Tag Archives: writing

Tough Love, Math, Software, and Writing

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One sunday afternoon, when I was in the second grade, I learned a key life lesson because my mother got tired of hearing me whine.  I had some difficult arithmetic homework.  Plus the afternoon was gorgeous, and I could see my friends playing baseball up the hill.  My mother was trying to show me how to work the problems, but I was having none of it.  “I caan’t,” I said.  “It’s too haard.”

My mother finally had enough, and said, in her no-nonsense voice, “Sit here, and do not move, until your homework is done.”

“But….”

“No buts!” I don’t want to hear another word until you’re finished.”

After a quick review of alternatives, such as rafting down the Mississippi, I realized I was trapped – nothing left to do but figure it out.  I remember how delighted I felt when I did, but I didn’t begin to understand how important that lesson would be.  How often I would be faced with similar situations, especially in the world of work – critical problems that no one else knew how to solve – and what a boon it would be to think, “Let’s take a look,” instead of, “I can’t.”

There were times when I was younger when “practice situations” arose, and I remembered and took inspiration from that day in the second grade.  I fought a similar battle to learn formal calculus proofs as a freshman in college.  Another time my van broke down in Bakersfield, and I didn’t have enough to pay someone else to fix it.

I joined the high tech world before the phrase, “cutting edge,” became a cliche – when we really were trying things that hadn’t been done before.  Through luck and interest, I spent some years doing early work in a specialty sort of software.  That made it exciting, made us kind of important, but also meant when we were stuck, we were stuck.

In the second grade, my mother forced me to learn what it meant to do my best – really do my best.  In the world of math and software, it’s rather easy to gauge.  You pretty much know when you have a solution, and the harder you work, the quicker you get there.

It’s not so clear cut in writing.  Sometimes white-knuckle effort pays off, and sometimes it’s counter-productive.  The quality of the my work does not always correlate with “feeling inspired,” and I can’t really judge it until weeks or months go by.  Sometimes it’s best to sit at the table and and hammer away, and sometimes it’s better to go outside and play.  What works one day may not work the next.

I’ve said before, I love the image Joseph Campbell gave for the way the Knights of the Round Table set out to look for the Holy Grail.  Each of them entered a trackless part of the forest, for it would have been “shameful” to follow the trail made by another.  In trying to find my own way, charging ahead is probably not the best way to proceed.  Rather, it’s time to take my time, pay attention, listen especially to the strange hunch and “crazy” idea.  Watch what happens out of the corner of my eye.  Learn to enjoy the forest and let it go, for as T.S. Eliot said, “The rest is not our business.”

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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What if there was a trend and I wasn’t paying attention?

I actually did notice The Hunger Games when it came out in 2008, but I did not read it then for two reasons.  First, though I love the genre, I am wary of reviews of fantasy literature, with words like “Breathtaking,” or “Original,” because I’ve been burned too many times.  In addition, when I read the synopsis, although The Hunger Games did sound original, but we had just had a round of serious layoffs at work, and I wasn’t in the mood for a story of hard times in the not-so-distant-future.

Last weekend, at the SCBWI conference, I heard repeated praise of The Hunger Games from sources I trust.  Later, one of the speakers cautioned the audience not to write a story just because it is trendy.  He cited a current mass of “dystopian fiction” as an example.

Looking again at reviews, and watching the the trailer of the movie that is “Coming Soon,” I realized The Hunger Games must have sparked the trend.  I downloaded the ebook and to my surprise and delight, could not put it down.  I devoured it this week.  It seems strange that in the fantasy genre, real originality is so rare, but this book has it.  It isn’t perfect.  I thought that at a key moment, Suzanne Collins held true greatness in her hand and let it slip away.  Still, The Hunger Games is one of the very best reads I recall in YA fantasy.

