The Big Book

A few weeks ago I happened to open a cardboard box in the hallway closet and discovered a very thick manuscript. I recognized it immediately and I broke out in a cold sweat. Why?

Because the manuscript has occupied an ongoing chunk of my life for nearly twenty-five years. And I thought I had buried the sucker deep enough this time that I would never resurrect it. But there it was again, staring back at me, beckoning me to work on it once again.

The history?

I was a twenty-four year old grad student who had just been released from the prison of seminary, a kid who now had an open slate of possibilities before him, no longer having to work on the required thirty page theological papers and those dry Biblical exegesis theses. I wanted to write a novel. So I set down and began writing, and some five hundred pages and ten months later I had a massive novel on my hands--a kind of "religious thriller" if you will--about a Notre Dame Biblical scholar who is hounded by a mystical figure who claims to have discovered an artifact that will shatter the historical and theological foundations of the church. (Sounds so familiar now, doesn't it?)

I very quickly managed to find a literary agent in NY who was gaga for the book, and who proceded to instruct me through a series of "re-writes" and revisions. A year later, I'd put another 100,000 to 200,000 additional words into the book, and when I printed the manuscript, it was more than ream of paper and had to be shipped in a wooden crate. The agent shopped the book around NY for a year or so, had me rewrite the thing again (another 100,000 words, maybe?) and then told me he was tired of it and "could I write anything else, or was this all I had inside of me?"

Later, in my thirties (as in, I was thirty years old!) I rewrote the book yet again, giving it an entirely different plot, more twists, a full slate of mayhem and romance, and found enough willing editors to look at the book, but alas, no takers. In my early forties I rewrote the book yet again, changing some of the characters and the plot (improvements I hoped) and changed the title for a third time. Lots of interest in NY, but no takers.

At any rate, I'm sure I have something approaching a million words wrapped up in this single manuscript and it's been the one huge and brilliant disappointment among all of the books I have written or attempted to write. It's still there, and every now and again I find myself thinking: Could I rewrite it yet again and give it another try?

God help me! Why won't this book leave me alone?