Just Before Peering Into the Void

He had only just started writing the title for his novel when he realized that not only did he not have a title to write, but he barely had a novel to write. The desire was there, along with a clump of tangentially related concepts but nothing concrete. Yet he pressed on anyways, knowing that stopping then would prevent the progress that he so desired.

But progress in what? Progress in the course of the novel of course, but what would progressing the novel progress? A sense of self-satisfaction? Would he all of a sudden feel clarity once he could put his mind to paper?

Sort of. Things always came out sort of how he intended them but something always seemed a bit off from how he wanted them to come across. Maybe this was indicative of his own lack of skill that had yet to be developed. He was not a master word smith, just another guy looking for a creative outlet. He couldn't let that stop him as that would inhibit his progress.

But progress in what? Clarity, some sense of being grounded in reality? Where is the line between creating a new world and trying to make sense of one's own? Is it possible that in trying to write fiction he was only trying to make reality more real?

Pondering these questions was tough so he decided to avoid them for the sake of progress. With this action he became just a tiny bit more certain of why he was doing what he was doing.

He didn't want progress for the sake of progress, he wanted progress for the sake of completion! Which seemed like quite the obvious conclusion yet there it was staring him in the face like he'd never seen it before.

But this only opened up a new question: "The completion of what?" He was left stunned for a moment, as the answer was not quite obvious in the moment. There were many things left incomplete in his life, too many to count but none consequential enough to be relevant, except for one:

"I rarely complete anything," he thought, "maybe I need to complete completion itself! But how does one go about that?"

From just behind him a voice whispered: "The finish line follows the heels of your feet.

So for a second, he stopped.

For a little while, instead of searching, trying, or waiting he just was.

And everything around him changed.

“Where am I?” He asked

“In the same place you were, you never left.”

“Why does it feel different?”

“Because you aren’t looking to be where you aren’t”

He considered the implications of this. His search for progress, the one thing that he thought was saving him might have been what was holding him back. He couldn’t write the book because he was first looking for a reason to write the book when there is no reason in the world to do anything except the reason we decide to give it.

He finally began to write, not because he had suddenly found his purpose, not because he understood what it was he was going to get out of it, but because he wanted to try putting words onto paper. And because he found himself wanting to write instead of wanting to find a reason to write he broke the spell that he had placed on himself. He typed up pages and pages and pages of material, only ever deciding to throw away an idea after exploring it to its fullest extent. After a while, he had his finished work, and sent it off the publishers. They all responded with letters of rejection.

“I guess they’ll just have to read my next book then” he said, getting ready to begin again.