Writing by the seat of your pants

The expres­sion “fly­ing by the seat of your pants” is a term that seems to come from the ear­ly days of avi­a­tion. At that time, there was lit­tle or no instru­men­ta­tion to tell you how your air­plane was fly­ing, how your engines were func­tion­ing, where you were, and in what direc­tion you were head­ed. So you felt—via the seat upon which you sat—all those things.

There are writ­ers who know exact­ly what they are doing, where they are going, and—so to speak—all about the book they are pilot­ing so they can bring the ship down for a per­fect land­ing. I have writ­ten books when I have known all those things, too. Nice work when you can get it. Not at the moment. In my cur­rent project I’ll be fly­ing on—if you will—when I sud­den­ly say to myself, “No! Not that way. Bet­ter go this way.” Or, “Look out! You are about to crash!” Or, “You are in the fog. Find a way out!”

To con­tin­ue this not-so-lofty metaphor, I am hop­ing that the passengers—my readers—won’t notice all these lurch­es and tur­bu­lence. I hope that we’ll land in the air­port safely—wherever that might be. But … best keep your seat­belts buckled.