REFLECTIONS OF A LIFE, Chapter 14: Writing in My Life

Chapter 14

      Writing in My Life     

           

            I have talked before about my lifelong love of writing.  Somehow, working with words—trying to arrange them for clarity, simplicity, and even inspirational overtones in my academic writing—has been intriguing, and amazingly several books have remained popular for over thirty years.

            Not all my writing efforts for academic books have been successful, however.  Basic textbooks in Introduction to Marketing, Retailing, Sales Management, and Marketing Research, for which I had high expectations, had mediocre sales, even though several went into 2nd and 3rd editions.  But the sales potential was never realized.  More recently I wrote Business Ethics: Mistakes and Successes that editors at Wiley had high expectations for, but this still had disappointing sales.

On the other hand, my supplemental Mistakes and Successes books for Management and Marketing have surprised everyone with their enduring popularity.  Students and professors seem to like the case studies about such businesses and some of the personalities involved, all written in hands-on, easy-to-read fashion, rather than the dry academic.  Various editions of these books have been translated into a number of languages, including Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese (for the Brazil market), Finnish, Arabic, Yiddish, Croatian, and Japanese.  The Japanese, in particular, have been keenly interested in these books, apparently eager to especially read about mistakes of U. S. firms.  It is the success of these nonfiction books that has sustained me in my dream of becoming a writer.

            But efforts at fiction have been acute disappointments.

            Fiction efforts. — I wrote my first fiction, dog stories, as a little boy, unpublished of course.  Years later, while acting manager of the Superior, Wisconsin Penney store, I wrote a short story that was published in Creative Wisconsin, a small literary journal.  It was about a young wife facing the loneliness of having her man away for long periods on Great Lakes ore ships.  “Those Who Wait,” written in 1960, is shown in its entirety in Appendix B.

            In the decades to come, I had little time to try fiction again.  Then about five years from retirement, the old dream to write novels became a passion.  I read everything I could about writing novels, joined several writing and critique groups, went to numerous writing conferences, and even a week-long writers' workshop at the University of Iowa.   I immersed myself in the quest to write publishable novels, and wanted to write stories that would touch the heart, stir emotions, that might even be memorable.  As I write this I have written, revised, and polished three novels.  The first, The Unforgotten, is a love story involving a handicapped woman:

               

She is the most beautiful woman Professor Tom Prentice has ever known, and he falls in love, even though Ginny Russo has muscular dystrophy. Because of her illness she will not consider marriage, but he maintains his love is undying, and eventually she consents.  Just before the wedding she gets much worse, and they break up. Some months later Tom tries to find her, berating himself for so willingly accepting this severing, but she has disappeared. Twenty-two years later, at their old dean's funeral he learns they both are remembered in the will. With his own marriage in shambles, now his memories of Ginny and his enduring love overwhelm him, and he determines to find her in whatever desperate straits she may be.  But his resolve is sorely tested.

Written from the male point of view, The Unforgotten bares the conflicts and emotions of falling in love with a severely handicapped person.

            The idea for this unusual love story came from a beautiful paraplegic I had in my class one semester.  I came to wonder if this lovely person would ever find love, and what might be the thoughts and emotions of the man who would truly love her.

            For the various revisions I sent out close to two hundred queries seeking any interest by literary agents and editors.  None were interested.  Finally in the spring of 2001, I found a local firm to print 100 copies of the manuscript and bind into a paperback  with no fancy cover.  In my naivete I thought such a book might stand out from all the other sensationalized covers.  Well, stand out it did, but not in any positive way.  Local libraries bought about 30 copies; I gave some away to friends and relatives, and was able to persuade a few local bookstores to stock them.  But the few books I have left can be a dubious legacy to those who follow me.  I had not expected to make any money on this venture into self-publishing, but the lack of interest exceeded my most pessimistic expectations.  What rubbed salt in the wounds was that the printer had done a poor job with the binding, and the pages loosened with any use at all.