Katniss

I didn’t just read this book for pleasure.  It is one of a half-dozen new books I plan to read once for pleasure, and again with an eye to look under the hood and try to see how the author creates the magic.  Observation one – Suzanne Collins takes all the time she needs to introduce us to Katniss Everdeen, 16, and let us bond with her.  We rise with Katniss, learn that she loves her 12 year old sister Prim but despises her cat.  Very human stuff like that.  We learn that times are hard.  We learn that to get into the woods to hunt for squirrels to eat or trade on the black market, she has to pass through an electrified fence, which isn’t really that dangerous, because the power is seldom on.  We aren’t in Kansas anymore!  We meet Katniss’ best friend and hunting partner, Gale, who despises The Capitol, which runs things, and we learn he could be killed by the Peacekeepers if such talk is overheard.  We learn this is the day of “The Reaping” and that does not sound good.

Panem

Panem rose from the ruins of America.  Katniss’ District 12 used to be called Appalachia.  The Capitol is totalitarian, and attempts to flee result in death or slavery.  Earlier worlds of this sort, like 1984, reflected the cold war mentality, while Panem is firmly lodged in 21st century fears.  Large chunks of the coastline are gone.  There have been famines and other ecological disasters.  The Peacekeepers bring to mind Homeland Security, and the iffy electricity has an eerie resonance to what is happening right now in Japan.

But all that is nothing compared to the Hunger Games and what happens if you are selected as a “Tribute” at the “Reaping.”

As punishment and a warning to the 12 surviving Districts that unsuccessfully tried to revolt, the Capitol demands a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18, to be chosen by lottery once a year.  The are trained and pitted against one another in a huge outdoor arena as gladiators.  One victor will be set up for life.  Twenty-three others will die for the amusement and “instruction” of the population, which is forced to watch – there is always enough electricity to televise the Hunger Games.

The Games

When her baby sister, Prim, is chosen, Katniss rushes forward to volunteer to take her place.  We had come to like her before, and now we love her.  Her chances do not seem very good.  Her fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta, is a baker’s boy, who doesn’t seem much of a warrior.  To make things worse, Peeta once saved her life with the gift of a loaf of bread, and both know they will eventually have to fight to the death to survive.

By now, of course, we are really into the story, and incredibly, as their training unfolds, we begin to think Katniss and Peeta may stand a chance.  As a strategy to deceive the others, they feign love for one another – except Peeta may not be pretending.  Katniss wins the affection of the crowds and the all-important sponsors.  The odds-makers give her good marks for her skill with a bow.  Their trainer, a past winner and a drunk goes on the wagon and dedicates himself to their survival.

Then the games begin and all hell breaks loose – literally.

Rue

Lets face it, we know Katniss will survive, but to her credit, Collins keeps up the nail-biting doubt.  The most poignant moment comes when Katniss teams up with Rue, a twelve year-old slip of a girl, who reminds Katniss of her sister.  They bond in a hurry, and Katniss briefly basks in the luxury of not feeling alone – never mind that they will have to fight each other later.  But after a daring raid on another team’s food supply, Rue is mortally wounded.  Katniss sings her a lullaby as she dies, for her greatest love had been music.  And then, as the greatest protest she dares, Katniss covers her friend’s body with wildflowers as the hidden camera’s broadcast the image all through the land.  Gladiators are not supposed to care for each other – it is the closest thing to open defiance Katniss can imagine.

At this moment, The Hunger Games transcends genre and reaches the level of tragedy – that which is grave and constant in human affairs.  In particular, it reminded me of that heartrending day, Dec. 25, 1914, that we now call the Christmas Truce.  Two armies of young men defied the old men who sent them to kill each other, by celebrating the birth of Christ with friendship.  The generals promised a firing squad to any who tried it again.

How It Ends

Things tapered off from there, perhaps inevitably so, for how could such a moment be sustained?  Still, the genetically mutated zombie-werewolves who end the contest were over the top – they seemed like an add-on, a patch to ramp up adrenalin by borrowing from the horror genre.  For me, it had the opposite effect.

The book also ends with romantic teasers.  Katniss went out of her way to save the badly injured Peeta, but until now, she had been a hard-luck tomboy, fond of him and grateful, but not in love.  Her last moment inner conflict does not seem to grow “organically” from her earlier thoughts about her friendship with two young men – maybe I am too cynical, but I took it as a carrot to get the masses of Twilight readers to buy the next book of the trilogy.  Club Peeta or Club Gale?

