When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything – you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

This week marks Banned Books Week, and while there’s a part of me that kinda wishes that someone, somewhere would ban one of my books for the publicity value, the more serious part of me is deeply grateful that I don’t have to worry about this as a practical matter.

It hasn’t always been so – indeed, in the broad sweep of human history, we are living in a moment that is aberrant in its broad tolerance for dissenting voices.  Personal expression is protected, honored and defended to a degree that 99% of all humans ever to have lived would find foreign – and a large proportion of that 99% would probably find it repugnant.  We grow accustomed to the chains we wear, to the point of preferring them to the dangers of freedom.

Part of why I choose to write about the American Revolution is that it represents the first great eruption of the idea of freedom for all – not just a privileged few, who happened to be born with the “right” ancestors, or who cultivated influential connections, but for every farmer, every blacksmith, every prayer, every sinner… and every writer.

To be sure, the history of human freedom starts far, far before our Revolution, and has continued to make progress since it – and there are vast opportunities still to see its ongoing growth.  But the men and women whose struggles I try to relate were true pioneers in this long journey, even if they didn’t have a conscious sense of it as they tried to simply live their lives.

It is because of their victories that I can write about their lives, that I have the freedom to imagine and share what their daily experiences were like, what they thought, what blasphemies they uttered.  I cherish that freedom, and I’m proud to have the chance to exercise it.

Instead of urging you to read my book, today I’m going to urge you to find a banned book – one that some self-appointed arbiter of right and wrong thought you needed to be “protected” from – and do your bit to continue the journey toward universal freedom.  Thank you.  (There’ll be plenty of time to read my books, don’t worry… nobody’s thought of banning them… darn it all.)

Sometimes, my characters do things that make me wonder, “is that really possible?”  For instance, in The Prize, Caleb routinely paddles his canoe over what I came to realize were some pretty extended distances.  I’ve done a little bit of canoeing myself, but I wondered whether I was asking too much of the boy.

So the summer after I completed the manuscript, I got out onto Lake Champlain myself, first just paddling around the bay, but working up to longer trips.  Within a couple of months of irregular practice, I was pretty readily able to drive my canoe a couple of miles without resting – and I’m no paragon of physical fitness.

Based on this experience, I figured that a younger man, for whom the canoe was a primary means of transportation, and who was accustomed to the daily exertions of working on a family farm, would be more than able to perform the feats of canoeing that I depicted.

In addition, reading some accounts of canoe trips by modern-day recreational paddlers convinced me that the trips I wrote into the story would have represented a solid part of a hard day’s work, but I consider my conception of Caleb’s habitual travels around the lake to be completely plausible.

I’m tempted now to find out for myself just how difficult it is to shear a sheep with just 18th-century shears… but that’s another book (The Declaration) that’s not out yet.  Perhaps another time.

My novel-writing process is generally pretty organic. I don’t typically spend a lot of time beforehand plotting out what the arc of the story will look like, what events will take place where or when, any of that.

Instead, I start with a character, and begin exploring what that character’s up to, what their life is like, what they’re thinking about the events unfolding around them. I get to know them, and introduce them to my reader.

Of course, at first, this material is all coming from my own conscious thoughts and decisions and research and intentions for the character.

Eventually, though, my character starts to speak for himself (or herself). I can almost feel them draw that first shuddering breath of life, as they cast my hand off their shoulder and say to me, “I’ll take it from here.”

That’s a magical moment for me, and it’s when I know I’ve got a story – and after that point, it’s just a matter of keeping up with my characters as their story unfolds, writing it down as they tell it to me.

Yeah, I still sometimes take control and make something happen, whether for dramatic purposes, or because events on the calendar by which my character is living are pressing on me.

For the most part, though, I let my characters lead the way, solving their problems, feeling their hurts, living their lives. It’s not a very structured way of writing a novel, but it works pretty well for me.

At the time and places where my novels are set, religion was a very important part of people’s private lives – perhaps even more so than it is today.

Some of the Founders were, famously, unconventional in their approach to faith, but for the most part, my characters’ relationship with God or the divine powerfully influenced how they saw the world and dealt with the events that unfolded around them.

This makes writing these aspects of their personae a substantial challenge for me, as a modern-day agnostic.

On the one hand, I can approach each of my characters’ inner beliefs with a more-or-less unjaundiced eye, as I do not find any of the common faiths of the that time to be more or less “right” than the others.

On the other hand, I have to really work at adequately illustrating how the nuances of the Quaker belief are drawn from the Bible, or how Calvinist thought would have animated the thoughts of a man struggling to recover from a crushing personal loss.

