The Zone

And then, sometimes, there’s magic.

The characters talk to you like you’re an old friend. Then they start doing interesting and exciting things. You watch them like a spectator at a new play. They love, they fight, they get into trouble, they extricate themselves painfully from trouble…

All thoughts of writer’s block are gone. Writer’s block? Is that some kind of new housing development for novelists?

You’re in the Zone.

The Zone exists for all kinds of creative endeavors. When I worked with the late, great Nik Venet in a songwriting group, when one of us would bring in two, three good songs in a row, the rest of us would say enviously, “She’s in the Zone.”

When an athlete enjoys a string of great games in which he performs at a high level, seemingly with no effort, sportscasters say “He’s in the Zone.”

The Zone is that wonderful place where everything works. Where all the time you have put into your craft suddenly bears fruit. Where the writing flows freely. You can’t wait to get to the computer (or the notebook, if you’re old school) because you’re so excited about where the work is going.

You surprise yourself. You surprise your critics. You surprise your mother.

The Zone. Oh, to live there permanently.

But eventually even the greatest writers, singers, athletes, slip out of the Zone. You’re back in Mundane City trying to catch a bus. Your time in the Zone was like a vacation, one you remember fondly as time goes on and the Zone flows further and further away from you.

Right now I am writing a new mystery novel, “The Socratic Method.” It concerns a murder at Boalt Hall School of Law in 1980. The main characters, Socrates (known to his friends as “Sock”) and Pixie, hate each other but have to work together to prove the innocence of their friend and classmate. The tag line is, “They’re determined to prove their friend’s innocence–if they don’t kill each other first.”

This novel has been flowing out of me. I started in mid-January and I’m at 65,000 words. As you know, a modern mystery has to be 80,000 words, but I got this. I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits 90,000.

The only problem? When I’m finished with this book, how do I stay in the Zone?

Answer: Book two of the adventures of Sock and Pixie. And yes, I’ve already started that one.

Don’t bother me. I’m in the Zone.