Old myths, new myths, deep wells

Eight years ago when I first started Venus In Transit I was completely new to my Dos Lunas County mythos, creating it in exuberant bursts of energy. The novel died a-bornin' (or, less dramatically, went into "stasis") and in the meantime I've written tons of material about Dos Lunas. I've got a whole myth cycle going with characters that never even appeared in this novel.

Now that I've returned to Venus I have to find some way of accommodating all those folks and happenstances. The forepart of my brain still doesn't know how I'm going to work out some of it, but I proceed on the sure and certain hope that something will resurrect itself from the hindpart of my brain. My subconscious will come up with something. I've been traveling this path long enough to know that once I set my intention on a novel, once it starts working through the deep parts of me like this one is now, the Subconscious will provide.

This isn't being cocky, really. This is just process. This is faith. My psyche feels alive again, things are working at deep levels when they've been stalled and stagnant for months. The well was not dry as I feared, it just needed refilling. Maybe I won't quit writing after all.

And just this week a shiny new idea came to me, complete with a world I've never inhabited before. I'm letting it have its way this weekend before getting back to work on Venus tomorrow.

When the well goes dry, sometimes all you can do is walk away and hope it refills. And when it does, it fills with the sweetest water.