Still, I plan to read and enjoy the final two books of the trilogy.  Even if the series comes off as an “ordinary” romance and battle of good guys against an evil empire, if that’s the worst thing we can say of The Hunger Games, it is still in very good company.  Suzanne Collins has given us a vividly imagined and wonderfully crafted story.

The Three Act Structure

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In his book, Plot and Structure, (see the link in my previous post), author and speaker, James Scott Bell, offers this definition of his terms.  Plot concerns the elements of a story, what happens.  Structure is about the timing of those events – when they happen.

The Three Act Structure is the default of storytelling and has been, according to Bell, at least since time of Aristotle.  A novelist doesn’t need to use it, but like an oil painter who decides to forgo a flat, rectangular surface, it is good to know what you are doing instead.

Screenwriters don’t even have the choice to stray.  So pervasive is the influence of Syd Fields, a champion of the three act structure in movies, that studios often specify it in their contracts.  (See the link to Syd Fields’ Screenplay in this post ( https://thefirstgates.com/2010/08/26/a-novel-planning-method/ ).

Every writer about writing who discusses what belongs in the Beginning, Middle, and End is implicitly endorsing what Bell and Fields refer to as Act I, Act II, and Act III, but both of these writers offer more detailed terminology that helps flesh out the concept.  Setup, Conflict, Resolution are Fields’ terms.  I once heard a screenwriter use those exact words to describe what you need to pitch to a producer in the three sentences or so they are willing to listen to.  Literary agents give similar advice.

Bell and Fields offer nearly identical diagrams of the three act structure:

The thing to notice here is the timing.  Act I, the Setup, where we meet the protagonist(s), their problem, and their world lasts for about a quarter of the story.  Act II, the trials and tribulations lasts for half of the novel or movie, and Act III, which often includes a final battle or chase, takes up the last quarter of the manuscript.

Syd Fields uses “Plot Point” to signal the dramatic event that bridges two of the Acts.  I prefer Bell’s term, “Doorway of No Return,” because usually the previous world is swept away, and going home again is no longer possible.  Neo chooses the red pill.  Louise shoots a man.  A rider interrupts the party at Tara to announce that the Civil War has begun.

It’s fun to watch for the moment this happens in movies, since the timing tends to be very precise.  In a two hour film, something will occur very close to the half-hour point that locks the hero into the conflict – he cannot go back to the Shire.

The second Doorway of No Return, about three-quarters into the film or novel, guarantees the final showdown.  Gary Cooper watches the last train pull out of town, and it’s almost noon.  When he and Trinity rescue Morpheus, Neo really believes, for the first time, that he is “The One.”  In True Grit, Maddie sees the man who shot her father at the river.  He does not notice her.  She could slip away, but once she draws her pistol and orders him to surrender, the final battle is underway.

As I said in my previous post, I find a lot of useful suggestions in James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure, including the clearest discussion I know of the Three Act Structure.  Still, thanks to Google, you don’t need a book to gather a lot of good information, including suggestions that the Three Act Structure is passe, an impediment, or a device for mere genre-writers.   We can use it or not but it seems to me that any writer can benefit from understanding the concept.

A Conference and a Resolution

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“If we had more stories as children, we would need fewer psychiatrists as adults.” – James Hillman

On Saturday, I attended the Spring Spirit Conference of the North/Central region of the SCBWI – Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  This all day event took place in Rocklin, just 20 minutes from home.  It featured seminars and critiques by writers, editors and agents, aimed at people who write for children and young adults.  I had registered at the end of December, but as the day rolled around, I wasn’t that anxious to go.

Part of it was simple fatigue, the after-effect of this spring’s flu.  Part of it was a kind of burnout.  Earlier this week, as I was reviewing a manuscript for one of my critique groups, I caught myself writing a comment out of habit – a knee jerk response I was not even sure was true.  I’ve found myself doing that several times recently, and as a result, I was feeling an impulse to step away and sort out some ideas that didn’t feel like mine.  I wasn’t sure I needed a professional gathering where I was likely to pick up more.

