Book Writing

When I was a young, married adult with very young children, my father began writing a memoir. He called it “Chip Off the Old Block.” It was a 600-page hand typed manuscript. He had it copied so each of the three kids had a copy, plus he and Mom each had a copy. At the time of his writing it, I kind of pooh-poohed it; I thought it was a personal indulgence with little value. I thumbed through the finished product, noted the factual errors and the archaic wording. I lost interest.

Many years later I found myself flying from Chicago to Phoenix for Dad’s funeral. I read his memoir from cover to cover, noting various passages I could use in a eulogy should I be asked for such. [I wasn’t, so my reading of the memoir was for self-education.]

I learned a few things from this. First, writing a memoir is an act of life completion for the author at the very least. Second, it is a personal search to discover one’s own lasting value of life. Third, the work is exhausting and not always of pleasure. Fourth, it is rarely appreciated by others.

Finding myself at the age of contemplation, my thoughts turned to writing my book. I didn’t jump into it; no, I fiddled around with writing a blog first. Now over 6 years later and 2 million words published on the internet (and 202,000 hits and counting…) I find myself at the precarious position: to write a book or not.

It is precarious precisely because of my own harsh judgment of my father’s effort. However, my assessment on his product was most likely correct. Whether I can be as objective in my own case remains to be seen.

For one, Dad was not a writer of published material. I am. Often and for many years. Yes, they were trade journal items, arcane but of utility to those specialized readers. Then I took a turn as a managing editor of a small, local newspaper. I wrote weekly columns, city hall beat articles, many obituaries, a compendium of local issues and their progress forward just to be certain the community was not losing sight of important matters usually lost in a sea of detail. Of course I also took my turn at writing the community calendar of events for three towns, all published in our paper.

There’s nothing like writing for a deadline. Also sobering is the stark reality of having tens of thousands of eyes reading your words, not all of them appreciative or supportive of the effort.

Writing a book is a different sort of task than writing for a newspaper. For one thing, handling a topic in a book requires a lot of detail. Explaining a topic, many terms, and a host of differing viewpoints, takes discipline, clear thinking and research. Instead of writing a 1000 words, I needed to write 5000 at a sitting, have it mean something, and retain cogency of structure, too.

Writing a few million words over 1900 blog postings is easy in comparison. Believe me this is true!

OK, so I’ve decided to write a book. I published the foreword the other day and disclosed the book’s title – Be of Use. I will continue this task and hope I rise to the occasion.

Until tomorrow and the next days, weeks and months, you will be witness to this creation. Or debacle. Let’s see which it will be!

December 22, 2017