I’ve previously written about my insomnia-fueled initial brainstorm for Spacewalker. I had lots of ideas, little focus, and almost no vision. This time, I want to share the story of a chilly, rainy, wonderful moment of clarity when I decided to commit myself to writing a novel.
I had an overwhelming urge to make something. I consumed so much—books, Netflix, other people’s creative efforts—and I wanted to flip that equation around. Misguidedly, I turned to politics and started work on a personal political blog. I had this ridiculous notion that I could make a difference in the political discourse, that I could sway people to support better policies and politicians with facts and logic (I shudder thinking back on my naïveté). I also hated every minute of the process. Nothing about it was fun.
It was a rainy, miserable day at a music festival when it happened. I got separated from my friend. The heavens opened and drenched me to the bone. I didn’t know and wasn’t enjoying the artist playing on the stage in front of me. At this very low moment, with the unfamiliar bass and the frigid rain washing over me, I naturally reflected on all the things I was unhappy about.
There was a lot. But my thoughts kept orbiting the creative dearth I was trying to fill in my life. Politics is important, yes, but also awful and contentious. Following that road would inevitably lead to arguing with strangers on Twitter over the minutia of healthcare or immigration or foreign policy. I had this hole in me, why was I trying to fill it with the most toxic substance imaginable? Especially when I had concepts, characters, and 16,000 admittedly disjointed words that did excite me.
There was a happier path.
The rain stopped (literally and coincidentally). The clouds parted (figuratively). I found my friend in the crowd. A new artist took the stage, and I loved every second of their set.
I was renewed.
My plans to sway the masses with my keen political insights fell by the wayside.
I committed myself to contributing something to the pantheon of science fiction I so greedily consumed on my weekends. Still ignorant, still finding my way, I wanted to explore and learn how to write a novel. Upon returning home a few days later, I opened Google Docs and started rewriting chapter one. This time, with purpose.
The universe was nothingness. A void.
Matter did not exist in any form. Nothing solid, or liquid, or gaseous was to be found. There was no distinction between light and dark; nor was there any concept of color, save for something resembling grey. There were no stars in the universe. Nothing exciting, or exploding, or colliding, or radiating. No matter, no movement, no light, no potential energy. Nothing could happen here.
There was no medium for transmitting temperature, but if there had been, it would have probably felt cold. Existence was a homogeneous steady state of bleakness. Time did not exist in any meaningful way, for what good was it if no object could ever be observed to change? The void was dull, still, and infinite.
A universe without stars was odd.
This was a very slow, very roundabout way of the main character waking up from cryogenic sleep—and it goes on for hundreds more words. Sorry, like I said, I still didn’t know what I was doing!
I kept hammering away, but I kept it all to myself. Speaking my goals aloud somehow made them feel more real, and I wasn’t ready for this to be anything other than an internal creative outlet just yet. If failure was to be my fate, then I wanted to fail quietly. It took many more months of silent effort until I worked up the courage to tell my friends the truth.
I was writing a novel.