Some day I propose to write a novel!

The main reason for this determination is the fact that I have never written one. I don’t know that it will become a “best goer”—and the chances are against it—but I’ll do my best just the same. And I hope to win.

My reason for writing a fictional story is that by so doing I will exercise my imaginative faculties and thus prolong their usefulness. The power to imagine is an asset that must not be dulled by neglect. It responds to exercise just as readily as do the arms and legs.

Mental gymnastics are helpful, in fact they are absolutely necessary in keeping alert the upper story of the general structure. They make of the brain a spectacular trapeze performer toward which all eyes upturn when it takes its place upon the swinging bar.

The ability to write a successful novel would be a crowning achievement since it draws upon experience and vision in order to assemble interesting characters around an agreeable plot. Love, of course, must furnish the motif because love is the highest and most noble form of passion—and passion rules the universe.

When we contemplate the writing of a novel we indulge in aspiration of the highest order. The fact that not one novel in a thousand is likely to measure up to a masterpiece should not halt one’s determination to put over a winner if possible. But novel writing is big game hunting, requiring ammunition of considerable power—and the aim must be perfect.

One should try for small game first, being careful to make a bonfire out of every effort that will not stand the test of several months in cold storage. Real fiction can wait. It needn’t be served to order. Any novel that is going to live through one generation of applauding readers will keep a few months while its author uses the pruning hook. His judgment will be all the keener each time he goes over it.

When I write my novel I shall allow no close friend to read it in advance of its legitimate publication, after having been duly passed upon by a calm and candid professional critic with a beady eye. When one of these zest-worn individuals wades through my effort from first to last page and comes up smiling it will be time enough to indulge in a faint hope. It is always best for success to ooze in rather than to come as a deluge. It gives us time to consider ways and means of taking care of the output. Also it serves to ward off an aggravated case of disappointment if it doesn’t turn out to be a genuine gusher. We never know the real verdict until we hear from the multitude. No multitude, no verdict necessary—the book is dead.

It isn’t for the reason that I lack for things to do that I propose to try to write a successful novel, nor is my reason mercenary. There is no secret about the matter either. Some years ago I determined not to go through life with a single track mind. To obviate this calamity it dawned upon me that I must take an interest in every little and big thing that came my way. Once the resolution took the form of habit, it became a great pleasure to persist in the pursuit of information, but the main benefit derived has been the development of a determination to do things myself.

Determination stands in constant need of repair else it deteriorates into mere obsession and falls of its own weight. The habit of investigation builds up self-confidence, without which, determination has no prop with which to sustain itself.

Investigation is a two-sided activity of the mental processes—it comes in loaded and can go out loaded if there’s anything inside to facilitate the movement. To prove this theory is my reason for taking a fling at novel writing, and by succeeding my case is made. At least it will have been proved that one’s mind is a reconverter—that what it imbibes in one form it may exude in another. Also it proves that if one does not exalt his own ego no one else can do it for him.