Brand new day

Yesterday was a day to be forgotten. After undergoing hideous, disfiguring surgery, I spent the day in bed doped up on Vicodin and watching Andy Griffith re-runs.

I posted last night that nothing could stop me from writing 1,000 words a day, not even a dental implant. I stand corrected. After that post, I fell asleep and never looked back. I start this morning a day late and 1,000 words short. Can I make up my lost progress? Time will tell.

But I emerged from my pharmaceutically-induced fog as a more humble and insightful writer. The things I have seen! The horrors I have known! Today I leave my demon behind and switch to ibuprofen. With a clearer head and a sorer jaw, I will continue on with my novel.

Expect a progress report this evening.

Writing under the influence

Today I had an implant placed in my head.

Okay, it was a fake tooth. And more specifically, it was screwed into my jaw bone. I am now writing under the influence of Vicodin, which is doing a decent job of controlling my pain. Until this evening, it also controlled my ability to write.

And this brings up an issue that every writer likely faces: when is it acceptable to take a day off from writing?

My short answer: never.

But you just had an implant, you say. Surely you can take some time off to recover. You are so macho!

I could babble on about artists and pain, and how without suffering, there could be no real art. But the truth is, I am weak. I don't trust myself. If I take a day off, who's to say I won't take a week? A month? Before long, I could be questioning whether I even want to write a book. Couldn't I just read one???

I equate the decision to write a novel with going on a diet or making a New Year's resolution. With each of these commitments, a case could be made on any given day to justify taking a break. I may even have a legitimate excuse for doing so (pet hamster died, college buddy in from the coast, dental implant). But taking a day off makes getting started the next day all the more difficult. And then I'm on that slippery slope. After a few more days off, I might as well just give up.

Choosing to write a novel is an odd sort of commitment. It requires thousands of hours and tremendous self discipline (not exactly my strong suit). No one is looking over my shoulder or monitoring my progress. The world has little interest in whether I finish or not, because in all likelihood, my book is crap -- most are.

So I rely on habits to get me through. Each day, I sit at my desk and flog myself into putting a few more words down, hoping that someday, in the not-too-distant future, I'll be glad I stuck it out (as opposed to joining the civilized world and earning a living).

I have come to the realization that being a writer means writing every day, whether I feel up to the task or not. Even if I write crap. So that is exactly what I intend to do.

I have 1,000 words to write. Don't be surprised if this chapter is strangely reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson.

"We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold..."

The role of hope in writing a novel

Yesterday I started an online novel writing class offered by Gotham Writers' Workshop. This is my first class in 15 years, and my first experience with online learning.

While it is too early to tell whether the benefits of the course will outweigh the cost, I was intrigued from the outset by the stories shared by my fellow students.

We come from all corners of the U.S. and both sides of the Atlantic. The subjects explored in our novels cover the gamut of human experience. In many ways, we couldn't be more different. Yet we are bound by the common hope of selling our novels to a publisher and seeing our works in print.

For some of us, this has already been a lengthy journey. Many of my classmates have been closet writers for years or even decades, reluctant to share their work (or even the fact that they write). One student is working on the ninth draft of his first novel. Another has written "quite a few stories" and has yet to see any of them published. Another published her first short story and is now afraid to submit anything else for fear of rejection.

And yet we write on, dreaming of glowing reviews, best seller lists, and book tours.

But how likely is it that any of us will ever get our novels published? And should we achieve that goal, what are the odds that we will sell enough books to justify the expenditure of time, let alone convince our publishers to take a chance on any subsequent efforts?

The sad truth is that most "writers" never finish their novels. Of those who finish and submit their manuscripts for publication, less than 1 percent ever make it to print.

Self-publishing Web site parapublishing.com offers statistics that suggests most of us are kidding ourselves:

• A third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.

• 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.

• 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.

• 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

• 57 percent of new books are not read to completion.

• 70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.

• 70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.

(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

• About 120,000 books are published each year in the U.S.

(Source: www.bookwire.com)

• A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.

• A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.

(Source: Authors Guild, www.authorsguild.org)

• On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.

(Source: Para Publishing, www.parapub.com)

My wife recently commented that if a person takes on a project as large as writing a novel for any reason other than personal satisfaction, he is likely doing it for the wrong reasons. She's probably right. Publication is elusive, but making a living writing fiction is all but impossible. The process of writing a novel must be undertaken for different reasons altogether.

So why do people do it? I suppose hope plays a significant role, as it does in anything. Whether it is writing a book, raising children, buying stocks, earning a degree, or any other endeavor that requires investment and risk, hope is the essential ingredient that makes it all seem possible.

And who knows? One of my classmates could be the next Stephen King.

Where would we be without hope?

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