The First Key

My latest novel The Sixth Key is published and in bookstores and now, as I bask in the warm afterglow of past labours, I find myself turning philosophical. You see, its my habit to retrace my steps, to search beyond those numerous drafts, sleepless nights, moments of self doubt and, of course, the usual last minute panic, to find the impulse that led to the book: the epiphanic moment – the birth of the idea.

James Joyce was the first to apply this word epiphanic to literature – a moment of insight which briefly illuminates the whole of existence and makes time stand still. For me these moments always come in the middle of life: while I’m on the way to driving my daughter to the mall or when my son is physically moving the house with music - everything is normal one moment, and the next - Eureka!

So what was the epiphanic moment that led to The Sixth Key? It came the morning I had a meeting with my agent and publisher. I was locked in dense Sydney traffic, and all at once the world faded away and three things popped into my head: Hitler, the Grail and the Apocalypse - I had my book!

In reality such a moment is only the tiny peak of an enormous iceberg and the very first key to what lives in an author just waiting to bubble up as an epiphany. As a literary device I will say there were six keys to writing The Sixth Key and in the coming blogs I will explore them with you. Are you ready for an adventure? Bring your rope and your flashlight, because as my protagonist Otto Rahn says, one has to dare to travel to hell if one wants to find heaven – I dare!