2017

My 2017 began in November of 2016 and ended in March 2018, so I had five extra months. Lovely.

If you are a living human being on this planet, your 2017 probably sucked, too. I had almost 50% more of it, so…yay, me?

I recently had dinner with a friend I’d not seen for most of the year, and when I tried to catch her up, I realized two things: 1) I was constantly having to back up to explain how some stupid thing had made some terrible thing both more terrible and more stupid, and 2) she was looking at me with increasing horror the more I spoke. So I figured I would write it all down so that I could keep it straight in my head and refer friends to it.

This way I don’t have to see the horror.

It all started out so promisingly, too! My 2017 began in November of 2016, when the phone rang, with the call that I’d basically been waiting for my whole life: A publisher wanted me to write a series of novels based on the Flash.

Ho. Lee. Crap.

This instantly shot into dream-come-true territory. The only problem was this: They wanted the first book to hit when Season 4 began in Fall 2017. Which meant I would need to have it written by February 15.

That was a pretty tight deadline, given that I hadn’t even come up with the story yet! Plus, there were the holidays right around the corner…and my wife was due to give birth to our son sometime in January. It was going to be really rough to meet that deadline. I told my wife that I couldn’t see how I could do it, not with a new baby in the house.

She said, “If you pass on this opportunity, I will kill you.” And it wasn’t just the pregnancy hormones talking.

So, I went ahead and agreed to do the series, then spent a little time figuring out the story. I handed off the outline a couple of weeks later, in early December.

Time passed. The holidays came and went. As January plodded along, my son resolutely refused to be born, despite all the medical science telling us it should be “soon.” And in the meantime, my outline had apparently fallen victim to holiday malaise, as we’d heard nothing.

At last, on January 25, I received word: The studio was A-OK with my outline and I could begin writing.

The deadline was February 15. Remember? And I was going to have a new baby any second.

My agent intervened and got me an extra month. I started writing in earnest.

My son was born February 1. By then, I’d made a lot of progress, actually, which was good, and I hit the deadline no problem.

But then a couple of things happened: The deadline for the second book hadn’t been bumped — it was June 15. Three months to write a book wasn’t insurmountable, but… But…

I couldn’t start the second book until I knew that the first one was approved by the studio. So I had to wait.

Around the same time, I got a call from my agent, telling me that a publisher was interested in having me write a book based on an outline they’d bought. This isn’t the way I normally do things, but I was intrigued, so I agreed to read the outline. The timing of the project was problematic — it was due January 1, which would be super-tight, considering I had to write Flash #2 by June 15 and #3 by October 15. Plus, I wasn’t sure I was right for the project.

But…after some time for thought and after some discussion, I realized that my wife was perfect for the project. And if she and I wrote it together, then she could handle the stuff I was unsure of and the deadline would be doable.

Due to a variety of scheduling issues and such, we weren’t able to nail down this agreement with the publisher until sometime in May, which meant a serious cut in the amount of time we had to write it. And for boring, technical reasons that amount to insider baseball, we couldn’t even start writing then. We had to wait.

Oh, and lest we forget: 2017 was the also the year I did my ACLU short story project, publishing a new short story every month, with proceeds going to the ACLU. This meant that on top of everything else, I had to spend time each month writing and/or editing a story, as well as formatting ebooks, posting the stories on the various e-tail sites, and — oh, yeah — designing covers.

What the hell was I thinking? (In fairness, I came up with the idea in December of 2016, when I thought I would just be working on the three Flash books for 2017. It seemed very doable at the time.)

So, early April hit and Bang landed on bookshelves. I was on tour for eight days and had to handle all of the usual, time-consuming stuff that comes with a book launch.

And don’t forget — in the midst of all of this, I had a newborn baby at home, too! While my wife was on maternity leave, things went well, but right around the time Bang was published, she went back to work. Now I was a stay-at-home Dad with a baby and multiple book deadlines.

A lot on my plate, right? Well, I got permission to write the second Flash book and a little extension on my deadline. All was well, and seemed manageable…

Until early July. When I developed a pain that just would not go away. Turns out I had a hernia, and I would need surgery to fix it!

