Field of Steve

The whole point of this blog was to have something with a history once I released another book.

About a decade ago I had a novel published, though that sounds haughtier than it really is. I had to pay a little bit, though not the typical vanity press fees. I had worked for a small publisher before and the fees seemed reasonable, because I was going to have the book edited and designed, or so I believed. In the end I was the editor and I wish I had been the cover designer. I lost all enthusiasm for the book once I got my copies and didn’t do a thing to market it. Friends and family who read it liked it, but what friend or family would say otherwise? Overall it was a nice learning experience and the book is a good reflection of where I was in my life before I got married. I thought there was valuable stuff for anyone in the story. The book sold a few dozen copies and you can still see it, or buy it, on Amazon. If the link doesn’t work, search for “Going Too Far” under “Steven Gardner.”

The desire to write books has never gone away. After 10 years of reporting I believed I’ve learned a lot about telling stories and plan to use whatever skills I have to tell my own growing up story. The story ends as I leave my family to begin serving my LDS mission. I hesitated for a long time to write the story, because I didn’t know what kind of hook I could have that would make the autobiography. Eventually I just started writing some of the stories I remembered in hopes that one day I’d stumble upon a theme that would work. Early on I considered the main theme being one of walking in two worlds, caused by my family’s conversion to Mormonism when I was 11. That may still be the overall theme that generates whatever may be interesting. But also in telling stories verbally I’ve found it not as difficult as I once thought to make the tales fun. I’m still writing the first draft. The next piece of work will be compiling a mountain of stories and weaving a tale that remains engaging throughout. It means I’ll have to throw out a lot of what I’ve written, or save it for some future project.

A few weeks back I came upon the idea of doing some research that can only be done in California, since that is where I grew up. I won’t give too many details, because it is, from what I can tell, still a unique way of weaving the story together. It does involve newspaper archives. So sometime before summer’s out I’ll make a drive down to Southern Cal. I hope to crash on someone’s floor for about a week as I make daily visits to the Los Angeles County Library in West Covina. I had thought about going as early as May, but that doesn’t look like it will work, because that butts up against our wedding anniversary and because the library will be open one fewer day than in a regular week.

I’m going to make several pitches to go get an agent or a publisher, but I’m also open to self-publishing. The process is much less expensive these days. I can find someone to edit for me so that I’m sure it’s a quality project. Designing a cover shouldn’t be difficult, especially for Diana. And I believe I can make the book sell well enough that writing books will be a worthwhile second career until it becomes a first one. After this book I want to do the same for my father, which would mean making another trip to Los Angeles and to Denver. Besides flattering my own ego and that of my father, doing these books will teach me skills in gathering historical evidence. With that experience it could make me even better suited for taking on more expansive projects, the kind of work done in The Devil in the White City, or American Lightning.

How disheartening to be an aspiring author and to read a book that suggests that it takes a series of events to create huge successes. The “New York Times” is reporting that book publishers are getting more stingy. What this means is that the $5 million I expected to demand as an advance for my first book will have to be cut back to $100,000. All this, because the economy is in the tank and the people who take incongruous screeds and turn them into cash can’t hold quarterly retreats on the deck of boats made out of $100 bills anymore. Once a year, tops.

What makes this all the more discouraging is that I’m learning it just as I finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest revelation, “Outliers.” In the book you read the stunning confession by Bill Gates that he got lucky, the startling truth that older kids are better hockey players than younger ones and that sometimes planes crash because people don’t want to offend their bosses.

Let me not make too much light of the book, because as usual Gladwell delivers solid and interesting evidence to back up his case. It’s at least as solid as anecdotal evidence can be. There is some data, at least enough to satisfy many with a scientific or economic bent. The basic thesis Gladwell makes is that those who are hugely successful get there through their work, but not their work alone. Almost always accompanying the hours of toil are a series of external events that would appear to be completely beyond the control of those who benefit from them.

Here’s what he said:

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The novel itself, should it ever be something that gets published, will not be the source of controversy. My status as a National Novel Writing Month winner will be.

I started Sunday morning about 18,000 words short of the 50k mark each writer has to meet to be called a winner. All month I have really wanted to get there. I started off well, but got to visiting with family and stuff, so the last weekend I had a lot of catching up to do. I wrote 5,000 words on Saturday, which was enough to make me realize that I could pull it off if I hustled on Sunday.

So for most of the day I have been sitting on the most comfortable chair in the house, laptop in hand, unaware that every wasted second could cost me the right to call myself a winner. And one or two wasted seconds may have just been the difference. The judges are still out on that one. Here’s why.

The NaNo site has an official counter that counts the manuscript length for you. Throughout the day, when I knew I wasn’t near finished, I would submit my text to see how close I was getting compared to the word counter in Microsoft Word. Each time the NaNo site was giving me one more word than my own word processing program.

Between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. I had hit 40,000 words and change. I went to the site and wanted to get a count. Doing so, by the way updates the word count on the overall display, so there was a psychological bonus for doing it. Well, on this occasion, I must have hit “paste” twice, because the word counter gave me credit for 80,000 words and I suddenly had the “winner” tag on my page. I figured it would be no problem to correct it. So I deleted the text, resubmitted it and the correct word count came up. It did not, however, remove the winner tag. I tried a couple more times and it didn’t work. I eventually realized I was wasting time, so I got back to the novel and the task of finishing it so I could feel good about what the Web site was saying about me.

