A fall from grace…

Or better yet, a graceless fall.

While working around the house the other day, I attempted to clear a branch off the roof but instead of employing a ladder for the task (the obvious solution) for some unknown reason (laziness?) I decided to climb on a concrete flower pot to reach the limb and was only inches away from seizing it when the pot I was standing on teeter-tottered and just like that I was on the ground and knocked nearly senseless. It’s startling, really, how even a fall from a short height can inflict pain, injury and embarrassment, especially when the landing pad is a cement walkway.

The mishap might have soured me and ruined my day had it not been sandwiched between two uplifting conversations I had, one in the morning with an author and the other later that evening with a film producer, about determination, ambition and the creative process. I’m fascinated by what motivates people to create, their routines and especially where they find the willpower to continue in the face of adversity, rejections and fallow periods.

The author, for example, has published a number of popular legal thrillers but, in an effort to stretch his creative muscles, has embarked on a speculative track to write a historical fiction novel that’s set in the Midwest in the mid-1900s. The project has had its rewards as well as its struggles. It’s been a trial, switching genres, attempting to accurately capture the issues of class and race during the period and ensuring the voices and traits of the characters he portrays are authentic.

When asked why he abandoned the proven formula he had established in the legal category and risk alienating his readership to write historical fiction, he cited a desire for a new challenge and a “need to write.” I have no doubt the novelist would love a best seller, but he’s already tasted success. It’s in the work itself.

The film producer has several blockbuster movies to his credit, but his first big hit was a study in perseverance. He hired Mario Puzo, the author of The Godfather and co-author of the movie’s screenplay, to write the script for his movie only to determine that what Puzo submitted wasn’t suitable. He then turned to a stable of writers to piece together another script. Along the way, the director he had hired for the project left and had to be replaced and on top of all that, no studio was interested in the movie so he was forced to raise money from outside investors to make the film.

He could have given up, but refused. He was determined to see the project through because, at the end of the day, he said he understood that the creative process is often 90 percent grit and 10 percent inspiration.

I’ve learned we all slip and fall from time to time but if we get back on our feet there’s a reasonable chance we’ll continue to move forward..

In the beginning

I didn’t set out to write a novel but sometimes fate intervenes.

It was 2018, well before Covid was in the wind, and I was running my own media consulting business when, by chance, I ran into an old friend in the parking lot of the local pharmacy. After catching up on our families, he asked, out of the blue, if I had ever been involved in writing a book. I told him I had not, but that over the years, I had written long-form magazine pieces and thought that was a natural stepping stone to book-length projects. In his earlier life my friend was an inventor of board games and he wanted to publish an autobiography about his experience. It’s a helluva tale and I told him I’d be happy to lend a hand if he thought I could help.

A couple weeks passed before my friend called and we started what would become an ongoing conversation about the story he wanted to write, how to structure a book and his goals for the autobiography. My friend has a heart of gold but his train of thought doesn’t always run in a straight line and our talks often took a circuitous route as he tried to sort out how best to proceed. Then one day he called and said that he had decided to partner with a ghost-writing firm in New York to shepherd the project. I wished him well and offered to be a sounding board if he ever needed one.

I wasn’t disappointed in his decision. How could I be? The book was about his experience, not mine, though, in that instant, I saw my budding dreams of becoming an author — albeit an anonymous one — vanish.

But then I had a thought: What if? What if I took the time and energy I had been devoting to my media business, freelance writing and consulting and instead channeled it into writing full-time for myself. What could I accomplish? I figured I’d know that answer in six months, maybe less. Either I was cut out to be an author or I wasn’t.

Forty-eight months later, I have completed four novels, four short stories and have loosely sketched the outline for two other books. Along the way, I landed a well-known agent, found a publisher, got waylaid by the pandemic and watched the book publishing industry get upended by the twin forces of a locked-down economy and the social justice movement.

Strangely enough it all started, not with a grand plan, but a chance encounter in the parking lot of a Rite Aid on a midsummer’s afternoon with an old friend that I hadn’t seen in the better part of a year.

And oh, by the way, my friend published his book. It’s called Game Changer. It’s about how he created Pictionary, one of the World’s most-popular board games. Like I said, it’s a helluva tale.