The other day, my wife Helene asked me how artists do it.  How do we spend weeks, months, or even years painting a picture, writing a song, or penning a novel, only to then wait for an audience that may never come?  Her question arose from concern for our ongoing podcast, "Legacy - A Novel Writing Experience," which is three episodes into it's first season and, so far, hasn't garnered too much attention.

Well, Helene's point is a fair one.  There are few guarantees in an artist's life.  I know that first hand.  I've written sixteen novels and, so far, have published only half of them!  The rest sit on a shelf, unwanted and, for the most part, unread.  Is that frustrating?  Sure.  Is that heartbreaking?  Sometimes.  Does it make me want to give up?

Never.

In his masterful novel "The Agony and Ecstasy," Irving Stone writes, "One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.”  I completely relate to that sentiment.  I don't write novel after novel, often with little or no certainty that it will be published, out of choice so much as compulsion.  I have stories in me and they have to come out, period.  I know that may sound silly, even ridiculous, to someone who's never felt that level of creative drive.  But you hard core writers out there ... you get me. 

Art isn't a rational choice.  If an artist ever stops and asks, "Hey, what's my cost/benefit ratio here?" he or she will immediately put down their pen, abandon their canvas, or switch off the computer and go get a job at Starbucks.  As I've told many a would-be author: if you're in this to get rich, stop now.  The fact is that very, very few of us ever make a living from our writing.  I know a number of professional authors, some much more successful than myself, who live hand-to-mouth because the paying side of this business is so utterly unreliable.  It's simply a reality that, for the time being, we scriveners must accept.

Why?  Well, because we'd be miserable without it.

So, we celebrate our small successes and, when failure strikes (as it does all too often), she shake ourselves and try again, and again, and again.  

As for our podcast, I'm not worried.  Everything I've read about podcasts and podcast listeners tells me that we need to have at least a full season under our belt before we can expect any real attention.  In the meantime, we're putting out a new episode every two weeks on the hope and prayer of someday garnering an audience who will enjoy the fruits of our efforts as much as we do.

Because that, my friends, is the artist's path.  And we walk it with pride.
​

Dear Dad,

Remember the novel you outlined, the one based on Grandpop's life, the one that you recorded on several old-fashioned cassette tapes?  This is back in '92, when you were dying of cancer.  Well, it took me a long time to listen to those tapes, a very long time.  But when I finally did, I couldn't believe what it is that you had wrought.  This story of three Sicilian brothers who emigrate to American in 1910 is a powerful, human saga of strangers lost in a strange land, finding to find their place in a world so alien it might as well be Mars.

I know your intention when you made these tapes was for me to someday write the story, and the I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to this point.  I simply wasn't "ready."  I wasn't ready to hear your voice again after all this years, wasn't ready to write a book so far out of my wheelhouse, and wasn't ready to commit to a project this big and, frankly, this intimidating.

But I'm 58 now, just eight years younger than you were when you left us, and I'm ready now.

So, it's with a glad heart that I report topping the 60,000 word mark this morning on the novel you outlined.  So far, it has no title but there's plenty of time for that.  Right now, it's enough to be actually, finally, blessedly bringing to life the characters you invented.  This is your book, Dad.  But it's also mine, and I've brought much of my own personality and writing style to the work.  Thirty years of authoring novels, of telling stories, has brought me to this moment.

I can't promise this particular story will ever be published, though I will absolutely try.  I can't promise it'll be the best work I've ever done, though as of right now I believe it is.

But I can promise you, with gratitude and love, that I will tell it.

Thank you, Dad.  I miss you.

​- Ty

​Firstly, allow me to apologize for missing last week’s blog entry.  I have no excuse other than the tragic fact that I’m getting old and, despite being retired from my career in Corporate America, I actually live a rather busy life.

Good. That’s out of the way.

Right now, as some of you know, I’m deep into my current project, which is a collaboration with my father (sort of), the nature of which always takes some explaining.  If you’d like to know more, check out the Current Project page.

As of this writing, I’m am nearly 50,000 words in.  That probably sounds like a lot, but this book is a “saga” of sorts and, as such, is going to run quite long, at least in its first draft.  I’m looking at somewhere around 200K by the time I’m done, though I’ll trim that down a bit as I edit later revisions.  All part of the process!

The story centers around three boys (Peter, John, and Angelo Donatello) who are forced to flee their home in rural Sicily to emigrate to American in 1914.  Once there, they struggle to make a life in an alien land that, frankly, doesn’t much want them there.  Along the way, they must weather sometimes violent prejudice, the advent of the first world war, and the rise of Prohibition, all in an effort to do, what to them, seems next to impossible – become American.

So far, I have no title.  I’m just calling it “Dad’s Book.”  😊

In addition to the book itself, there’s also “Legacy – A Novel Writing Experience,” which is an author’s tutorial that’s told through the “lens” of the writing of this book.

I’m excited about the book and its characters, which are a huge departure from my writing wheelhouse.  Since this is the first book I’ve written in retirement, I’m throwing myself into it pretty much completely.  The image of the project wall that I’ve included in this post bears that out, I think.  Suffice it to say that the challenges of this long and complex novel are kind of consuming me, which may be why last Thursday’s blog entry deadline “whooshed” by without my even noticing it.

The project has been generating a fair amount of interest and I’ve been fielding a lot of questions.  If you happen to have one, feel free to ask it by commenting on this blog entry.  I love getting feedback and will answer you promptly, I promise.

When I’m a little further in, and more certain of its content, I’ll see about posting a snippet or two from the novel for those of you who are interested.  Right now, the only folks who’ve heard any of it at all are the members of my local writing group!

Okay, that’s it for now.  Thank you for your interest and your patience.
Keep writing!