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Writing and the Curve of Human Effort

In 2004, I wrote my first and only novel to date. It was something that I did more or less to prove that I could do it. The plot idea occurred to me as a sophomore in high school and I even had most of the story germinate by the time I sat down to type it out. Many sleepless nights later, I emerged with a draft that was somewhere close to 60,000 words, which I then trimmed down to 'round about 50,000.

Human Resources is not a great novel. At best, it is an amusing piece of near-satire written by a much younger (read: less mature and experienced) version of myself. In some ways, I think the fact that I wrote it makes me reluctant to pick up the pen (or word processing software) again because I'd like the next thing that I write that others might read to be more clever, more articulate and reflective of the way I've come to see the world.

The statistics of the first couple of months my novel has been available for free online tell me a few things:
  1. I should write the kinds of things that I would most like to read
  2. I should edit the heck out of whatever I write so that it comes across with some sense of both style and substance
  3. I shouldn't worry about statistics and readership, the practice and act of writing must be its own reward
  4. The statistics from Human Resources reads that I have seen make me think about human effort in general.
Take a look at the below chart. Moving left to right you'll see the "sections" of the book, most of which are chapters in numerical order. Keep in mind that when I started sharing my book, I began posting it in six chapter segments on a weekly basis, writing about it here on this blog and sharing it weekly through my various social media profiles.


The below observations make several assumptions, so my insights are directional at best.
  • 238 people were kind enough to check out the initial link. 
  • 27 people started reading it
  • 3 people finished it
About 1% of people who started the book finished it. Now, this is very likely reflective of the quality of the writing - the work itself. But this got me thinking - how many of us actually finish what we start? Whenever I start reading a book, I really do try to finish it. Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" took me about 5 years to eventually finish it from when I started, but I finished it. 

Extrapolate this further. How much of human effort begins with lip service to start something that is never finished? Follow-through and consistency are things that I value in my own life - things I perhaps don't practice as much as I should, but the exercise of publishing my novel online has given me food for thought about being more considered and specific in stating that which I will and won't agree to do.
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