So on August 1, I had hernia surgery. Which is a joy, let me tell you. Stupidly, I thought that I would be recovered quickly enough that I would be able to take care of the kids on my own, but this was not the case. It took about five weeks before I could really lift them as needed, and in the meantime, I was doing all sorts of things to compensate, including some pretty bad lift-and-carry strategies.

All of which led to Labor Day weekend, when I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible pain in my lower left back that radiated into my left thigh. It was some of the worst pain I’ve experienced.

I could barely stand, much less walk — it felt like a rusty spike had been driven into the meat of my thigh and was being twisted every time I even thought about moving that leg, with pieces of metal breaking off and crunching through the rest of the thigh. It was bad.

And I was still supposed to be taking care of my son during the day. As anyone with babies will tell you — they need to be held a lot. You have to walk around holding them a lot.

I could barely get myself in motion, much less with twenty pounds of wriggling baby in my arms.

Fortunately, the day care that lovingly looks after my daughter agreed to take my son for a few weeks while I worked on my back issues. I tried a chiropractor and physical therapy as well as some nice drugs from my family doctor, but eventually an MRI revealed that I’d managed to rupture a disc in my lower back. Yay!

So, let’s recap — I am trying to write two books at once, while also dealing with massive pain and absolutely failing as a stay-at-home Dad.

You see what’s coming, right?

That’s right — another #&^@! writing project!

At this point, you probably think I’m a glutton for punishment or a complete idiot. And I can’t say you’re entirely wrong. Because God knows I had more than enough on my plate in late September, so I can’t say exactly why I agreed to have more piled on.

But one day late in that month, I was talking to my agent about something or other and she said to me, “Oh, by the way, I was just talking to [PUBLISHER REDACTED] and they want to talk to you about a new book.”

“Really?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“Yeah. They want you to write a book about [CHARACTER NAME REDACTED].”

I paused for a moment. I asked her clarify the name for me. She repeated it.

Holy…

Look, I’ve signed so many NDAs on this particular project that I can’t tell you the publisher, the concept, the nature of the intellectual property, or the character itself. But it was one of those moments where you go, “Whoa! Are you serious?”

“Are you interested?” she asked.

“Hell, yes!” I responded.

So while she put the machinery in motion, I got my first epidural designed to kill the swelling in my back so that I could start exercising and strengthening the area. It sorta-kinda worked. I had reduced pain for a little while, but then it flared again.

In the meantime, a different sort of pain flared: That new, special project? The deadline was February 15.

Let’s recap, shall we? As of the time of that first epidural in October, I had:

1. copyedits and page proofs on Flash Book 2, due soon
2. Flash Book 3, due now in November
3. Mystery Project #1, due in January (Update: This project has been announced.)
4. Monthly ACLU stories
5. And now, Mystery Project #2, due February 15 (Update: This project is Thanos.)

I didn’t see how it could all get done. I was barely sleeping at night, for the pain, and I was dropping balls everywhere. I was the world’s worst dad, a terribly inattentive husband. I was in physical and psychological misery, and yet I still agreed to do the second Mystery Project because…

Because…

Because I wanted to? Because it was a great opportunity? Because I thought I could get it done? Because I’m a total moron? Because I hate pleasure and love pain?

I dunno. All of the above, maybe. At the time, it all seemed to make sense, but in retrospect I honestly can’t tell you what I was thinking. I  think it’s entirely possible that I was so stressed and so in pain that some part of me figured that if I were perpetually working, I wouldn’t have time to think about the stress and the pain.

This is not a viable life strategy, kids.

My agent worked some magic and got Mystery Project #1 pushed back to February 15, too. Some breathing room. There were issues with the contract, anyway, so no one was breathing down our necks. And fortunately, Morgan was there to handle half the load.

In the meantime, I was killing myself on the final two Flash books. I couldn’t even think about Mystery Project #2 yet because I needed information from…from…

Jeez, I have play coy here. I needed information from the people who owned the character before I could start. And that call kept getting put off. I was glad because it meant I could focus on the other four (!) things on my plate, but in the back of my mind, I knew that every day of delay meant one less day of writing between then and February 15.

