First, thank you. Your enthusiasm and support for my work mean the world to me. That next book? It measures the trajectory of an author's career. Unfortunately, my next book is the book I will never write. In the world of daily journalism, my main job for 30 years, "-30-" signaled the end of a story. A serious head injury, and postconcussion syndrome, wrote the "30" on my life as an author.
Total concentration is the secret to productivity as an author. Book authoring demands hundreds of hours of focused, sustained energy as you spin the threads of a complex narrative. How to be a productive writer? Develop the ability to sit and write for hours at a stretch. That' gone. Strike one.
Strike two for my next book was the loss of what one neurologist described as "Your 'ticker-tape synesthesia'." Go ahead, Google it.
I never really wrote books. I transcribed them. Close the eyes, and watch as the narrative floats by. Sentences, blocks of text, subheads, even typography, were written in my mind's eye. Imagine the stock market ticker tape "crawl" below those talking heads on CNBC. The brain automatically transcribes thoughts into written text. Your only job: Transcribe. Your only challenge: Keyboard it into a file before one 'crawl' ends and the next bubbles up from the subconscious.
Do you miss the writing? That's the inevitable follow-up question. And my thanks for it in advance, as well.
Book authors have many motivations. Sheer pleasure. The joy of creation. A sense of fulfillment. Thousands of people will write a book knowing that they will have to pay to self-publish, and that it may never reach a wider audience. Need a therapeutic tool to process personal trauma, untangle complicated life events, preserve a family legacy? Write a book.
For sure, some of those fostered the Woods-Woods writing partnership. But our singular motivation was different. Mary and I always have followed Samuel Johnson's dictum: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote -- except for money." That quote still hangs on the wall in front of my desk. We wrote to inform, to educate, to enlighten. But above all else, we wrote for money. We never started until a publishing company agreed to buy the book; we had a signed contract; had a check for half of the advance; and the check cleared the bank. Hey, the money was good. Do I miss that writing? I miss it.
Strike three? I haven't forgotten. It's the other baggage of post-concussion syndrome. That affliction is under-researched, misunderstood, and under-funded relative to its societal impact. Google to see for yourself. Example: The word count to this point is about 450. Back in the day, that took a few minutes. I've been at it now for almost a week. The text in this website has taken months. You can't write for money at that pace. Makes me wonder, as I glance at that quotation on the wall.