I was pleasantly surprised by the keynote speaker, author and teacher, Bruce Coville.  “Take everything the presenters say with a grain of salt,” he said.  “Your job is to find your own truth.”  Those words turned my day around.  They set the tone of the day, as did his later seminar on writing fantasy, a genre he notes is snubbed by some literati as less than properly serious.  “Tell that to Homer, to Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare,” Coville said.

“Sometimes I write fairytales because it’s the best way to tell the truth.” – C.S. Lewis

As I went through they day, an ongoing problem that is really mine came into focus.  I’ve been stalling out on my current book because several key plot elements need to be re-imagined.  Slogging away is not going to do it this time.  I’ve known I need to take a break, take a step back, but that isn’t easy for an A-Type, yankee-ingenuity, roll-up-your-sleeves mentality.  I needed some kind of plan to make it okay to take a break.  And I found one.

When in doubt, read, read, read.  That in itself is a great idea, but I find it hard to study really compelling books when the great ones sweep me into the story from the start – I’ll do the objective stuff later, and later never comes.  I happened to flip through the first book I ever bought specifically to help with plot and structure, called (would you believe) “Plot and Structure,” by James Scott Bell.

Toward the back of the book, Bell addresses that whole issue in a section called, “How to Improve Your Plotting Exponentially.”  It involves getting half a dozen novels, ones you have read or new ones.  Read them first for pleasure, then read them again with a stack of 3×5 cards and note the events, characters and purpose of every single scene.  Review them when done (like “forming a movie in your head,” says Bell).  Finally, lay out the cards and see how the scenes fit into the traditional three-act structure.  Where are the key plot points?  Where is “the door of no return?”  Where is the final battle joined?

This will take eight to twelve weeks, Bell estimates, but because of all that I earlier learned from him, I’m willing to test his estimation that during those weeks “you will jump ahead of 99 percent of all the other aspiring writer out there, most of whom try to find out how to plot by trial and error.” Trial and error has always been iffy for me.

So I’m giving myself permission to take a reading break.  I’ve already downloaded three books to my Kindle:

1)  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, an acclaimed, post-apocolyptic story for young adults.   I started it yesterday and found to my delight, a YA story I can’t put down – I haven’t come upon too many of those recently.

2)  Gone For Good, by Harlan Coben.  This violates Bell’s instructions to stick with the type of book I want to write, but I’ve meant to read this ever since I saw Donald Maass praise the story in his Breakout Novel Workbook.  Besides, I really enjoy action/adventure and believe the genre contains elements that can improve any sort of writing.

3)  Hollowland by Amanda Hocking.  About time I read something by her!

From time to time I will report back on how this goes and probably review at least some of the titles, but right now, I have to get back to  The Hunger Games!

A Seven Figure Contract for Amanda Hocking

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Thanks to my friend Rosi Hollinbeck for sending me a link to the latest episode in the ongoing eBook “explosion.”  (Be sure to check out Rosi’s excellent blog, The Write Stuff, at:  http://rosihollinbeckthewritestuff.blogspot.com/ ).

Amanda Hocking, the poster-girl for rags to riches in eBook publishing, sold  the rights to an upcoming, four book YA fantasy series to St. Martin’s Press for a reported $2 million dollars.  http://tinyurl.com/4l2kddj

One year ago, Hocking, after repeated rejections by traditional publishers, uploaded two books to Amazon, hoping to make several hundred dollars by October to attend a Jim Henson exhibit in Chicago.

Something in our national character loves pathfinders and likes to see “ordinary people” get ahead, especially when they have Amanda Hocking’s humor and sense of irony.  Too bad Oprah is going off the air; that would have been a fun interview.

Several other points come to mind:

  • This is confirmation of the buzz I’ve been hearing, most recently at a local agent’s workshop, that good ebook sales have become another viable avenue into traditional publishing – arguably with better odds for some kinds of books than the query-an-agent route.
  • A critique group friend who runs her own small press and follows the publishing industry reports that genre fiction does especially well in the ebook format.  I would imagine it has to do with the price spread:  $9.99 these days for a paperback at Barnes&Noble vs. $0.99-2.99 for Indie ebooks.  Are the “official” books better written?  Based on my limited sampling, in general they are, but not in every case.  One nice thing about Smashwords.com is that you can sample half of the text of their ebooks before purchase, so you pretty much know what you are getting.
  • Most surprising to me is that segments of the writing community do not get it either.  Case in point:  I just got a card announcing the 19th annual “Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards,” which completely ignores the world of ebooks.  (Can we say it?  “Hard-copy is sooo last year!”)

