Thank you for the wake up call. That being said, I’m a reader. I read a lot. You’re a beautiful writer. I want to read your novel. I’m a few years older than you are. Please get with it. Thank you.
You are a much better writer than I am, however, I have completed a novel in the past (pretty terrible genre fiction), and have two pieces of advice for doing so: 1) Write (at least) a set amount first thing every morning (it was two pages for me) without considering whether it's any good at all - assessing and rewriting are for later. 2) Stop writing before you're "done" in terms of inspiration or ideas, so that you have something in the tank to get you started the next day (this was advice from Hemingway and super helpful, I found). Please write your novel -- I and many others would love to read it!
Those two rules are genuinely brilliant,and the fact that you finished a novel means you actually know something most aspiring writers never learn. Completing one, even "terrible genre fiction," puts you ahead of almost everyone who's ever said they want to write one.
The Hemingway trick is especially good. Stopping mid-momentum so you're never staring at a blank page the next morning,that's the kind of hard-won craft advice that only comes from actually doing it.
I used to count the months until I surpassed my mom's life - now I am nearly 2 years beyond her. I have readjusted my thoughts to try to match my dad's time of 88 years, 6 months. I feel like I have more time left and hope that I make it. I'm not writing a book (publish the damn thing already), but I still have things to finish, too. We'll see. Peace.
I like to think of you, sitting on that Nebraska porch, writing one paragraph after another, sharing your observations of the world. Thank you for inviting us along on your written journey.
Really nice stuff, Tom. You have a talent and I really enjoy your work. Every time I read your work I think of Gerald Gentlemen station and the insanity of my life back then. Just as insane now here in Cuenca, Ecuador. There just comes a time when you no longer give a shit. I’m not there yet but like you, I open the file from time to time.
I appreciate that a lot. Sounds like you’ve lived a few chapters that don’t quite let go. Funny how those places and times stick with you, no matter where you end up. And yeah… I think there’s something about opening that file every now and then that keeps us honest. Glad you’re still at it.
You inspire me, Tom. You've transitioned over to a "mature" man's life and found the thing that you like to do, which you're also damn good at.
When I was younger, there were many times I told myself that I needed to develop more interests. I knew there would come a time when I wouldn't work 60+ hours a week and still recreate at a breakneck pace with a large group of friends. I tried to find new interests, I really did. But dammit, I liked what I liked. So I didn't.
Well, that time is here now. Wouldn't go back to work even if they wanted me. Fuck AI. Old body can't move any more. No more competitive hoops. All my friends are old and lost their mojo. Its quiet jazz clubs not mosh pits now. It is what I feared it might be.
Am I bored? Frustrated? Funny enough, I'm not. But I am fidgety. I do walk around the hills in my neighborhood hoping the "next thing" jumps out of my head and hits me. Hasn't yet. Maybe the best part of getting old isn't wisdom, but patience.
fidgety is the thing. That's not emptiness,that's the feeling of a man whose engine is still running with nowhere particular to go yet. That's different from broken down.
And you already answered your own question at the end. Patience. You spent decades knowing exactly what was next. Maybe this is the first time in your life you're actually waiting for something to find you instead of the other way around, and you're better at it than you expected. That's not nothing. That's actually hard.
The walk around the hills is the thing too. You're not sitting in the chair waiting. You're moving, looking, staying open. Something will catch. It might be ridiculous. It might be small. It might not look like a Thing at all until six months in when you realize it's become one.
Jazz clubs instead of mosh pits isn't defeat. It's just different volume. The hunger that drove the 60-hour weeks and the breakneck pace didn't go anywhere. It's just between appointments right now.
Let it be between appointments. It'll find the next one.
Thanks. I need that from time to time. You’re exactly right about The Thing, too. Sometimes you don’t know you found it for a while. In my old business that worked both ways. You could think you had it, then realize it wasn’t it after a while. That was considered a costly failure then. Now it would be, “Oh well, next!” Cheers (its a Hendricks Martini, dirty, for me right now).
