Beginnings of a Novel

Like many people, I have always wanted to write a novel. But I've never done anything about it.

Oh, I've started a few novels (who hasn't?), and even breached the 50-page mark on one occasion. But 50 pages does not a make a novel. In truth, I'm no closer than I was when infected with the writing virus 30 years ago.

I was in the 10th grade and had received high marks on a district-wide writing exam. The exam used as a writing prompt a photograph of an abandoned house on the prairie. As an angst-ridden teenager in the Seventies, I saw in the photo a post-apocalyptic wasteland, so I wrote a story about life after nuclear war. Rather than send me to the school counselor, the district judges gave me an award. I was instantly hooked.

That early brush with success was enough to convince me I had the necessary talent to write a novel. Within a few days, I had expanded my dreary story to include characters and plot. I read a lot of science fiction at the time, so I drew inspiration from Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Heinlein. My story centered around a small group of survivors who escaped our dead planet and spent their days hurtling through space in search of a new home.

After thoroughly depressing myself, I became preoccupied with other interests (girls, drums, basketball) and the novel project died. But my dream survived.

At DePauw University, I again received positive feedback for my writing - enough that I eventually chose to major in English Composition. I enjoyed my creative writing classes immensely but really had no idea what to write about. My stories were adolescent and lacked real world experience (I recently confirmed this by re-reading them).

After college, I moved on to professional pursuits. I wrote plenty over the years, but not much fiction. Instead, I labored over video scripts, feature stories, and company newsletters. For a while, I even served as business writer and editor for a Gannett daily newspaper.

I also read a lot. My tastes expanded to include some great writers, including Phillip Roth, John Updike, Ernest Hemingway, Annie Proulx, T.C. Boyle, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Yates, Sherwood Anderson, and Edward Abbey.

Unfortunately, I still have nothing to show for my lifelong goal of writing a novel.

It has now been 25 years since I graduated from college, and hardly a day has passed that I didn't ponder the possibility of writing fiction. Some days I am overwhelmed with ideas for stories. I have lived through more than my share of ups and downs, and have enough life experience to fill a library with novels. The time seems right.

And now I also have the time.

Last month, my wife suggested I spend the next year writing full time. It didn't take much to convince me. I quickly jettisoned my responsibilities, found a small office, and began to write. Just as quickly, I succumbed to the familiar demons that plague many writers: Self doubt. Perfectionism. Procrastination. Intimidation. Loneliness.

The signs were everywhere: I needed help. Otherwise, I risked squandering my golden opportunity.

I researched motivation, goal setting, and visualization. I joined a local fiction writer's critique group. And I signed up for an online writer's workshop. This week, I returned to writing with a fresh approach, moral support, and a list of goals.

My primary goal? To complete a first draft of my novel in six months. That gives me until the end of 2009.

All I need to do is write 100,000 words in 180 days.

A thousand words a day, five days per week.

Can I do it? We'll find out.

This blog will serve to catalogue my novel writing experiences. I'll share my hopes, dreams, fears and observations along the way. I'll post some excerpts from my writing. And maybe by the holidays, I'll be blogging about about how easy this whole process has been.

I hope you can join me for my journey. Wish me luck.

-Tom Johnson