I got the inspiration for The Black Ring in my early teens, when I had a dream in which I was a hero in some kind of story. (A version of that dream is in Book One, Part Four, Chapter 14, near the beginning of “The Cottage on the Border”.) I had never been a hero in my dreams or fantasies — and certainly not in real life — and I never had another dream about being a hero, though I have sometimes assumed the role of someone other than me.

The dream persisted in the back of my mind for a long time, as no other dream had done. The idea of being a hero entered my fantasies for the first time, which had never never been about being a hero before. I eventually started writing down a lot of ideas — strange lands, monsters, companions, enemies, modes of transportation, weapons — and over the years filled several small notebooks. I decided, after ten or twelve years or so, to compile them all into a single notebook, and threw the originals away. When I referred to the compilation later, I found that I had tightened too much, and had left out alternates and details which I now wanted. I should have kept the originals.

I have been working on preparing a second edition of The Black Ring since September 6, 2020. I’m not there yet, but the end is in sight, in the not too distant future.

Had it been a second edition of just one book — say A Thing Forgotten, which needs a corrected second edition — it could have been done easily, in just a week or two. But The Black Ring is six volumes in a numbered series, which adds complications at Amazon and at Bowker (where you get ISBNs) and possibly at the U.S. Copyright Office as well. And each book needed lots of re-readings and corrections and revisions. And formatting. And cover adjustments. Sigh.

But it is coming along. After it’s done, I would like to start something new. Or get back to Star Kings, or The Empty House. But I intend to take an extended break first.

Under the present circumstances, it is difficult to find anything to write about that is as important as the present circumstances. Of course, at my age, my creative energy runs out all too soon anyway. I am not the only one. I subscribe to a blog by a writer who, once rather prolific, now seems to have run out of things to say.

But I have not given up. I am writing a book which, typically, is far too ambitious. It consists of a cycle of twelve stories, each of which requires enough world-building for a whole novel. My characters grow, a great problem is solved, and the ending of the cycle — when I eventually get to it — gives me chills.

But, even without the present circumstances, it becomes ever more difficult to find the energy each day to do a sketch, a rough draft, a developed draft, then a first, second and third draft, then a series of final readings, all for just one chapter out of five or seven for each story. It’s typical. But I don’t have the creative energy I used to.

I am an introvert, but I find that, oddly enough, I am motivated by prolonged, intense social interaction with a lot of different people at once. Like at a science fiction convention. Which I have not attended since early March. And probably won’t for a while, under the present circumstances.

But I have not given up. Every day I go a little further. Maybe only ten or twelve steps instead of thirty or fifty or a hundred. But every day is another ten or twelve steps closer to that ending which I so much want to reach. I’ll get there.

I have been spending all my creative energy trying to finish my newest book, and get a cover, and get it published, and at last it is done. My final draft was listening to Voice Dream read it aloud to me, and catching far too many little problems I had missed on every previous reading. I did the cover myself this time, under Darcy’s supervision and with her advice. Formatting for 6×9 printing is easy, dealing with widows and orphans (including on the paragraph level) takes some time. Publishing for paper and digital was a bit tricky, since I hadn’t done it over a year, I use my own imprint, Ogden House, and have to deal with Bowker for the ISBN. Putting it on my book site (Allen Wold’s Books,  http://allen-wold.com) should have been easier, but I hadn’t done that in over a year either, and it took a while to remember how to do it, and save it, and update it, and so on.

Writing a story, of whatever length, is one thing. Making it available to readers is quite another. But at last it is all done, and is life on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/0998546720?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860. Now I can get back to work on my next book.

Jack Vance was the Guest of Honor at a convention in Virginia Beach many years ago. He was perfectly comfortable in small room parties — such as the one I was hosting — talking with people even if they weren’t fans. He influenced a lot of writers, and readers too, by his storytelling, characters, and plots. Something he told us that night would eventually change the way I wrote my first drafts.

The conversation was about word processors, and he explained that he had been reluctant to try them, since he tended to edit himself while typing. That’s not easy, especially if he did more than just fix typos. Revising a whole sentence meant x-ing it out and retyping it, which broke the stream of his creativity. Going back to revise anything before the current sentence meant retyping everything after that, sometimes the whole page. His internal editor was insistent.

He discovered a way of dealing with that. He would take a sheet of yellow legal paper, fold it in half top to bottom, turn it 90 degrees, and write across the lines, using four fountain pens: black, blue, green, and red. As he wrote, he concentrated on making colored patterns with the different inks. This distracted his internal editor completely, and liberated his unconscious creator, in a kind of automatic writing. When he finished his draft, his wife typed it all up, and then he could make his revisions.

He was afraid that, if he used a word processor, it would only give his internal editor more power. Someone suggested that he should try using it with the brightness turned down, until he couldn’t read the text well enough to edit, so that he could just stare into the depths of his story. After a bit of experimenting, he found that it worked. He didn’t need the pens any more, and his wife didn’t have to type it up. And editing a finished draft on a word processor is far, far easier than retyping all those revisions and corrections and changes scribbled on a typed page.

