#WhiteWolf Debriefing Part I: Impressions

*Spoiler-free for anyone who hasn't read/hasn't finished yet*

The scary part about anticipating something for a long time is the possibility that it won't turn out as wonderfully as you'd hoped. Be it a vacation, a reunion, a movie, or, yes, a book - there's always that fear that it won't live up to your expectations, and then you'll be let down. In this particular case, for me, the worry was about writing. Because the Sons of Rome series is something that's lived in buds, and half-formed sprouts, and secret little carefully-nurtured hothouses in my mind for a long time. Because I was the child who was allowed to stay up and watch old monster movies, and I always wanted to tell my own monster stories. The questions were only how? and when? and in what way? After years of squirrelling away characters and scenes, it was finally time to start work on this dream I'd been guarding for so long, and I was nervous.

No, I was terrified. 

Writing a book is - in an appropriate metaphor given certain scenes in White Wolf - a bit like going on a long train trip. The old fashioned kind. Let's say, just for fun...on the Trans-Siberian Railway. You board with a stomach full of butterflies...and proceed to sit. For a very...long...time. You stretch your legs occasionally, but you don't go far. You stare longingly out the windows. You eat and read and nap sitting down. The train stops along the way, but they aren't your stops, and so you never get off. Sometimes the scenery is all breathtaking icy vistas, the sun-kissed snow shining like glass. And sometimes it's night out, and the windows are dark, and you start to wonder if you'll ever really get there. But you finally arrive at your destination, disembark, and you're not at all in the same place you were when you started. 

That's where it gets dangerous. What if you've come all this way...and you don't like where you ended up?

Well, for me this time, I can say with much relief and satisfaction that I'm thrilled with where I ended up. As corny and melodramatic as it probably sounds, I came out the other side of Wolf White feeling like an important transition had taken place. I feel like a better writer. More seasoned, for sure, and definitely more confident. I'm so glad I can say that the first leg of the trip - and it's going to be a long trip - was worthwhile. For me, at least.

As for the book itself:

There's something I really love about a good war story - and I'm thinking here of Tim O'Brien or Kurt Vonnegut - that I think of as defining those kinds of tales. Even as the story moves forward in a linear fashion, we the readers begin to feel a little punch-drunk alongside our heroes. The narrative unfolds in a sequence of raw, visceral patches of violence, undercut but an ordinariness that, by contrast, hits us almost like joy. A good war story is a wound that won't heal; a scab we keep picking at, just to feel the hurt. 

When my mom read White Wolf, she described it as an odyssey, which I thought was lovely. Because it is an odyssey, more so than it is anything else, probably. And I can only hope I managed to capture a little of that raw war story feel as well. 

Writing this one felt unlike any other writing experience. The characters stood out cleanly as individuals, fully-formed, but prickly, hard to get to know - hard to stitch together. They knew I was new at this genre - as a writer, anyway - and so they were patient with me. And so the whole writing process was an odyssey for me as well, and now, after, I feel exuberant and ready to tackle the next leg of the trip. And the next, and the next. 

All this rambling nonsense is just to say: this one felt different. Dynamic, and challenging, and like a new beginning. And while different can be scary at the outset, being nervous probably means you're doing the thing you're supposed to be doing. I've always wanted to write a vampire story, and while I had no idea it would end up being this one, I'm having a marvelous time.

Cheers to the unexpected taking you by surprise.