Do we write books or is it the other way around?

I was walking in the shopping center earlier today and, as usual, background music played in the shops. Suddenly, I stopped as I heard a catchy tune I had not heard before. Yet what really impacted me were the lyrics:

“You think you’re writing a book, but the book writes you

Every page, every word revealing something true…”

This is exactly how I felt when I began to write my book in earnest.

But I would be lying if I said that this state was there from page one. No, like any kind of writer’s nirvana, it only arrived after a while and after a proper fight – mostly against myself.

Like Maryushka in the Russian folk tale “Fenist the Shining Falcon,” I found myself embarking on an exhausting journey that seemed far longer than expected. Every new discovery opened the door to three more.

A wise cat whom Maryushka met on her journey advised her that things would get worse before they got better, but that she should never look back. Regrettably I had no such cat handy, but my creator’s pride kept me going. I had not taken early retirement to fail at my project, I was  telling myself in my moments of despair – and there were many.

The getting worse part was for sure happening. The getting better one seemed rather remote.

But how to do it all in a way that is sensible and does not kill you, or your work, before its time?

At the beginning of the project, I was obsessed with creating an accurate historical backdrop for my characters and the choices they made. It was a matter of both respect for history and them. The research process was immense and it took me into forests of detail that I considered useful. After a while, information seemed to sprout everywhere like quills on a porcupine.

By then I also felt as though I had worn through Maryushka’s three pairs of iron shoes and exhausted her iron staffs and caps. I felt both tired and slightly insane. I realized that I was in clear danger of drowning in historical data big and small. The passage between ideating the book and actually writing it was becoming just as perilous as when Odysseus had to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis.

Yet the architecture of a novel is not given by the detail. It is given by the positioning and development of its main characters.

The dress my great-great-grandmother was wearing in Vladivostok in 1906 may not have been in line with French fashion conventions at that time. Then again, maybe the year her undated photograph was taken was even 1907 or perhaps it was 1910. However, much more important were her feelings, dreams and thoughts at the time.

Once I got myself down to that level, indeed, the book started writing me. Or rather, my characters took the lead. I just followed them, with respect and humility.

How did that happen? It was truly rather mystical, but the loss of control was bliss in itself.

The question is – would this have happened if I had not had the full historical immersion first?

I still do not know the answer. Perhaps every writer must first lose themselves in the forest before discovering the path through it.