A couple of weeks ago, in a quiet old cemetery next to a horse
\nfarm, TS, my father-in-law, was buried.<\/p>\n
I think TS felt unaccomplished in that he never achieved his
\nmost fervent dream: having a play of his produced in New York.<\/p>\n
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: “Most people die with their
\nmusic still in them.”<\/p>\n
But I give TS more credit than he gave himself.<\/p>\n
TS took 2 years off from work to write his play, move from Maine
\nto New York City, and attempt to get it produced.<\/p>\n
Yes, the play never ran, but it was not for lack of trying.<\/p>\n
In this, TS was ahead of the curve: at least he sat down, wrote,
\nand completed his play.<\/p>\n
I know many people who want to write a play or a novel, or
\nlaunch a business or create a product, and never get the thing
\nfinished — or worse, even started.<\/p>\n
That includes me.<\/p>\n
I have always dreamed of being a published novelist, but have
\nnever had a novel published.<\/p>\n
That’s due in large part to my never having written a novel.<\/p>\n
I made a few false starts, but never got past the first ten
\npages on any of them.<\/p>\n
My excuse I tell people is that I never had an idea for a story
\nI thought could sustain a novel-length work.<\/p>\n
The other excuse is that I already write all the time, so had no
\ntime for fiction.<\/p>\n
I can’t give you a formula that guarantees you will be
\nsuccessful as a playwright, novelist, inventor, entrepreneur, or
\nanything else.<\/p>\n
But I can give you a formula that guarantees your failure: don’t
\nwrite the play or novel, or start the business, or build the
\ninvention.<\/p>\n
I am ashamed to say that this is the formula I followed in my
\ncareer as a novelist, with the results indicated above.<\/p>\n
I close with this advice from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:<\/p>\n
“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has
\ngenius and power and magic in it.”<\/p>\n
Do as I say. Not as I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple of weeks ago, in a quiet old cemetery next to a horse farm, TS, my father-in-law, was buried. I think TS felt unaccomplished in that he never achieved his most fervent dream: having a play of his produced in New York. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: “Most people die with their music still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}