I was getting close to the end, watching the clock and realizing I was cutting it dreadfully close. With about a minute to spare I did a word count and it came in at 50,000 on the nose. I thought the NaNo site would clock me at 50,001. To my surprise, though, when I went to the site it said the deadline had passed. I was feeling pretty good about finishing the novel, really good in fact. But I wanted the validation from NaNo. My site said “winner,” but the word count was stuck in the 40k range.

So I got resourceful, went and changed the time zone and found out the word counter would work. It clocked me at 50,000 exactly, just like Microsoft Word.

So I was feeling OK about it, but that doesn’t last. So I wrote to NaNo and came clean about what I did. If I get the official nod from them that I finished, then I might flash the NaNo “winner” button and print the certificate. Then again, I don’t know that I can feel good about that. I mean, rules are rules. By changing the time zone I got around them, but I’m not sure I deserve the button. According to the NaNo clock, I didn’t write a novel in a month. I wrote a novel in one month and one minute. Dang. Now I’ll have to do it again next year.

As I mentioned a day ago, I’m participating in the annual National Novel Writing Month, the challenge that is exactly what its title suggests. You write a novel in a month. There is no judging of the work, only the word count, and an acknowledgment that a lot of what will be written will be crap. As I said previously, the magic is in the editing.

When midnight struck on Nov. 1, I was in the middle of watching a movie. Once that ended I took to writing my first bit. To get to 50,000 words, the target for those doing this, you have to write about 1,667 words every day. I broke 2,000 the first night and went to be around 3 a.m. Before bed on Saturday I broke 4,200 and tonight I surpassed 6,300. So I’m about 1,300 words ahead of schedule.

I think I need to be. For one, fear of not finishing has overtaken me. I’ve got an idea that’s going somewhere and I’ve got a deadline. Second, I want the certificate and Web badge you get for doing the work. Third, there’s an election Tuesday and I’m aware that on that day it might be kind of tough for me to carry on with this project. So when I start again I don’t want to be behind.

The odd thing was, today I knew that even if I wrote nothing, I’d be ahead of schedule because I had technically done more than two days work on the first day. And yet later in the evening I decided to pick up the laptop, because I had thought of an ending and I knew where the story was going next. So I decided to write at least the ending. I did so and found out I had added about 600 words pretty easily. That was enough to get me going back to where I was in the story to continue on.

Tonight I had little intention of writing and no expectations about where I’d end up once I started, yet when I did so it was the most enjoyable chapter of this whole experience. I guess that should tell me something.

Friends at work convinced me to join the NaNoWriMo project this year. It’s where you write a novel, 50,000 words, in a month. I’m keeping pace after day one, keeping ahead of the count you need to finish. I’ve noticed a few things, though.

1. When they tell you that your stuff will include a lot of crap, that is so unbelievably true. I think anyone reading my novel would fall asleep, or decide to get off the toilet, within about 37 seconds.

2. That there’s crap is beneficial, because it reinforces my long-held belief that the magic will sometimes come in the writing, but it’s more often in the editing. I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year in spite of the other two projects I had in mind because the first few sentences of the fiction piece struck me from out of the Washington gray skies. I liked those lines. Everything else since has been really bland.

3. I put my book in the “Satire, Humor & Parody” category, but so far it’s not very funny. I’ve got a decent premise going, but I like the humor I find in writers like Steve Martin or Lewis Grizzard. They go along telling you a story and drop in lines here and there that strike you. I’m not funny in the first draft very often.

4. Editing is the beauty. Writing this novel will be fine. Editing it will be hard, but if this thing is to be worth a read at all, the editing will be necessary.

5. Come the end of November my intention will likely be to go back to my other projects and work on those with at least half the intensity I’ve demonstrated doing this work. My rationale for doing the novel was that it could spark some creativity that will benefit those works. On Dec. 1 I might change my mind.

Every once in a while I read a book I enjoy so much that I read it twice. I just finished one for the first time that I’m sure I’ll go through again.

The Blind Side tells of Michael Oher, who plays left tackle at Ole Miss. If the story were that simple the book wouldn’t be much more than the standard sports bio. If any of us had met Oher and his family before he became a teenager, we would all have predicted much less for him. Through a sequence of chances he now finds himself an all SEC lineman and a surefire NFL prospect.

On Saturday he may not have lived up to that reputation. Ole Miss lost to Vanderbilt 31-17 and Vandy linebackers got behind the Ole Miss line for six sacks.

Even if he doesn’t end up in the NFL, which seems unlikely, his life story intertwined with the evolution of the left tackle makes for a fascinating read by Michael Lewis, who also wrote Moneyball. This book is getting less attention than Moneyball, but I enjoyed it more.

I bought the book a couple weeks ago after finally making it all the way through Hubris. That book was dense. Interesting, yes. Important as well, but dense. Lewis’ book is a breeze to read.

Oh, and there’s a BYU angle to it as well.