My [Expletive Deleted] Novel

My alarm—actually, a clock radio set to NPR—mutters itself awake each weekday at 4 a.m. On weekends and holidays, the schedule is less rigorous. I may sleep in till 5 or 6 o’clock. On special occasions, maybe as late as 7.

Then, every morning—Christmas included—before I do anything else, I write. It’s a discipline I imposed upon myself about seven years ago, a schedule I promised myself not to break until I finished my [expletive deleted] novel.

That’s the same [expletive deleted] novel I’ve been promising myself I would write, cajoling myself to write, berating myself for not writing, ever since I first gave it a stab at the age, I think, of 3. Or maybe it was more like 11. The one I used to imagine (in classic Walter Mitty style) topping the charts, winning a Pulitzer, earning me a fortune, or simply starting me off on a new career. That is, if I could ever get the [expletive deleted] thing past page five.

 These days my goals are a bit more modest. I’ll settle for being able to type “The End”—and mean it—someday during this lifetime.

This craziness really began around the turn of the millennium, when, at the age of 47—what better age for a life-altering decision, after all?—I took fairly grim stock of my life and decided I’d better get serious about realizing my dream or else put it out of my mind for good. My father, then 80, had also spent his whole life dreaming of writing a novel, so the two of us struck a deal. I would write mine if he would write his. We would check up on each other and be each other’s conscience along the way.

I created this early-bird schedule for the simple reason that morning is when I’m generally at my best. I expected it to take a very long time to finish—maybe as long as two years. And indeed, without much prompting from me, my father actually finished his first draft within a year or so. I was, and am, very proud of him. He climbed the mountain.

But for my part, seven years and an embarrassing number of pages later, my burgeoning masterpiece and I are still stumbling along in the dark, trying desperately to stay on the path and to believe that it doesn’t dead-end somewhere up ahead in the middle of a forest.

 And oh yes, one more thing I almost forgot to mention. I never talk about my novel. Not ever. Ask anybody who knows me. I’m as superstitious about it as a winning pitcher about his socks.

So why, you ask, am I now going on about it at such length?

One reason is that my editor for this issue, Mark Kendall, has kept nudging me to do it. Thanks, Mark.

Another is that I promised myself I would be honest in these little missives to our constant readers—that I wouldn’t be afraid to reveal myself. Because I’m sincere in my belief that the best way I can say something meaningful about your life is to talk honestly about my own.

I don’t know what percentage of Americans dream of writing a book someday, or actually sit down at some point in their lives and give it an honest try, but it’s enough to stock whole shelves in bookstores with books about writing books. And among Pomona grads, I’m sure the percentage must be particularly high. The success rate too. Witness the number of new books by alumni that we announce in every issue of this magazine. The line-up across the top of this page is only the most minute tip of the iceberg. In Honnold Library, there’s a collection of alumni books that goes on and on and on.

And for every one of those, I’m sure, there are several stories like mine. Stories of people who toy with the idea until intimations of mortality force them to look their dream in the eye and either flinch or dig in.

That line of books across the top of this page also brings me to my most important reason for writing this column. It was authors like those featured in this issue who inspired me to do more than just dream the dream. Long before I knew Richard Preston was a Pomona alumnus, he was one of my favorite writers. His newer books have gotten a lot of press, but if you haven’t read First Light or American Steel, go find them. I think they’re back in print. You’ll learn a lot about making a potentially dry subject come excitingly alive.

And since coming here, I’ve found so many more inspirations. Richard’s brother, Doug, has written some of the most intelligent and readable thrillers around and is amazingly self-deprecating about them. Vikram Chandra’s graceful prose and cunning imagination combine to make his works the kind of thing you can both read on a beach and brag about to your literate friends.

Reading them always makes me want to run to my computer and write. And that’s the real reward, isn’t it? Doing what we love and learning to do it as well as we can. After all the words I’ve written in my life, I’m still teaching myself to write, word by word, sentence by sentence, page by excruciating—and redeeming—page. —Mark Wood