One day at a time

As some of you may have noticed, I've been fully embracing my inner lunatic of late. Today was no exception.

I finally heard from one of those elusive betas -- and it wasn't good. He didn't much care for the book. And since he's an honest guy who shoots straight (one of the reasons I selected him), he didn't sugarcoat things. Mainly, he couldn't get past the fact that three of the main characters are loosely (ahem) based on people he knows well. He said he had a hard time seeing them as fictional characters, and instead spent much of his time saying things like "so-and-so would never do anything like that!"

He did say the story was "okay" and the writing was "pretty good," so I didn't actually jump off the Illinois River bridge, although to be honest it was touch and go there for a while.

Look, I'm a realist at heart. I know I cannot write a book that everyone likes. If I did that, I would be the first novelist ever to pull it off. It just ain't gonna happen. I know that.

But that doesn't stop me from wanting to write a novel that everyone loves.

So after punching my cell phone "off," I did what I normally do when my dreams die a horrific death -- I uttered a string of curse words that would shame a Marine and lit another cigar.

But then I did something else. I called a friend of mine, a guy who is actually modeled in my book. He's someone I talk to when things go bad, someone who can help talk me down from the ledge. Some of you reading this post may know someone like him.

So I called him. And he didn't answer. So I waited ten seconds and called him again. And he didn't answer. By now, I was convinced that my life was over, that I suck not only as a writer but as a human being. That I could screw up a wet dream. Trust me, I can get pretty rough on myself sometimes.

Finally, when I was about to do something really weird, like pray or something, he called me back. Now he was also a beta reader and he liked the book; he had only a couple of minor issues.

"So should I just bag the whole goddamned writing thing and find a job at Radio Shack?" I asked, only half joking.

"Well, you could," he said in his southern drawl. "But in the end, I think it would kill you. Maybe not physically, you know, but in other ways. Worse ways."

After he told me that part I stole as my own above (about being the only novelist who writes a book everyone likes), I asked him -- in this whiny little voice, What I should do now?

"Well," he said, pausing. (He always pauses like that; it kills me sometimes, just waiting for him.) "I think you should get off your ass and try to get the fucking book published. And quit looking for a way to fail."

After he finished reading me the riot act, he spent several minutes telling me how to write my query. And remember, he's a damned engineer, not a writer. I couldn't believe the chutzpah!

Of course, he was dead-on right. I came away from the call with a whole new hook for my dead-in-the-water query.

I love my friend Greg. He always says the right thing, even though I sometimes want to kill him for it.

Onward, fellow travelers. We shall get through this, one day at a time.

On the road to somewhere

Perhaps I'm feeling philosophical and somewhat bleak because I'm in the middle of reading Cormac McCarthy's brutally brilliant novel, The Road. Its searing, post-apocalyptic images of a world not just dead but hellish isn't exactly something that stirs up good humor on a gray Sunday evening.

And no, this isn't yet another woe is me post about how I can't seem to find the motivation to finish revising my novel. No. It's not. It's deeper than that. Really.

And yet ...

And yet, it starts there, doesn't it? I can't seem to find the motivation to finish.

And I don't know why. I've spent more than three years of my life working on The Devil You Don't Know. Years that could have been spent building a second career, a career based on something more solid, more substantial, than just a dream and the seemingly baseless hope of success in a highly competitive field where far more fall behind and die than reach the publishing promised land.

And so, each day I fire up the computer and piss around reading blogs and Facebook and Twitter. I love to read about how others are writing and working hard to reach their dream. And yet mine languishes on my hard drive.

Since the day I walked out of the newsroom -- Jan. 16, 2007 -- I've been on a journey unlike any I've been on before. My future is solely in my hands. That, I can handle. But the futures of my wife and young child are also in my hands, to a certain degree. And that's where I freeze.

No matter the successes I've enjoyed in life -- and there have been a few -- I somehow feel as though I am programmed to ultimately fail. And I don't know why.

I want to finish this book. I want to see it published. I want to become rich and famous. I do. Honestly. And yet, I seem to be rooted to this spot of uncertainty, where I am neither there nor not there.

It is, I've decided, a crippling case of being more afraid of succeeding than of failing. And I don't know why. I'm no stranger to counseling and therapy, and I know enough about my past, my childhood, to see how it affects everything I do. And there's something there, some dark malignancy, that will not allow me to move forward.

And here's the real kicker: I know, deep in my heart, that the book is pretty good. And with the major revisions I'm doing, it may even be better than pretty good. It might be damned good.

I know that. And still I feel like I'm fooling everyone, including myself, by thinking, by acting, as though I can actually get it published. I feel like a fucking fraud. The literary equivalent of Bernie Madoff.

Why?

I know this: If I don't get off the dime and do my very best -- my absolute best -- to get this novel done and out the door, the journey will come to an end. Soon. The money isn't endless, and I've run through a good portion of it living this fantasy, this dream of becoming a published author.

