When Writing Began

This may sound strange, but I think the mind creates certain milestones and holds them as signposts. In my case, I had imagined myself writing this book at a particular age, and it was almost as if my mind would not fully engage until I reached that birthday.

When that birthday arrived, I decided to do it. I suppose it is like any addiction: at some point, you decide you have had enough. That moment came for me, and I decided I had had enough.

With my wife’s help, I gathered everything I had accumulated, about five boxes of material, loaded them into my car, and drove to a cabin in the woods in Sevierville, Tennessee, just outside Dollywood. That is where I began writing in earnest.

The process came more easily at first because I had a great deal of material to draw from, organize, and incorporate. I had also fully embraced the Save the Cat method, with its 15 beats of story structure, so I had a framework to work within. For about six weeks, I worked steadily.

Almost every night, I gave my wife whatever I had written that day. She would sit on the bed and read it, then offer very light comments meant mainly to keep me going. Her role was not to fix anything, criticize, or improve the prose. She had been with me through all the waiting, postponing, and procrastinating, so her main objective was simply to encourage me to continue.

We had brought a desktop computer, a large monitor, and a printer with us in the same car we drove to Tennessee. So, I could print it out for her. She asked me as she felt me starting to work in “the flow” what had changed and all I could tell her was it had something to do with reaching that birthday that told me it was finally time.

I did not finish the book there in the woods. But when I came back, I had a new determination not to stop, a new sense of permission, and perhaps even less fear of failure. After I returned, it took another three months to complete the first draft.