Every time I read your words, I think novelist. That is who you are. You are a master story teller.
I can’t wait to read your novel.
As a fellow sixty something, I can relate to the sentiment of unfinished business. Have we fulfilled what we are about? Not yet, but someday. Hopefully someday is soon.
"The novel can't fail as long as I haven't written it."
That line strikes a chord, even to this day.
"I'm gonna be a writer" was the lie I told myself, only I ignored the advice of a college professor who said, "then write" because his addendum terrified me. "But you'd better develop a thick hide because odds are you'll be rejected, more than once."
What? Put in all that time and effort, pour heart and soul into however many pages, only to have it rejected?
All these years on, the characters live on in my head, gathered together in a club somewhere, drinking and wondering how they might have turned out had they not been entrusted to the mind of a man who was at the least lazy and at most a coward.
That last image is the one. Characters in a bar, drinking, wondering how they turned out. That's not someone who can't write. That's someone who's been writing in their head for decades and calling it something else.
The professor was incomplete. You don't grow the thick hide first and then write. You grow it by writing badly and surviving it. There's no other order. Everyone who has one got it the same way.
And it's not laziness. Lazy people don't carry characters around for decades. Don't feel the weight of failing people who don't exist yet. What you're describing is a self-protection system that learned to call itself laziness because character flaws sound permanent and fear sounds like something you could walk through.
The novel can't fail as long as you haven't written it.
That's also a prison sentence you're serving voluntarily.
They've been waiting long enough. They've probably run up quite a tab.
Was going to ask if this is you - but it’s enough that you wrote this. A pretty much perfect piece of writing. If this were the only thing you’ve written, well.. it’s that novel already.
I was just going to comment about that. You are the rarest of writers - technically and creatively superb, writing about things that truly need to be written about.
I can’t wait to read your book because you are a writer who scratches itches I didn’t even know I had, even through a thick Virginia mountainside coat.
The pieces you post here would form a wonderful book.
We are of an age and you articulate the reflections that only the tension between experience and honest assessment can reveal. The words I'm searching for ellude me but I recognise what you write about though I can't pinpoint what it is exactly, and that's ok. Sometimes life seems to be about becoming ok with how everything in your personal sphere just is, for how it turns up.
I believe that novel will get born when it really wants to get born. The thing is we just don't know how long it might take. Time creates a dance between intentions and realities that we ignore at the expense of living. I'll be sixty-eight this year. I'll bet you and I grew up with a litany of "shoulds" drilled into our heads. I think we need to set those "shoulds" on fire and do the living.
Tom, you’re a wise, perceptive and gifted man. Perhaps you’re actually meant to publish your incredibly moving short stories first. After that success, you’ll be inspired to complete your novel. Or maybe not. Your short stories give life to many wonderful unique and memorable people.
You and I are close in age, with several meeting points of life experience.
While I don't disagree with the chorus urging you to just finish your novel, I see value in doing it just the way you're doing it. This comes out in the writing you do that appears here, because unrelated as the novel and your Substack may seem, they're all your thoughts, ideas, words, etc.
Some of the suggestions, though, are excellent, and some are variations on some literary rules of thumb I've used over the decades. For instance, "leaving something in the tank" for next time. I'm going to be using that one, for sure. It's a corollary to "take a break when you're hot", that I heard from a writing instructor many years ago.
On my own Substack, I'm less concerned with Likes and wide readership, though those are nice, than having a real effect on furthering the resistance/rebuilding, which I seek alongside my inentionally small circle of subscribers/ subscribers, whom I call allies. Plus, there is a strong Christian spiritual aspect to my involvement (emphatically opposed to so-called Christian nationalism), that was not present in my earlier radical days.
Along the latter lines, I have surrendered my life story, testimony, and telling of it to my God; this is something I have passionately wanted to do for longer than I can remember, dating to my pre-Christian radical days. I have tried repeatedly tried, "failed", started again and again, and finally surrendered - which to me has finally *not* become synonymous with giving up. It'll happen. Partly here on this site. That's me and my approach, before God - not at all judging anyone else's approach, or again, not disagreeing with the urging to finish it, and the encouragement. Us writers all need encouragement from time to time. We all know it's hard work.