            I found that self-publishing a novel is the kiss of death in getting any agent or publisher interest.  And no reviewers will give it any publicity.  So I attempted to repackage this first novel with a new title, Dare to Dream, and a three-page prologue that I polished and thought added to the emotional appeal of the book.  In queries I do not mention now that I had self-published, but sent what I thought was a dynamite query letter and prologue, see Appendix B, and was prepared to send a manuscript if there was any interest.  To date, no one has asked to see it.

            The second novel is historical, about the Civil War period, with the title Odyssey from Antietam:  A Medical Novel of the Civil War and Aftermath.  I have revised and polished this to the point where I thought it should appeal to anyone interested in the Civil War and early medicine, and in the struggle of one woman to break into a profession dominated by men.  Here is the publicity sheet:

The Power of Love Defies the Atrocities of War!  Antietam was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War and all of U.S. history.  Behind the battle were individuals who faced extreme danger while struggling to survive.  Could there possibly be love amid the hatred of war?   

Odyssey From Antietam is a story of struggle and prejudice, but also of discovery and pursuit of dreams.  Sarah, a Union battlefield nurse, discovers a God-given talent, and dreams of becoming a surgeon in a time when few women are even doctors, and none are surgeons.  The night after the battle she wanders the field looking for any wounded still left unattended, and finds Thad, a Confederate major, nearly dead under bodies on the most fiercely contested terrain of the battle, the Sunken Road, and saves his life.  He falls in love with her but recognizes the futility of it, he an enemy and a cripple.  With the War ended, Thad, now a professor at a small college, doggedly seeks to find Sarah and finally learns she is in Paris studying medicine.  But the bitterness of Reconstruction and the Franco-Prussian War make finding Sarah an impossible dream.  A crippled Negro girl who is a genius plays an important role in the mystery.

Richly-layered, with endearing characters, Antietam depicts the power of love.  It also resounds with the message, “Dream big—never give up.”  The book represents a rather different approach to the Civil War, the medical perspective.

            I also sent out hundreds of queries for the various versions over the years, with no interest.  In 2005, I again resorted to self-publishing, this time with a print-on-demand publisher, Xlibris, that with the new computer technology could print any quantity, even one book, in an attractive package as good or better than traditional publishers, for a very modest $500, a basic price for a single book.  Additional copies add to the costs but are not unreasonable. Copyediting and any alteration fees also add to the costs, as do various marketing services.  I avoided these supplemental costs by doing the editing myself, and now have a book to be proud of.  I tried to stimulate sales in local bookstores through word-of-mouth publicity by students and friends to whom I gave copies with the wish that they read the book and if they like it, recommend it to their friends.  My hopes that such efforts would stimulate demand were not realized. 

            While I did not expect to make any money from this caper, I would be satisfied just to get some people to read it and maybe find how good it is.  Nearly a dozen people did praise it, even saying that they were profoundly moved.  But being self-published, I could get no publicity or reviews.  At this point, the only chance of having even modest success seemed to be if a major publisher would take on the project, and in my queries to literary agents I urged them to see the attractive book before summarily rejecting the query.  But no one would even sample it.  If I should have any success with repackaging the first novel, I will attempt something similar with this second one, changing the title to Journey From War, and making no mention of it being self published.

            I had thought my third novel, a thriller titled The Whistleblower, might find more interest and acceptance because of the current topic with its suspenseful plot of corporate corruption.  But results were the same—no agent or editor willing to even look at it.  The difficulty for an unknown author of getting a first novel published with the stigma of self-publishing, grows ever stronger and more elusive, with far less than one percent of unsolicited queries ever eliciting interest.

            I wrote the following personal essay to express my futility.  This was published in the newsletter of a local writing group.

Pursuit of a Dream

           

I have a dream to write stories that touch the heart, after years of writing the academic.  Seven years ago I began an odyssey of hope and striving to become a published novelist.

            Writing novels has brought a magic I never before experienced in decades of writing nonfiction.  I become engrossed with my major characters.  I live with them their worries, conflicts, frustrations and despairs, their dreams and hopes, their loves, and their triumphs.  As I walk in their shoes, time flees as a thief in the night.

