Ron Carlson Writes a Story, Part 2

When I wrote my October 31 blog, “Ron Carlson Writes a Story,” I didn't know I’d want to follow up a few days later, but having finished his book two nights ago (a slim volume comprised of 112 pages), and having dog-eared 11 of those pages and scribbled copious notes in the margins, there’s a passage I’d like to share where he discusses how uncomfortable it is to reach the point in your story where you don’t know where you’re going. Here’s what he says:

“But I am nervous. I’m thinking I’d like to get some coffee. I’m thinking I’d like the phone to ring and have it be any of ten people who would call and say meet me for coffee. A little coffee here after typing for an hour or so, why not? Stretch the legs, that’s it, and then while I’m in the kitchen, peek outside at the other world, see what’s happening, breathe the larger air, witness the passing traffic, every car full of writers who have already given up.”

Writers who have already given up.

I read that line twice, and then once more, knowing that was me, in 1998, a writer who’d given up.

I remember the night exactly – the feel of damp air on my skin as I walked home from a neighbor’s house, the streetlight glowing pink in the evening fog. I remember too the envy and anguish I felt over my neighbor’s excitement, and how difficult it was to share his joy. He’d just finished a novel, and believed, like we all do in those very early days, that the world was waiting with open arms to receive his special gift.

I’d been a writer, too, for a while, but put it aside to financially help our family. It was the right thing to do at the time, but nevertheless, I made a promise to myself that night that if I ever got another chance to write full time, I would never ever give up; that I’d keep at it forever, if that’s what it took, to write a novel a publisher would buy.

The other day, I was visiting my husband’s 96-year-old grandmother in her assisted-living facility when she leaned over and asked, “When you gonna sell that book?”

“Probably when I’m 96,” I said, “and living in assisted-care.” She laughed, and I did too.

And though I don’t know when I’ll get published, I do know I’m a writer who will not give up, so when Ron Carlson looks out his window at all those passing cars, I will not be in even one of them, but at home, nervous and thinking about coffee, and getting the work done.