A few years ago, I attended one of the better writing conferences.  I booked some appointments with editors and agents, but I wasn’t really trying to sell anything; I wanted feedback on my WIP.  I had several plot ideas and wanted to sound them out, and it was very valuable overall.  Other people were suffering in the job interview mode, all their self-esteem on the line with their manuscripts.

I made a mental note to myself – my manuscript is not my self.  I forget it from time to time but the principle is still valid.

I truly enjoy the brave-new-world of ePublishing because it supports that realization by giving me a look behind the curtain.  Traditional publishers and even Writer’s Digest are run by busy business people who are doing their best but sometimes miss the boat and make mistakes.  I find it refreshing to find we have a thriving alternative that few of us even knew about six months ago.


Throughlines in Novels and Screenplays

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I have posted before on how much I learn from screenwriters.  I would even argue that film has become the groundbreaking medium in the world of storytelling.  Yesterday, for instance, I received a newsletter on writing for children with a front page article entitled, “E-Books Go Hollywood:  Readers Are Ready for Books to Sing & Dance.”

Regardless, I would not want to try to write a novel these days without a grasp of such screenwriting basics as “High Concept,” and “Three Act Structure.”  Another key term from stage and film is, “Throughline.”  Unfortunately, many definitions of the phrase are overly simplistic, like this from dictionary.com:  “a theme or idea that runs from the beginning to the end of a book, film, etc.”

A more useful description is given on Wikipedia, which traces the word back to Constantin Stanislavski, the great proponent of method acting, who:  “believed actors should not only understand what their character was doing, or trying to do…in any given unit, but should also strive to understand the through line which linked these objectives together and thus pushed the character forward through the narrative.”

Even this definition is rather abstract, and we need some examples.  The clearest discussion of Throughlines I know was written by Nancy Lamb in The Writer’s Guide to Crafting Stories for Children (2001). The section of the book dealing with Throughlines is reprinted in the February, 2011 issue of Writer’s Digest, which brought the subject to mind.

The Throughline, says Lamb, is “the central plot point that propels the hero from beginning to end, from one scene to the next, from one act to the next.” A key point she makes is the frequent breakdown of the initial, conscious motivation of the protagonist near the middle of the story:  “What he wants is denied him,either by his choice or by the force of outside circumstances.  The breakdown exposes a deeper motivation that propels the character forward, a motivation he was originally unaware of.” (emphasis added).

Lamb cites the classic Bridge to Terabithia as an example.  Jess Aarons wants to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade.  This motivation breaks down when he meets Leslie Burke, the new girl in school, who is a tomboy and a faster runner then he is.  The two become best friends and build a world of imagination together, and the Troughline deepens.  Not a single minded goal, but “Jess’ multi-faceted desire for self-realization becomes the primary Throughline that runs through the story.”

A third Throughline becomes central when Leslie dies in a tragic accident:  “Jess must learn to cope with his grief and believe in himself.  Until that point, he was convinced he needed Leslie to ‘make the magic.’  Now Jess is alone and must learn to call upon his own creative spirit without the help of his friend.”

Lamb uses the analogy of a train to to demonstrate that the Throughline may “change tracks,” but it is always there, and always moving toward the destination.  It lends force and cohesion to a story, and ties together what might otherwise be  a series of disparate episodes.

“From beginning to end, the Throughline is a constant in your story.  You can have any number of other things happen in the book.  But the matter of what drives the hero and compels him to act is never in question because the Throughline is there to maintain your readers’ attentions and pull them through the story.”

Lamb calls the Throughline the “spine” of a story, a good analogy, because the spine of people and animals is hidden.  As long as everything is working, we don’t give it much thought.  It is instructive to try to identify the Throughline in your favorite tales.

In Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo agrees to carry the Ring of Power to Rivendell, a task which is heroic enough; it almost costs him his life, but that is just the beginning.  Sam is ready to return to the Shire, but Frodo cannot.  Grasping the danger to Middle Earth, he reluctantly says, “I will carry the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way.”  It is like the ground opening under the hobbit’s feet, dropping him into a far more dangerous world.

The initial Throughline in The Da Vinci Code is Robert Langdon’s need to prove himself innocent of a murder he did not commit.  The simple imperative to survive is gradually eclipsed by his desire uncover a hidden mystery that is central to western culture and religion.

The Throughline is one of those elements it is fun to watch for in books and movies – fun and valuable, for it is a tool that can only make our own writing stronger.


Notes on T.S. Eliot

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Here is what the man I consider the greatest english language poet of the 20th century had to say about his own work:

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres-
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. (The Four Quartets)

 

Thomas Stearns Eliot, 1888-1965

Eliot was a modernist who believed that a new poetic language was needed to address the complexities of a new century.  It takes a bit of effort now to understand that he offended the literary establishment of his day the way Picasso offended the art establishment.  The first poem in his first published book, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” (1917) begins:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

The literary world was still immersed in the 19th century sensibility; to describe the sky with such a simile was as shocking as a cubist landscape.   At the same time, Eliot alienated the bohemian crowd:  he became a devout Anglican, wore three-piece suits, worked in a bank, and spoke in the most precise possible manner.  He went his own way in everything but kept enough humor to describe himself in this way:

How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
With his features of clerical cut,
And his brow so grim
And his mouth so prim
And his conversation, so nicely
Restricted to What Precisely
And If and Perhaps and But.
…………………………………….
How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
(Whether his mouth be open or shut).

I read poems like “Prufrock” and “The Wasteland” in high school.  They were cool enough that as a sophomore in college, I signed up for a class called, “Yeats and Eliot.”  It probably had a more lasting effect than any other college class, since forty years later I still read T.S. Eliot often, usually from “The Four Quartets,” the capstone of his poetic career.  The four sections were written and released separately over six years, and first published together in 1943.  After the Quartets, he wrote, “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” which inspired the musical, “Cats,” and spent the rest of his life writing plays and literary criticism.  Eliot was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1948.

The title of this blog came from an opening line in “The Four Quartets:”  Through the first gate, Into our first world, shall we follow the deception of the thrush?

As I said, I have been reading this poem for forty years, always finding something new in Eliot’s rendering of the human longing for the ineffable (among many other themes).  George Orwell dismissed the poem for it’s “religiosity,” though I find that a shallow reading.  A passage like the following uses religious symbols, not in the service of preachiness, but to invoke an experience that is perhaps as common as it is difficult to name:

I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant –
Among other things-or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
Pressed between the yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.

Here is another such passage which I still see quoted from time to time by spiritual authors:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

No single blog post could be more than an introduction to the life and work of a poet like T.S. Eliot, but if these notes inspire anyone to read “The Four Quartets,”  http://www.ubriaco.com/fq.html I will be more than satisfied.

Let me end with the end of the passage I began with.  After the poet tells us “success” is forever out of reach, he says:

And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate-but there is no competition-
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again:  and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Footnote on Plotting, and Tolkien’s Method

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In a post here on March 13, “Between a Plot and a Hard Place,” I talked of the two poles of plotting a novel – letting it unfold vs. planning everything in advance.  I said I had seen one of Tolkien’s letters indicating that he leaned toward the former approach, but I found confirmation yesterday, while reviewing his essay, “On Fairy Stories,” in the Tolkien Reader. In the author’s introduction, he says the essay was written in 1938 or 1939 and mentions he was working on The Lord of the Rings at the same time.  He says the story was:

…beginning to unroll itself and to unfold prospects of labour and exploration in yet unknown country as daunting to me as to the hobbits.  At about that time we had reached Bree, and I had then no more notion than they had of what had become of Gandalf or who Strider was; and I had begun to despair of surviving to find out.

The image that came to mind (thought it did not literally enter the story until later) was the light of Galadriel illuminating his way.  What do you do when you find yourself in the dark like that?