For a person of no particular religious belief, I spend an inordinate amount of time when I’m writing studying Biblical passages and consulting with friends whose innate sense of faith can lend me insights. It’s an interesting problem for me as a writer, and one that I enjoy tackling.

I know, I know – we’re supposed to write what we know, first and foremost, and I’ve done my fair share of that, including a whole book on how small businesses can use the Internet, an article on meadmaking, and dozens of shorter pieces about topics that I knew a little something about.

But I enjoy taking things in a different direction with my writing, too.

As a person with very widely divergent interests, it’s easy for me to get sucked into studying up on a topic that grabs my attention. Now, I have an excuse to do so – it’s for my novel.

I’ve never seen a tobacco plant in person in my life – but after writing The Declaration, I’m willing to bet that I could raise one to maturity successfully. I’m also willing to bet that I could not make a wrought-iron fireplace poker or shear a sheep or build a birchbark canoe — but I have a deeper appreciation for those who can and do practice such arts.

I’ve picked up all sorts of interesting tidbits in the course of my writing, and they’ve enriched my own experience of the world. I hope that they do likewise for my readers, so that I have ample opportunity to go on learning more about the topics that grab my fancy.

I’d long heard my friend talk about the events of the Revolution in the Carolinas, and the only novel I could find that was set in that time and place was frankly terrible. So, I uttered those famous last words, “I think I could do better myself…” Having chosen my subject, I was ready to attempt to draft it as part of the National Novel Writing month challenge. My first day of writing did not start off very well, though.

I was to meet with a group from the kids’ school for a kickoff event last night at midnight, and I dutifully packed up my laptop and my favorite keyboard (and adapter), iPod, camera and headed out to the school.  When I tried the front door, though, I found it locked.

Figuring that I was just a bit early, I decided to return to the car and maybe just think about what I wanted to write.  I was upset to find that, for the second time in a month, the stress of my circumstances had caused me to lock my keys in the car.  No, “upset” doesn’t begin to capture it — angry, frustrated, and horrified.

My cell phone was dead, and it was late enough now that I was pretty sure that I was simply in the wrong location, and without a means of learning the correct location.  Not good.  No money for a locksmith or a cab, and no means of reaching either.  My options pretty quickly narrowed down to one: walk.

The school is about 15-20 minutes’ drive from home, so I knew I had a slog ahead of me.  I ditched the keyboard on the steps of the school and slung my laptop over my shoulder, and set to it.

After an hour or so, I was still making a good pace, and had only managed to get sorta lost once.  After two hours, I was feeling it in my back pretty good, and I was wondering if I was getting a blister.  I also had to navigate a part of the route where I knew how to go by car, but was fuzzy on what to do on foot.  I got through that, and was now on familiar turf again.

About two and a half hours in, I stopped by a patrol car that was set up to do a speed trap and asked advice about pedestrian crossing of the river near my home — the footbridge I was aware of has been closed for construction for some time, and the only other crossing I know of is… on the freeway.  No good. 

He confirmed my fear that I would have to detour a couple of miles out of my way to catch the next bridge with pedestrian access, and offered to call someone for me.  Since I knew my estranged wife didn’t hear the phone at night, I thanked him and said that I’d manage. 

I trudged off into the darkness, and a few minutes later, he pulled up behind me and asked if it would help if he could get me to an intersection just off the freeway.  Since the spot was just a half-mile or so from home, I told him that would be simply wonderful.

He had to see my ID, and patted me down to ensure that I didn’t have anything that I would hurt him with.  The camera shoved into my front pocket gave him a moment of consternation, but he nodded when I told him what it was.

He apologized and said that the only place he could carry me was in the back of the patrol car.  At this point, I was beyond caring about accommodations, and was simply grateful for the ride.  Let me tell you, though – the back of a police car is cramped, hard and uncomfortable.  I cannot recommend it under any other circumstances.

He dropped me off, and I finished the slog home, my feet and legs and back on fire now.  When I got home, my soon-to-be ex-wife was stirring, and she came out to see what had taken me so long.  When I explained, she offered to take me to retrieve the car, so I was finally done with all of the logistics, it was about 4:00 in the morning.

And yet, I figured, between the coffee I’d stopped for, and the fact that if I could hit my word count under these circumstances, I’d have NO excuse for the remainder of the month.  So I sat down and started writing.

2,088 words later, and the folks in my group were giving me virtual high-fives and calling me “hard-core.”  

😀

Well, duh.