The distinction you've drawn at the end is the one that matters most,between surrender and giving up. Those look identical from the outside and feel completely different from the inside, and most people never find language for the difference. You have.
What strikes me about what you're describing is that the surrender came after the repeated attempts, not instead of them. That's not failure accumulating into resignation. That's something being worked through until the resistance burned off and what was left was the actual thing,the story, the testimony, the life,without the white-knuckled grip that was probably distorting it anyway. The trying wasn't wasted. The trying was the process by which you arrived at the place where you could let go of it.
The writing instructor's advice about stopping when you're hot is good craft. What you're describing is something adjacent but deeper,not a technique for managing creative energy but a posture toward the work itself. Held loosely. Offered rather than forced.
That tends to produce better writing than the white-knuckle version. Not faster. Not easier. But truer.
The small circle of allies rather than a wide readership is also worth naming as a real choice rather than a consolation. Some writing is meant to travel far. Some is meant to go deep into the right places. You seem to know which kind yours is. That clarity is rarer than it looks.
Thank you for the wake up call. That being said, I’m a reader. I read a lot. You’re a beautiful writer. I want to read your novel. I’m a few years older than you are. Please get with it. Thank you.
I’m working on it!!😀
You are a much better writer than I am, however, I have completed a novel in the past (pretty terrible genre fiction), and have two pieces of advice for doing so: 1) Write (at least) a set amount first thing every morning (it was two pages for me) without considering whether it's any good at all - assessing and rewriting are for later. 2) Stop writing before you're "done" in terms of inspiration or ideas, so that you have something in the tank to get you started the next day (this was advice from Hemingway and super helpful, I found). Please write your novel -- I and many others would love to read it!
Those two rules are genuinely brilliant,and the fact that you finished a novel means you actually know something most aspiring writers never learn. Completing one, even "terrible genre fiction," puts you ahead of almost everyone who's ever said they want to write one.
The Hemingway trick is especially good. Stopping mid-momentum so you're never staring at a blank page the next morning,that's the kind of hard-won craft advice that only comes from actually doing it.
And yes,consider it on the list.
I used to count the months until I surpassed my mom's life - now I am nearly 2 years beyond her. I have readjusted my thoughts to try to match my dad's time of 88 years, 6 months. I feel like I have more time left and hope that I make it. I'm not writing a book (publish the damn thing already), but I still have things to finish, too. We'll see. Peace.
Isn’t the clock strange? Thanks for the encouragement!!
I like to think of you, sitting on that Nebraska porch, writing one paragraph after another, sharing your observations of the world. Thank you for inviting us along on your written journey.
Thank you for being a part of it!!
Really nice stuff, Tom. You have a talent and I really enjoy your work. Every time I read your work I think of Gerald Gentlemen station and the insanity of my life back then. Just as insane now here in Cuenca, Ecuador. There just comes a time when you no longer give a shit. I’m not there yet but like you, I open the file from time to time.
I appreciate that a lot. Sounds like you’ve lived a few chapters that don’t quite let go. Funny how those places and times stick with you, no matter where you end up. And yeah… I think there’s something about opening that file every now and then that keeps us honest. Glad you’re still at it.
You inspire me, Tom. You've transitioned over to a "mature" man's life and found the thing that you like to do, which you're also damn good at.
When I was younger, there were many times I told myself that I needed to develop more interests. I knew there would come a time when I wouldn't work 60+ hours a week and still recreate at a breakneck pace with a large group of friends. I tried to find new interests, I really did. But dammit, I liked what I liked. So I didn't.
Well, that time is here now. Wouldn't go back to work even if they wanted me. Fuck AI. Old body can't move any more. No more competitive hoops. All my friends are old and lost their mojo. Its quiet jazz clubs not mosh pits now. It is what I feared it might be.