And then what? What of my family? My home? My bills? My future? What of me?

These are the things that keep me up at night, tossing and turning and occasionally lapsing into a nightmare that's so transparently metaphorical that it even makes me laugh upon waking.

I daydream of succeeding beyond my wildest dreams, of sitting down on Oprah or The Tonight Show or someplace like that and talking about how frightening it was, laying it all on the line like this. It sounds so romantic when it's in the past tense.

But what of now?

Now, it just seems terrifying.


I pray I have the strength to see this through. I have always believed I am destined for something more in life. I can't really put it in words, but there it is. That's what keeps me going.

What keeps you going, in the face of insurmountable odds? What keeps you awake at night, when the world sleeps? I'd like to know I'm not alone in this.

Unflinching honesty

Why am I still screwing around with this novel after three years? I'm about halfway through my umpteenth round of revisions on this thing and still, I'm not even sure if it's any damn good.

Look, I know I'm a decent writer. I was a professional writer/columnist/editor for 25 years. One doesn't pull that off without a modicum of talent. But fiction writing? Ah, that's a cat of a different color, now isn't it?

Yes. It is.

And those of us who write fiction -- hell, those of us who read fiction -- know there's far more to a good novel than just decent writing. There has to be a story, and a pretty good story. It has to more or less follow a standard formula and it must contain things like pacing, good dialogue, suspension of belief, drama. Stuff like that.

Because if it has none of those things, it's just a collection of words. Decent words, sure. But words nonetheless. Not a novel.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I know I'm exhausted from working 15-hour days on Friday and Saturday and getting very little sleep in between. And I know when I'm exhausted, I get cranky and when I get cranky, I shouldn't be allowed within twenty feet of a computer. Especially one containing a blog I happen to write. Because I tend to rant and rave and ramble on like a crazy person.

But I digress.

Or do I? It's possible I think the novel is crap because I'm cranky and in a bad mood. Right? Possible. Maybe I freaked out a bit over the edits that kindly book editor Staley wants me to do and chose instead to believe she hated the book and is just too nice of a person to actually tell me that.

Maybe. I hope so.

I can be a bit paranoid when it comes to my writing because, damn it, I have no way of knowing if it's any good! I am not a good judge of my own work.

Man, that is so frustrating. I mean, I can read someone else's work and know immediately if it's a piece of shit or if it has possibilities. But when I read mine, I want to puke. Seriously.

What I need is a couple of really good, really honest beta readers who will go through the entire manuscript and then tell me, straight up, if it's any good. Who will give me constructive feedback when needed. I don't want someone telling me how great it is, I want someone to tell me how I can make it better.

I want -- I need -- unflinching honesty.

Any volunteers?

When fear strikes

Yawn. Sorry. I'm not feeling real blog-ish tonight.

It could be that I've got one eye on the football playoffs and the other on the keyboard. Or it could be that I still feel a little punky and probably ought to be curled up in bed (watching football, of course).

Most likely, however, it's fear. That's right. Fear.

See, fear has been my constant companion my entire life. It was there in third grade when that big Holloway kid knocked me on my ass during a pick-up football game and then wanted to fight. I ran. Although I suppose, looking back, that it might have been more intelligence than fear on my part -- seeing as how the kid was in eighth grade and bigger than my old man.

It was there when my parents divorced (violently). It was there in junior high, when the class bullies realized that my stepfather was a cop and decided to make my life as miserable as they possibly could. And boy, could they. To this day, when I see a locker room I break out in a cold sweat.

It was there when I left for the Air Force. Big time. And when I got out. And when I went to college, and got married, and went to rehab. And started my career, and had a kid, then another, then yet another. It was there when I got divorced (non-violently; some lessons can be learned). It was there when I went to South America treasure hunting and lived in fear of being kidnapped by Colombian rebels like my boss had been a few years earlier.

It was there when I quit my job, when I started my novel, when I finished it, and when I started the first round of revisions.

And it's still here. Big time.

It isn't nearly as frightening an opponent as it was in the past, however. Age does bring wisdom. And I often find myself sitting and wondering what I fear most -- success or failure?

Fear feeds on my insecurities. Fear requires that inner voice that tells me I'm not good enough in order to thrive. Fear never takes a holiday. And it's patient. Damned patient. It's always there, sometimes just under the surface, other times deeper than that. But it's always there.

So each time I sit down to this latest (and probably last) round of revisions before I start shopping the manuscript for real, the fear comes. Hard. And so I surf the Internet. I read a book. I watch television. I do anything and everything, except what I'm supposed to be doing -- revising the damned manuscript.

Because, see, I'm afraid.

But at least I can recognize it these days. That wasn't always the case. And fear no longer paralyzes me like it used to. I can get through it.

I can.

FAMILY MOVIE UPDATE: Our 12-year-old son has developed a massive crush on Molly Ringwald and now sighs wistfully as he stares at her picture on the CD case. He also is angry that he didn't get to live through the 1980s! I'm so proud of him.