Writing a book has sometimes been compared to giving birth. I can’t speak to the comparison; it’s for female writers to comment on such matters – not that I generally listen to female writers these days.

But I was in metaphorical labor last night, working on the new Erling book, King of Rogaland. As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve finished the first draft, but that’s very far from finishing the job. I’ve been particularly concerned about the second half, which seemed to cover the plot ground way too fast, and to be insufficiently linked to the first half. So I took one character, whom I’d sent offstage at about the half-way point, and signed him on for another tour of duty. I also decided I needed some more fantasy action. All yesterday, when I wasn’t working on proofreading The Year of the Warrior, I was thinking about a scene to insert.

Thinking is the embarrassing part of writing. It doesn’t look like you’re doing any work. It also doesn’t feel like you’re doing any work. It only amplifies that voice in your head that keeps telling you you’ve lost it… if you ever had it at all.

In the C.S. Lewis story collection, The Dark Tower and Other Stories, there’s a story called “Ten Years After.” It was, I believe, the last attempt Lewis ever made to start a novel (it’s about Helen of Troy). But it’s very short. By the time he wrote it, Lewis was near the end of his life. His health was failing (something glossed over in both filmed versions of “Shadowlands”), and he’d never really gotten over his wife’s death. He just couldn’t find the energy or creativity to write fiction anymore. He decided he was past it.

That was how I was feeling yesterday, when I set about plotting my new scene. I’m several years older than Lewis was when he died, after all – although my health is better, and I’ve insured myself against bereavement by successfully avoiding almost all meaningful relationships. But I was still wondering if I had it in me to write an imaginative scene.

But I came up with something. I think it’s good. It took a lot of thought, and it took time to gel, and it didn’t come together until I’d gone to bed, so I had to turn the lamp on to note it down, but I have a scene. I’ll get on it tonight.