Am I bored? Frustrated? Funny enough, I'm not. But I am fidgety. I do walk around the hills in my neighborhood hoping the "next thing" jumps out of my head and hits me. Hasn't yet. Maybe the best part of getting old isn't wisdom, but patience.
fidgety is the thing. That's not emptiness,that's the feeling of a man whose engine is still running with nowhere particular to go yet. That's different from broken down.
And you already answered your own question at the end. Patience. You spent decades knowing exactly what was next. Maybe this is the first time in your life you're actually waiting for something to find you instead of the other way around, and you're better at it than you expected. That's not nothing. That's actually hard.
The walk around the hills is the thing too. You're not sitting in the chair waiting. You're moving, looking, staying open. Something will catch. It might be ridiculous. It might be small. It might not look like a Thing at all until six months in when you realize it's become one.
Jazz clubs instead of mosh pits isn't defeat. It's just different volume. The hunger that drove the 60-hour weeks and the breakneck pace didn't go anywhere. It's just between appointments right now.
Let it be between appointments. It'll find the next one.
Thanks. I need that from time to time. You’re exactly right about The Thing, too. Sometimes you don’t know you found it for a while. In my old business that worked both ways. You could think you had it, then realize it wasn’t it after a while. That was considered a costly failure then. Now it would be, “Oh well, next!” Cheers (its a Hendricks Martini, dirty, for me right now).
Every time I read your words, I think novelist. That is who you are. You are a master story teller.
I can’t wait to read your novel.
As a fellow sixty something, I can relate to the sentiment of unfinished business. Have we fulfilled what we are about? Not yet, but someday. Hopefully someday is soon.
We got to keep plugging ahead!! Actually I think I could finish, I’m just having too much fun on SubStack.
"The novel can't fail as long as I haven't written it."
That line strikes a chord, even to this day.
"I'm gonna be a writer" was the lie I told myself, only I ignored the advice of a college professor who said, "then write" because his addendum terrified me. "But you'd better develop a thick hide because odds are you'll be rejected, more than once."
What? Put in all that time and effort, pour heart and soul into however many pages, only to have it rejected?
All these years on, the characters live on in my head, gathered together in a club somewhere, drinking and wondering how they might have turned out had they not been entrusted to the mind of a man who was at the least lazy and at most a coward.
That last image is the one. Characters in a bar, drinking, wondering how they turned out. That's not someone who can't write. That's someone who's been writing in their head for decades and calling it something else.
The professor was incomplete. You don't grow the thick hide first and then write. You grow it by writing badly and surviving it. There's no other order. Everyone who has one got it the same way.
And it's not laziness. Lazy people don't carry characters around for decades. Don't feel the weight of failing people who don't exist yet. What you're describing is a self-protection system that learned to call itself laziness because character flaws sound permanent and fear sounds like something you could walk through.
The novel can't fail as long as you haven't written it.
That's also a prison sentence you're serving voluntarily.
They've been waiting long enough. They've probably run up quite a tab.
One has to quit feeling guilty about one's unfinished business. And just accept that it will get done when it gets done.
I agree!!
Every day is what is.
Was going to ask if this is you - but it’s enough that you wrote this. A pretty much perfect piece of writing. If this were the only thing you’ve written, well.. it’s that novel already.
I write every day. Hours a day. I just can’t finish that damn book.
You don’t need to .. you’re far from finished. For what it’s worth I’ve discovered life, while it’s here, is becoming.
Tom, Hemingway set a goal to write 200 good words per day - everyday. 73,000 for the year. You can do it. Think about other late bloomers
Bill Traylor
Formerly enslaved, began drawing in his 80s.
Now considered one of the most important self‑taught American artists.
Henri Rousseau
Worked as a customs officer; only devoted himself to art in his 40s.
Mocked in his time, now celebrated as a pioneer of naïve art.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Published her first Little House book at 65.
José Saramago
International fame didn’t arrive until his 60s.
Won the Nobel Prize in Literature at 76.
Raymond Chandler
Wrote his first novel, The Big Sleep, at 51.
