Excerpt from Don Pendleton's "The
Metaphysics of the Novel, The Inner workings of a Novel and a Novelist."
"To get way down deep, though,
the novel provides the deepest and most lasting insights, those movements of
mind that come closest to defining the human reality. I also write books of non-fiction and these
allow me to grapple with concepts and realities which may lose a bit of
credibility in a fictional format, so I am fortunate that my fiction has opened
other publishing doorways for me–but I suppose that the novel will always be my
main dish because it is such a hellacious challenge. I never know where a novel will take me, the consummate
characters I might find there, the adventure and fascinating locales, the truths
I will discover while traveling the high and low roads with my characters."
"It
is really not that difficult to get started as a writer. All you really need is a few hours of free
time each day, pencil and paper, an inquiring mind. During my first ten years as a writer I was
also, at first, an air traffic controller, later an aerospace engineer and
deeply involved in the Moon Shot program.
By the time I was able to wean myself from the security blanket of a
"respectable career," I had produced (and published) some twenty minor
novels, none of which earned me great bundles of money but at least gave me
some sense that my six kids would not go hungry while "Dad" was
trying to build a new career as a writer."
"Okay,
yeah, there were a couple of times during the early going when I was about
ready to forget the dream and slink back into industry to shoulder my family
responsibilities but I hung it through and within a year I was off and running
well, doing better financially than ever before, and I have never "looked
back" again. I got lucky, sure, but
there was more to it than luck. I had a
dream, I had a vision, and I had reached a point in my life when "I could
not bear" to not play God with my dreams."
"Thirty
years later, I am still "not looking back."
Copyright
2000 Linda Pendleton. Available at Amazon and
Kindle.
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