(Essay)

Every writer who publishes a story is faced with the question. “Where did you get the idea?”

I wrote two novels. Choices They Made and Arjun. Each story is based on a simple event that happened on a vacation we had taken.

I got the idea for my first novel when we were on a weeklong vacation to Jamaica. On our way back, we had some time to kill before boarding our return flight. As most people do, my wife and I were window shopping the stores to pick up some souvenirs to take back home. We noticed a couple walking by. I noticed the man was wearing a baseball cap with the logo OU. It was the logo of my alma mater, the University of Oklahoma. I turned to my wife and said;

“That man seems to be from the University of Oklahoma.”

“Go talk to him,” My wife said.

I didn’t feel comfortable approaching a stranger. When the couple turned around and were facing us, it was a moment of decision-making. It was now or never. I approached them.

“Excuse me, Sir,” I asked the man. “Are you from the University of Oklahoma?”

The man smiled and replied;

“Yes, indeed.”

I told him I too was a graduate of the university.

The man was happy to meet a person from his university. He said that he wore the cap in the hope that he might encounter his fellow alumni. We then exchanged information about our life at the university during the sixties. How the Pizza Hut on Jenkins used to offer all-you-can-eat pizza and soda for $1.60. We talked about other things. It turned out he was a year junior to me. I learned that he was a practicing pediatrician in Miami, Florida.

On my return home, I kept thinking about the encounter. I felt that there was a story in there. I kept asking “What if?” questions to myself. Finally, I developed a brief plot for a novel. My plot involved a new graduate student, Ashley, arriving on the campus at the University of Oklahoma. In a coffee shop, he encounters another student, Owen, who helps him find a room to stay. Upon graduation, Ashley becomes a professor.

Meanwhile, Owen completes a tour of duty in Vietnam and joins the Peace Corps and is assigned to work in Malawi, Africa. There he meets a poor boy, Demond, who starts a marijuana growing business out of necessity. Demond’s father, who was a subsistence farmer, had abandoned his family out of despair for his inability to support them. Later in the story, Owen develops an incurable medical condition, which could be alleviated by the use of marijuana. As luck would have it, Demond had moved to New York to work in a restaurant that also had a Hookah Bar. Then an unfortunate tragedy happens.

I wanted to be accurate in telling the story about Peace Corps volunteers and the plight of African subsistence farmers. I read two books written by two Peace Corps volunteers. One of them was a grandson of President Carter. I read two books on the economy of Africa and the plight of poor farmers and what they do if they could not make enough money to support their family. I had the chapters reviewed by members of a writing group I used to manage. I published an initial draft of my novel on my blog and called it “What did you say your name was?”

Some members recommended that I publish the novel. One even recommended an editor. After spending more than a couple of thousand dollars on getting the story professionally edited and working with a graphic designer to design a professional cover, I self-published it on Amazon. It is still available under the name “The Choices They Made.”

I was under the impression that the subject matter of my novel would attract readers. It was not the case. Most of the copies sold were purchased by me to give them away to friends. Every time I would request them to write a review. Many did not feel comfortable doing that. The royalty I received from the sales was trivial. Many of my writer friends admitted that they too had the same experience.

“You will never recover the money you invested,” one of them said. 

I learned a lesson that spending money and getting professional help is not a guarantee for success. I talked with my writer friends who had self-published children’s books, memoirs, and murder mysteries. All of them had the same experience. It is tough to make sales in a very competitive market. 

I am not implying here that self-publishing is always a failure. There are many writers who have successful launches of their books and have become famous. But these are in a minority and not the norm. I could have spent money on advertising. But having spent thousands in getting the book ready for publication, I was not inclined to spend more on a marketing campaign.

I will discuss my experience of writing my second novel, Arjun, in a separate post.