What to do with a potentially book-ruining problem...

Some thoughts.

Last week, I posted some photos and thoughts from my D.C. trip.  In the comments, a couple of you asked if I might say more about something I mentioned, which was:

**

So, I talked through some of the main problems I ran into while writing the book, and how, instead of going, “Ack, problems, I quit!” I tried to say, “Ah ha, problems, that means things are getting interesting.”

I often think of Houdini in this context. If he came out wearing, say, a light windbreaker, and said he would now endeavor to get out of it - nobody’s fascinated. But if he’s got on a straitjacket and padlock and lets us throw him into the Hudson River - then we’re talking.

When a writer has a problem, the reader feels it, and then, when the writer identifies and addresses that problem - this feels like originality and innovation.

**

So, I thought I’d try, in the following post, to explicate this thought a little more.