On the last episode of Sam Writes a Novel, our hero sat atop a pile of words – almost 190,000 – at the halfway mark of 2019. For context, he entered the year with around 120,000 words written, a compilation of outlines, notes, and scattered scenes. The first half of 2019 brought 1/3 of the hero’s novel to completion.
At the dawn of 2020, he’s more than halfway.
Yes, reader, I AM that hero. I will allow you a moment to recover from your shock.
Here at last is proof I have not been sitting on my ass while remaining Slog silent. OK, yes, I did in fact sit on my ass to write all those words (and am presently sitting on my ass, writing this post. Christ, life is circular) but that’s not the point. The point is I’ve been plenty busy while remaining comfortably seated. Win.
Actually, on reflection, my status as a reincarnated sloth isn’t the point either.
The point – the REAL point – is made, better than I could reiterate, by poet Robert Frost. The whole poem is worth a read. Here is the last stanza:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Sometimes, your life distills itself into a moment. The moments are rare but that’s why they’re memorable. Moments where context joins meaning to create a choice that defines the future permanently. Two roads in a yellow wood.
Some context: In fall 2018, I hadn’t worked in journalism for over a year, my time instead spent on the initial work for my novel The Darkest Fate, when, out of the unearned heavens, I was head hunted off my online resume by the owners of a nearby small town newspaper. I was interviewed by the editor (in a sad commentary on the state of the business, also its only writer at the time) and offered the job.
Even before that juncture, I knew I needed a career path or, at the barest minimum, to pick a direction on the damn career path. In essence, I had to commit to my novel’s completion or abandon it once more. The job offer made the choice stark yet simple – continue on the path I earned my undergraduate degree for or embrace the rebirth of my identity as a writer.
I didn’t have to imagine what the latter felt like – I’d spent over a year going over notes written when I was as young as 11 – so I imagined the former. On one hand, there was the unbelievable luck of being handed this opportunity. On the other was their desperation to throw me into the breach in a shrinking industry being slowly and painfully priced out of existence.
I turned the job down.
I turned it down not for professional reasons – the editor was a goddamn hero of a journalist – but for personal ones. Because when I imagined going backward, my heart ached.
I used to think I could battle the ache away, if I fought hard enough. But we should always pick our battles with care, not fling ourselves into every conflict, especially when the future is at stake. That was a lesson I didn’t heed when I envisioned my collegiate and post-collegiate life. If I had, I would have applied my strengths more beneficially.
Getting back to those strengths and relearning smothered instincts was what I needed to do, not run on a hamster wheel of ignorance and shame. Instead, I sought what I neglected. To remember the joy of childhood. To ask what would you do with your time if you had no fear of failure?
All I ever wanted as a kid was to share my stories. To move people with books as I was moved. To reclaim my meaning. Whatever took me away from that answer would no longer suffice.
Imagine your answer. Then make it true.
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