What Gets You Over the Hurdles?
Sasscer Hill
[Margaret Maron: Sasscer Hill's first novel, Full Mortality, was published last year and was nominated first for an Agatha and just this past week for a Macavity. When I read the first page, I was immediately reminded of opening Virgina Lanier's first bloodhound novel. A fresh new voice rose up off the page and immediately drew me into a fascinating and unfamiliar world. I was not one of those little girls who loved horses, so it was the writing that hooked me, not the subject. Although she writes authoritatively about steeplechasing and racing, you never feel as if you're reading an information dump, i.e., "I learned this, this, and this about my subject and now I'm going to pad a few pages with my research." She'll have a second book in the series out this summer, but do read this one first. You'll be the richer for it.]
Riding in a steeplechase race can be terrifying. So can writing a novel. 
In 1986, when I decided to ride a timber race over solid, four-foot jumps, I was afraid I wouldn't make it to the finish. Afraid my skills, talent, and courage would fail me. Afraid that my pacing between those big hurdles might be off – that these obstacles might prove insurmountable. Sound familiar? If you've ever attempted something that frightens you, it probably does.
When I sit down to write, I worry. Will that strange internal energy kick in again and help me create imagery, plot improvements, and new and fitting character traits for the people in my story? Author Sue Grafton calls the unconscious – the more instinctual and irrational side of her psyche – "Shadow." Sue believes both she and Shadow write her books. I call mine, "Wild Spirit" and believe it makes perfect sense that it takes two to write a book.
In the 1986 race there were three of us. My normal conscious self, my horse, and my wild spirit. Was it rational to be both terrified and joyous with a solid wood-fence rocketing toward me at thirty miles an hour? I'm not sure, but I've never been so focused. I communicated with the horse on a level I have never experienced before or since. It was like he was reading my thoughts. He took every jump exactly the way I wanted him to, lifting off where I wanted him to. My conscious self couldn't believe it was happening.
When my writing is going well, it's the same way. I come up with a memorable image, an intriguing scene, or good dialog and wonder, "Where did that come from?"
I have to plot my novels first. If I don't, I'll go off course and slog into weeds and rocks. The story will spread out and flounder.
When I start the first draft, it's like a practice run. Prior to riding the race, I envisioned winning it many times. A week before, I spent a day driving my horse, Rascal, to and from Potomac, Maryland so we could take a test gallop over the eleven fences. Schooling Rascal over this course was like a first draft. Not the real thing, but a start.
The actual race was grueling. Two-and-one-half miles, uphill and down, over timber. There were naysayers hanging around before the race. People who said I didn't know what I was doing, that I didn't know how to train a horse for a race. Just like the people who said I'd never finish the first novel, that it would never be published, that I was wasting my time.
But I won that race at Potomac (that's me on Rascal sailing over the fence). I wrote the novel and it got published. The book was even nominated for a Best First Agatha.
Still, I worry. Can I do it again? Can I ride the wild spirit that carries me to the end?
What are you afraid of? Do you have a shadow or wild spirit that helps you face that fear? What do you call it?
