I don’t remember exactly when I started to jot things down, but I do remember that I made a conscious decision to write myself notes about things I learned in recovery just before the start of a new school year. I had decided to add a writing degree to my curriculum. I thought it might come in handy to have some notes to stir ideas for the stories I might be writing in my classes. It also occurred to me that I might someday write a book. I didn’t take the idea very seriously, at first, even though I truly wanted to.
During the last month of school, I found myself in only one class. The rest of my classes had ended after twelve weeks. So for the last month of school I had only one class that met on Wednesday night. The only assignments left for that class were a paper–which I had already written–and a final exam, which I felt I was prepared for. I had, essentially, finished school early.
I decided to take a look at the notes I had been writing for the last nine months or so, along with all the others I had accumulated previously, to see what I had. The notes were scrawled on a deep pile of scratch paper. Getting them organized seemed a good use of my time. It would not only help me find things when I needed them, but it would also give me a format in which I could store future notes and ideas.
I sat down with my stack of scratch paper covered in scribbles and opened a spreadsheet. Starting in Column B I typed in all the thoughts and ideas, one by one, tossing each scrap aside when I had finished with it. Several days later, when I had tossed the last scrap, I scrolled back to the top of the sheet and began filling Column A with a one or two word topic relating to each idea.
Once I had the ideas typed in and matched with a topic, I instructed the spreadsheet to alphabetize my work by topic. I then transferred that information into an outline format in a text document. One topic at a time, I copied the thoughts and ideas into my outline, rearranging things as I went into something that seemed to flow well. Occasionally, I would add a new idea, usually when things didn’t seem to flow the way I thought they should, and I would add it directly to the outline.
I finished the outline shortly before the final exam in my addictions class. When I sat back to take a look, I realized I had a fourteen page outline and I thought, Jeez, I’ve got a book here, all I need to do is write it.
I decided to take the summer off from school and write the book. It seemed a little crazy to think I could write a book in a few months, but I felt I had to try. I told myself that all I had to do was to write every day. I had all the ideas. They were well organized. The only thing left was the writing. I had done the math and it seemed possible to write 220 pages in eight weeks. And as crazy as it sounded, looking back, it made total sense at the time.
As the semester ended, I ran into an English teacher, Mary Fouty, who had become a good friend. She asked me what classes I would be taking over the summer. I told her I planned to take the summer off to write a book. Having read some of my previous work, Mary offered to do an independent study class with me. The class, she said, would be her helping me to edit the first draft of the book. I couldn’t turn down that opportunity.
I figured that having Mary watch over me would keep me on track. I would have to produce in order to please the teacher. I was also excited that Mary thought highly enough of my writing to want to read what I was so boldly calling a book.
I was so excited that I began to write during the break between semesters. By the time summer classes began I had finished a fist full of pages and on my first day of school I took a three-ring binder to class with all the work I had completed. Mary was impressed and promised to go over it as soon as she could. I didn’t expect her to go over it all by our next meeting and told her not to worry about returning anything because I didn’t want to look back. I was writing like a man possessed.
I wrote every day. When I woke up, I would turn on the computer and open the latest file. After rereading what I had written the previous day, I referred to the outline and began writing for that day. I wrote each day until my brain told me to stop. When my brain said stop I would save the file, refer to the outline to feed myself ideas for pondering throughout the day, then go on about my business.
Some days I wrote ten pages. Some days I wrote one. Most days I wrote three, four, or five pages. But the key for me was that I wrote each and every day.
I found that in writing every day my brain became accustomed to the idea that it was writing a book and I found I would sometimes wake up in the morning with the day’s writing already happening in my head. I was treating my writing like school, which I had come to enjoy as well, and things just rolled. I ended up writing the entire book in about seven weeks and swamped Mary with pages of material.
Mary told me she couldn’t keep up. She had some health and personal issues that summer, along with other classes to teach. I told her not to worry and simply asked that she get the work back to me when she could. I had Fall Semester to deal with and knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything with the manuscript until after that semester had ended.
I told Mary that as long as she got the manuscript back to me during the Fall Semester that would be great. I knew I couldn’t hope to do a proper rewrite while I was taking a full-load of classes. I had decided to do a rewrite between semesters when we had a month off. Then I told her I would submit it for publication. Mary kept her word and gave me back the original copy with her precious ink on it shortly into the Fall Semester. I stashed it away until I could give it my proper attention.
While I don’t remember a lot of what Mary and I talked about during our class sessions that summer, I do remember that she encouraged me to keep writing even though she wasn’t able to keep up. I also remember her telling me that what I was writing deserved a larger audience than I was writing to. She told me that every time we met. Since I couldn’t figure out how to change it to make her happy, I made excuses to keep doing it the way I was doing it–I was writing to a particular group of people in recovery.
Between the fall and spring semesters, I did my rewrite based upon her suggestions–except for writing to a larger audience because I still wasn’t sure how to go about that. Then I sent it off.
When Central Recovery Press bought the rights and I was assigned an editor, the first thing my editor, Daniel Kaelin, said was, Mark, this book deserves a larger audience. We want to rewrite it with that in mind. I laughed and thought of Mary.