            This dream of writing fiction tests the limits of perseverance, of persistence, steadfastness—all positive virtues.  But it is only a thin line to the negative: futile obsession, inability to recognize defeat, even neurotic casting of blame.  Tilting at windmills is nothing new.  The classic tale of Don Quixote trying to knock down windmills with his lance expresses this futility.

            My dream has been sorely tested by the reality of publishing today.  Many publishers, some sympathetic to mid-list (average) writers, have been taken over by big corporations preoccupied with the bottom line.  These have no room in their listings for unknown writers likely never destined for best sellers.  Something else also makes it harder for new writers to ever break in: while computers make writing easier and faster, this results in literary agents, editors, and publishers being deluged with manuscripts.

            In late September 2001, I attended a two-day writers conference in Columbus, Ohio.  Over 300 would-be writers were there—the largest attendance ever for this conference—and only three literary agents.  One woman told me she had two unpublished novels and I told her I had three, but had recently published one myself.  Later, another person told me she had seven, all unpublished.  I asked if she would ever write another one.  "Oh yes," she said.  "I live in hope."

            Still, the hope of non-celebrity authors with no publishing connections has to be dim indeed.  That evening, after the panel of agents finished their presentations, the wannabe writers lined up to make a pitch to the agents who amusedly gave each a few minutes and a sprig of encouragement.  I had thought with my finished book in hand, even though self-published, that an editor or agent would be willing to look at it.  But I was naive.  For example, one said, "Don't bother me with your book.  Send me a query letter.  We'll put it at the bottom of the pile and eventually get to it.  There's always a possibility we'll want to see more."

            I chanced upon the agent in the hallway the next morning and asked him what the odds were of such a query letter interesting him.  "Infinitesimal," he said.

            "One percent?" I asked.

            "Much less than that," he admitted.  Then he slightly relented.  "Do you think your book is great?"

            I solemnly told him I thought it was.

            "Well, send the query letter if you think it's a masterpiece, and we'll see."

            I wanted to ask him if he'd know a masterpiece if he saw one.  But I held my tongue.

            So what is the unknown writer, with no one to influence agents and editors in his or her behalf, to do?  For most, the result is closet manuscripts, maybe noble novels that are to be forever unread and relegated to storage where the yellowing pages, under the best scenario, in some future time may grab the attention of a grandchild or great grandchild, and be read.

            The saddest thing for any writer is to write what seems a wonderful and moving book, but to find no one but a few intimates willing to read it.  Books are meant to be read.  While the actual writing may at times be highly pleasurable, if the effort is not read it is all for naught.  It is similar to the minister who spends days preparing a magnificent sermon and then has to deliver it to a near-empty church.  Except the writer spends months and even years in the endeavor.

            Another recourse is self-publishing.  This is costly and almost never breaks even for novels, but may for nonfiction books of local interest, how to's, and topics for specific audiences.  Print-on-demand publishing has a place in the market for that writer who  would be satisfied to have a few dozen books published at a small total price, perhaps under a thousand dollars, but a high price per book, maybe $25 or $30 dollars for a paperback (or less if the author is willing to sell books at a loss). 

            After writing three novels, and enduring hundreds of rejections for the various revisions, rejections usually couched impersonally without even a signature--"this is not for us, but we wish you well"--I decided to publish one myself.

            I chose my first novel, The Unforgotten, which I have revised and refined for seven years.  This is a story of a man falling in love with a handicapped woman, and combines emotional conflict, suspense, mystery, and a search that seems hopeless.  One person told me it reminded her of Love Story by Eric Segal, written over thirty years ago, that was made into a movie with Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neil; several others likened it to books of Nicholas Sparks.  Well, such brings some solace, except no reviewer will look at it since it is self-published.  The quest to find readers falls on sterile ground, destroying hope that word-of-mouth would bring a groundswell of demand.

            But how we cling to hope.  I still have a sliver of hope that something fortuitous will spur interest.

            Would I self-publish again, knowing what I do now?  I would, just to have something tangible to show for all my efforts, a legacy that may or may not be of interest to future generations.  But it leaves a trace, just in case.