The rudder not the flow.

Ever since I started getting really serious about writing, I've been steadily progressing toward trusting my instincts -- my subconscious if you will -- more and more.

My main job seems to be to get out its way -- let it do its thing, make room and a safe time and place for it to emerge.  Not interfere or push it in the wrong direction.

My first book when I came back, Nearly Human, is more and more looking like my practice book -- that is, I made lots of mistakes and stumbled my way into figuring out how to write.  In many ways, I was rediscovering what worked for me last time.  The conscious mind is obvious and blundering and mistake-prone and gets in the way of the story.

I just have to trust that my subconscious knows what it's doing, and the more I trust it, the more it produces.

Just a small example.

In thinking about the third book in the Vampire Evolution series I realized a couple of weeks ago that I needed to get a major character over to England and had no idea how that was going to happen.

Then I forgot about it.

Yesterday, in writing the second chapter of the Blood of Gold, events conspired that the character had to go to England.  I wasn't consciously thinking about maneuvering the plot in that direction, it just happened.

It's a strange blend of conscious and subconscious.  I think about where and how I want the book to go, and then let the subconscious come up with the answers.  It's as if I'm just riding on a boat in a stream that I'm just flowing with -- I don't create the stream, but I guide the boat through it with a conscious rudder, trying to avoid the shoals and whirlpools. 

So much of my job is the care and nurturing and encouragement of this process.  Let the shy little creative part of me come out and speak.  Not saying or doing anything that will discourage it.

Letting it happen.