in Jamaica, which is the story for Quest.

I wish I could approach my writing like I do road trips—mapping out every turn, nearly every signpost. But one thing I’ve learned about myself, from having to do this exercise in grad school, if I write out all the details of the story, I’m no longer interested in writing it. Strangely enough, although not knowing exactly where I’m going on a road trip sends me into abject panic, most of my joy in writing is derived by not knowing where I’m going until I suddenly find myself somewhere I never expected. It’s like the feeling we derive by reading a new book or seeing an original movie (not one of the remakes of TV shows or novel-to-film versions)—we’re just along for the ride. And yet the feeling is multiplied ten-twelve-ninety times when writing because of the internalization of the events and the characters—they came from somewhere deep within me.

Scientists have proven that the creative process releases endorphins in the body that give us a “high,” very much like exercise or drugs. Now, I’m not saying that those who plan out their entire novel before writing it don’t get the same euphoric feelings as they craft the story on the page, but there’s just something so exciting and daring about sitting down and seeing where my characters are going to take me today, what they’ll do or say, whom they’ll meet, or what challenges they’ll face. It must be the same type of rush that extreme-sports junkies get from nearly killing themselves time and time again.

So, I’ll leave mapping for the road trips and keep meandering along the backroads, seeing no further than the headlights of my creativity, for my writing.