Photo by Remi Skatulski.
I know a writer who is ten years into her novel. Think of that. Ten years, and she’s not done. What’s stopping her?
A bunch of stuff. Finding time to write. Details that need researching. Figuring out how the book ends. Let’s get that last one out of the way right now. Don’t start if you don’t know the end.
A novel is 70,000 words, give or take. A thousand words can easily be done in a day. That’s seventy days to completion.
My writer friend found this unbelievable. That’s too fast! I have a job. My kid’s are in high school. My husband…
I could have told her to move to San Francisco, buy a beret, declare herself free of bourgeois constraints, go to a fair trade coffee bar, and type. Finding a table might be the hardest part. Behind every third latte is a writer. Ever since Hemingway, cafes are the place for writing.
I didn’t say any of this. However, I did tell her Hemingway’s opinion on getting it done, and I paraphrase: The artist must be absolutely ruthless with those around him, and you can judge the artist by that ruthlessness.
She was appalled. “I don’t feel that way at all!”
My writer friend is very nice to everyone. She is a volunteer at schools, reading to children. What’s her novel about? It’s a murder mystery, she tells me. A beautiful serial killer is loose in suburbia, a woman who targets comfortable, professional men. She lures them into her minivan where she cuts them into little pieces and tosses these into various retaining ponds outside shopping centers. She saves their wedding rings as souvenirs, and…
I’d heard enough. Murder mysteries aren’t really my thing. And the grisly details all start to sound the same.
“But listen,” she says. “Let me tell you what she does to an orthodontist.”
I changed the subject. Is she comfortable with her style? Is she able to see the story clearly?
“Oh, yes. Write what you know, and all that.”
I shuddered.
She closed her laptop. Our writing group had just finished up, and we were the last ones out. We meet at the library. “It’s just that the novel needs more work, and there’s so little time.”
I gave her my best advice. Re-write the whole thing. Write as fast as you can. Tell the family you’re finishing a novel, you just need seventy days, after that you’ll never write again, and you’re all theirs.
Which is a lie. But as artists, lying is the least of our transgressions.
She said she’d do it. As soon as she researched a few more details. And did I want a ride home? I lived a mile away, and walked. I thanked her, but needed the exercise. The library was closing. Lights winked off. There is nothing spookier than a dark library. She headed for the ramp, and I got out of there fast.
On the street my writer friend drove by, waving. I waved back, feeling foolish. As I say, she is a very mild person, dedicated, community-oriented, a loving wife and mother. However, she does drive a minivan.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com