One of my favorite novels of 2024 is Martyr!, by Kaveh Akbar. It is the story of a twentysomething poet and recovering alcoholic named Cyrus (Karoosh in Persian). When he was just an infant, Cyrus immigrated to the U.S. with his father after his mother was killed when the plane she was on was shot down over the Persian Gulf . Cyrus becomes obsessed with martyrs and martyrdom, and travels from his Indiana home to Brooklyn to meet an Iranian-American artist, Orkideh, who has terminal cancer and is living out her last days in an art museum for her final art exhibit.
I want to share one passage from Martyr! that triggered in me some thoughts about the writing process and its mysteries:
Orkideh inhaled deeply.
“I had a friend too, a novelist,” she said. “And one time I asked her about whether she plots out her books in advance and just fills in the details, or if she moves through the story as she writes it. She looked at me and without skipping a second, she answered like an oracle: ‘Behind me is silence, and ahead of me is silence.’ And that was it. That was her whole answer. Isn’t that perfect?”
“Yeah, that’s beautiful,” said Cyrus, though it confused him.
“What I mean is, I think maybe you’ll find your real ending once you stop looking for it,” Orkideh said. “I think real endings tend to work their way in from the outside.”
From Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, pp. 181-182
This passage resonates with me as I think about how to end my novel in progress, and even some of my stories in progress. For many of my stories, it does seem that the endings come to me from the outside, rather than from within.
It’s odd to think about the writing process in that way, and it illustrates just how little control authors have over the subjects and characters they write about.
The more I write on a particular story, it seems, the more elusive the ending becomes. Only when it shows up and knocks on the door — and if I recognize this strange guest for what it is — does the ending enter. Before that moment, it is silence behind me and silence before me. Or perhaps more for me, it feels like darkness behind me and darkness before me.
Andy writes! 
In front of me is silence, behind me is silence. All we have is now.
Makes me think about the times I couldn’t think of anything to say, and later learned I was supposed to keep my mouth shut, and the times where I didn’t know what I was going to say before I said it, and the words came out beyond my capabilities for (what I thought was my) wisdom of speech…
Sounds like a good book to read.
Happy Holidays Andy!
Happy holidays, Mark! Stay warm! Haha.
thank for the joy you gave from a scrooge any way. Merry Christmas 🤶 and grab the joy 😊
Sounds pretty accurate about the writing process. But I’m not gonna lie, I usually have the beginning and the ending figured out first. It’s the middle stuff where I wander about. But that middle stuff influences the ending, even if it’s mostly the same as I originally envisioned it, the details come together because of the middle stuff that came together later.
Yeah, I too usually have a plan in mind, or at least “the concept of a plan,” to borrow a quote. Usually, I have a firm idea for the beginning in mind, but the ending is usually more squishy until it arrives.