Got another epidural in November. This one seemed to do less than the first. I was still going to physical therapy three times a week, and now my daycare provider had handed my son back to me. I was writing during his naps with ice packs stuffed down the back of my pants, eating painkillers like candy, even though they had less and less effect. (My hernia doc had prescribed some opioids for me, which were great during surgery recovery. I somehow resisted using the leftovers for my back — I didn’t trust myself with a baby while on them.)

In early November, I finally got the meeting I needed to discuss Mystery Project #2, only to learn that everything I already knew about [CHARACTER REDACTED] was being modified, so all of my original research and planning was moot. I scrambled to come up with something new and submitted an outline in record time. It was approved just before Thanksgiving.

So as of Thanksgiving, here’s where things stood:

1. Flash Book 2 — DONE
2. Flash Book 3 — Revisions, copyedits, and page proofs still to come
3. Mystery Project #1 — Started, due on February 15.
4. ACLU Project — Only one more to go, thank God.
5. Mystery Project #2 — Haven’t even started yet. Due date pushed to March 1, meaning…

I had three months to pull all of that off.

Oh, and because my idiocy knows no bounds, I was also giving my agent the occasional pitch to go out to publishers with.

Anyway, I got through December, landed a third epidural, and this one seemed to do the trick. I was able to cut physical therapy down to once a week, which freed up some time. And with the new year, there was an opening at daycare, so my son joined his big sister there full-time and they started plotting to take the place over.

Now I had all day, every day to work. And I plowed through everything on the list above.

Somehow, by March 1, it was all done.

Now, there will still be revisions, copyedits, and page proofs on the Mystery Projects. But Flash and the ACLU are done with. I can take a deep breath. Have a day or two where I’m not trying to grind out between three and five thousand words before my kids need to be picked up.

For months, my days were, quite literally:

• Wake up
• Take Morgan to the train and the kids to daycare
• Write
• Get the kids
• Morgan comes home
• Kids to bed
• Dinner
• Write
• Sleep
• Repeat

I’m glad to be done with the meat-grinder of it all. I’d be lying, though, if I said I didn’t look back with some pride as well as self-recrimination. Yes, it was a stupid amount of work to attempt. Yes, it wrecked my health (or at least made it harder to improve my health). Yes, it took a toll on my relationships.

But, damn, I got it all done!

I keep telling myself I won’t let this happen again. I can’t let this happen again. In the meantime, I’m resting when I can and I’m working on a couple of short stories in order to keep the writing muscles from stiffening up. And, yeah, I’ll have revisions to do soon enough, but I won’t start working on another book until…

Until…

Yeesh. I honestly don’t know. At least June. Maybe later.

Although, I say that now, but the truth of the matter is that as I write this, my agent is submitting at least three different projects of mine. So maybe I haven’t learned my lesson.

I don’t know. I wish I could say there was a lesson, that I came through my 2017+ with some kind of wisdom to impart to you. Something about biting off more than you can chew or having eyes bigger than your stomach or some other food-based metaphor. Maybe something involving eating until you puke, then eating the puke. Because that’s disgusting, but also sort of accurate.

But…

But…

I ended up with five novels that I’m proud of, so it would be hypocritical of me to say, “Don’t do this!”

And at the same time, it would be irresponsible of me to say, “Go ahead and do it!” My situation, if not unique, was at least uncommon. I was lucky that I had people who helped out at crucial moments. And I had the good sense to marry a woman who understands my obsessions and tolerates me when I indulge them, even if I go overboard.

YMMV.

All these words I’ve written, and I think it comes down to Stephen King’s dictum/epiphany that Life is not a support system for Art — Art is a support system for Life.

Writing professionally is a dream for so many. And getting to write some of the stuff I’ve been lucky enough to write is a dream on top of that dream. It can be easy to lose yourself in those dreams, but eventually you have to wake up.

Follow your dreams. Live your Art. But remember just to live, too.