Reinvented the detective genre
You're on the prairie - be Laura:)
Love Henri Rousseau's jungles. So satisfyingly weird and folksy. He's one of my favourite artists.
That’s the funny part,I’m already writing the stories. A thousand words a day most days.
I guess the real trick is deciding which ones belong in that file.
I’ll keep opening it.
I was just going to comment about that. You are the rarest of writers - technically and creatively superb, writing about things that truly need to be written about.
Thank you so much!!
I can’t wait to read your book because you are a writer who scratches itches I didn’t even know I had, even through a thick Virginia mountainside coat.
The pieces you post here would form a wonderful book.
We are of an age and you articulate the reflections that only the tension between experience and honest assessment can reveal. The words I'm searching for ellude me but I recognise what you write about though I can't pinpoint what it is exactly, and that's ok. Sometimes life seems to be about becoming ok with how everything in your personal sphere just is, for how it turns up.
I believe that novel will get born when it really wants to get born. The thing is we just don't know how long it might take. Time creates a dance between intentions and realities that we ignore at the expense of living. I'll be sixty-eight this year. I'll bet you and I grew up with a litany of "shoulds" drilled into our heads. I think we need to set those "shoulds" on fire and do the living.
Tom, you’re a wise, perceptive and gifted man. Perhaps you’re actually meant to publish your incredibly moving short stories first. After that success, you’ll be inspired to complete your novel. Or maybe not. Your short stories give life to many wonderful unique and memorable people.
I really feel at home on SubStack. I enjoy what I do here.
You’re well read and appreciated here!!!
You and I are close in age, with several meeting points of life experience.
While I don't disagree with the chorus urging you to just finish your novel, I see value in doing it just the way you're doing it. This comes out in the writing you do that appears here, because unrelated as the novel and your Substack may seem, they're all your thoughts, ideas, words, etc.
Some of the suggestions, though, are excellent, and some are variations on some literary rules of thumb I've used over the decades. For instance, "leaving something in the tank" for next time. I'm going to be using that one, for sure. It's a corollary to "take a break when you're hot", that I heard from a writing instructor many years ago.
On my own Substack, I'm less concerned with Likes and wide readership, though those are nice, than having a real effect on furthering the resistance/rebuilding, which I seek alongside my inentionally small circle of subscribers/ subscribers, whom I call allies. Plus, there is a strong Christian spiritual aspect to my involvement (emphatically opposed to so-called Christian nationalism), that was not present in my earlier radical days.
Along the latter lines, I have surrendered my life story, testimony, and telling of it to my God; this is something I have passionately wanted to do for longer than I can remember, dating to my pre-Christian radical days. I have tried repeatedly tried, "failed", started again and again, and finally surrendered - which to me has finally *not* become synonymous with giving up. It'll happen. Partly here on this site. That's me and my approach, before God - not at all judging anyone else's approach, or again, not disagreeing with the urging to finish it, and the encouragement. Us writers all need encouragement from time to time. We all know it's hard work.
The distinction you've drawn at the end is the one that matters most,between surrender and giving up. Those look identical from the outside and feel completely different from the inside, and most people never find language for the difference. You have.
What strikes me about what you're describing is that the surrender came after the repeated attempts, not instead of them. That's not failure accumulating into resignation. That's something being worked through until the resistance burned off and what was left was the actual thing,the story, the testimony, the life,without the white-knuckled grip that was probably distorting it anyway. The trying wasn't wasted. The trying was the process by which you arrived at the place where you could let go of it.
The writing instructor's advice about stopping when you're hot is good craft. What you're describing is something adjacent but deeper,not a technique for managing creative energy but a posture toward the work itself. Held loosely. Offered rather than forced.
That tends to produce better writing than the white-knuckle version. Not faster. Not easier. But truer.
The small circle of allies rather than a wide readership is also worth naming as a real choice rather than a consolation. Some writing is meant to travel far. Some is meant to go deep into the right places. You seem to know which kind yours is. That clarity is rarer than it looks.
Amen - couldn't have said it better myself!