By Mark Azzara
My Dear Friend,
I am in an emotional, psychological and spiritual place that I can remember being in only once before in my life – October, 1990, when I told a friend about my dream of writing a novel and the guilt I felt for even entertaining the idea.
“Will it hurt anyone?” he asked. No, I replied.
“Will you ignore or abandon your family or your legitimate obligations by doing this?” Again, the answer was no.
“Then write it!” And with those words, the guilt and other assorted misgivings evaporated.
I bought a typewriter (yes, a typewriter; laugh all you want) and began beating it to death. By the time I was finished I’d written more than 120,000 words and literally worn out the keyboard, which Sears had to replace free of charge because it was still under warranty.
I knew the manuscript had to be edited but I cringed at the thought of retyping hundreds of pages. That’s when my middle daughter’s boyfriend said he would be glad to scan it onto a floppy disk using character-recognition scanning software. And that’s when I knew God’s hand was on this.
I eventually bought a computer that the whole family could use, but while they were at work or school and I was alone at home (I worked nights), I lived at that keyboard, refining my creation. I reveled in the work. I had to learn how to write all over again by abandoning every rule I’d ever learned as a journalist. In doing so I found my “voice,” my unique way of telling my own stories that, as a bonus, countered the stifling life of a reporter and editor.
Friends occasionally read my manuscript. One said she couldn’t keep track of all the characters so I cut the story down to basics, slashing 80,000 words. After seven years of work another friend said, “It’s a start.” The newspaper’s features editor, speaking about an article I was writing, crystallized everything by saying, “Don’t just tell me; take me there.”
I rewrote and edited more than 20 versions of what I thought was THE final version, often putting it down for months without looking at it, only to see, when I opened the file again, how bad it was. But one day I realized there was nothing I could change. It was done. Except that it wasn’t. Friends who have a lot of experience using or studying the written word made me aware of glaring weaknesses that led to even more editing and rewriting.
This October will be the 25th anniversary of when I began, but my novel still isn’t finished. The latest volunteer editor, a woman with one published novel and a two-book deal with Penguin, praised my manuscript and apologized for all the Post-It notes creeping out from between the pages, adding, “You told me to tear it apart.”
More than a year later, I still haven’t tackled her suggestions (mostly cosmetic, she assured me), nor the realization that something else is missing — something that will require an additional chapter. Maybe I’ve grown lazy during retirement. Or, as I recall all the work I’d invested just to have an unfinished novel in a cardboard box inside a file drawer, I ask: Why bother?
But now I’m surprised because I feel inspired to write another novel, one that occurs years after the time of the still-unfinished first novel and follows the life of one of the characters in that original opus. I keep thinking about plot structure, the emotions of the characters, what they might say, the bullets they might sweat as the story moves toward its climax.
These thoughts frequently invade my prayer time but I think God is behind this. He is jogging my memory. I remember now that the latest versions of my manuscript entertained and informed those who read it, getting them to think. Some of them read it twice to get more out of it. Their genuine compliments vastly outweighed the criticism.
I know that writing is God’s gift to me. But now I remember the joy I had in writing that novel. I remember the passion that could only be dealt with by beating on a keyboard. And I’m certain that the first novel will be finished when the time is right.
In my Feb. 9 letter to you I said writing is a second-best way to communicate. Face-to-face is the best way. But writing is best when it’s either the only means you have, as with this letter, or when you have a really long message that cannot be interrupted.
When I was writing my first novel I was fueled by a God-given passion to do it as perfectly as I could. I refused to settle for less. Embracing God’s passion gave me life. And that’s the message of Easter. Jesus embraced his passion, which was to obey his father’s plan for redeeming the world, and he didn’t let anything stand in his way – not even death, because death was part of that plan.
Maybe my passion had to die for a while, but now it has been resurrected! God’s passion cannot die, and I think God wants me – and you – to experience the passionate dying-and-rising triumph of Easter in the same way as Jesus because that’s what it means to be truly alive.