I still use longhand when working on a story, if I have to think carefully while creating. But most of the time I compose at the computer, especially if the story is alive in my head, and I need to get it all down. In my own version of Jack Vance’s solution, I turn away from the screen, stare into what my muse is showing me, and transcribe what I see there. 

I really like it when I can do that.

I know people who write full time and make a living at it, but most writers have to have a day job, or other financial support, so that they can pay the bills and provide for their families. They write when they can — between patients, early in the morning, instead of TV — a police officer by day and a writer of romances by night, as it were. 

My day job is household management.  My wife has an outside job, to provide our living, and I stay home and run the house. It’s a good job, from six in the morning till eleven at night — though not straight through. I am not paid in money, but in kind: a place to live, a car to drive, food, clothes, books, movies, insurance, trips to conventions, and the computer. It’s what my mother earned in the fifties, while my father earned his living at the advertising agency. 

My day job is usually flexible. I can choose when to do what needs to be done, and I’m able to write when the time is best for me, and for as long as I want, my muse permitting. 

Like so many writers, I write part-time, but a writer is what I am. My day job is just what I do for a living.

I know a few writers who don’t depend on traditional publication. They write what they want, have lots of fans, and know how to please them as well as themselves. One or two make a living at it without the need for other employment.

Those who support themselves have to work quickly, but they have the skills. Their imaginations are impressive. They pretty much do their own editing, and even distribution. They all have to produce marketable works. And they have to know how to promote. Not everybody can do all that.

Those who can write good stories. They have their own styles. Their characters are sympathetic and believable. The plots make sense and are frequently surprising. The situations and settings are interesting. The stories are internally consistent. And the endings leave you wanting more.

These few writers may not have the sales numbers of those who are traditionally published, but they are real writers by anybody’s definition. They enjoy another form of success. And I enjoy their company.

Many writers have said that they love writing, but that they hate editing and revising. I’ve never felt that way. 

Writing is original creation. It’s hard work, and it’s exciting to see something grow out of nothing. Editing is looking at what you’ve made, realizing that it’s all a jumble, and doing your best to turn it into a story other people will want to read.

But it must be done. If you spend all your time just making first drafts of new stuff, nobody else will read it, or want to, and neither will you after a year or so. You need to take up a different set of tools, and make something good out of it.

There are a few writers who have created only a sketch or rough or first draft, then turned it over to a collaborator to finish it, and to then do the editing and revision and correction and polish. And it works, to the benefit and satisfaction of both. But I would never do that. Nobody could make the story be what I want it to be.

It is hard work, dealing with the wrongness, the mistakes, the holes in the plot, the inconsistencies, the continuity errors, the wrong words, the — hell, the junk and garbage. But I want to get chills when I read that final draft. It tells me that what I’ve done has been worth my time. So I do all that hard work until it really feels right.

It takes more time and effort than raw creation does. But every draft makes the story a little better, and after a while it comes together, and when it does, and I can visualize it, feel it, know the characters as people, share the emotions, get caught up with the flow, and then I get chills. Even if I reread it the next day. I get an immense feeling of satisfaction.

The story I’ve been working on recently gives me lots of opportunities to find satisfaction. Lots. But that’s okay. More chills every day. And as each page and scene and chapter finally comes all together, I know that I will have created a reality that other people can experience. And that makes it all worth while.

I used to hear writers complain about the people who ask, “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve been asked that, but not so much any more. Maybe it’s because the people I associate with, even if they aren’t writers, already know a version of the real answer. It’s not the snide put-off: There’s a shop in Poughkeepsie where, for ten dollars, you’ll get a list of five good story ideas, or its variations.

The real answers are different for each writer, but many of them are something like: It’s not where do I find them, it’s choosing the best one at the moment, out of all of those in my head. It’s recognizing a good idea when it comes along, because of the way it resonates, the way it won’t leave me alone, not because it’s clever.

I knew someone at college who had a card file of ideas. He had five of those green library boxes with drawers, which could each hold five hundred cards. I don’t see many of those any more either. He was so proud of them. Every time he got a story idea, he wrote it down on a card, with a key word at the top, and filed it away.

I don’t know how many idea cards he actually had, surely not as many as twenty five hundred. But he just hadn’t gotten around to actually writing a story yet. Too many ideas, not enough story.

Ideas come to me all the time. Most of them I forget about at once. Every so often, an idea just won’t go away. That one I write down so I can stop thinking about it. I have a few of those somewhere. But sometimes, an idea will grab me so hard, that I have to actually sit down and start developing the story right then, even if I’m already working on one. That happens only once every couple-three years or so. 

I am working on three books at the moment, code named The Empty House, Star Kings, and Soul Stone. When I run out of steam on one of them, I switch to another. I’m making progress on all three. 

Who needs another idea when you’re writing three novels simultaneously? I have all I can deal with at the moment.