Lawrence Looks for Treasure

Part 1

Dear Mrs. Snarch,

I hope this letter finds you well. Thank you again for your patience. Attached is the completed manuscript for my novel. That puts me nearly three years, or, from the view of one accountant I know, about a thousand days, behind schedule. Oh well, better late than never.

Before you start reading the thing, a word of caution. The story has changed considerably since we last spoke, some time ago. That is the reason I have taken so long to finish. I am aware that I contracted to write a novel about a sickly boy and his magical dog. Unfortunately, the final product has not quite turned out that way. I tried to adhere to our agreement. Please trust that I did. There are several drafts of varying widths sitting in my desk drawer to prove the matter. Yet, as is clear from the foregoing, they are all incomplete.

What I send you instead is a story that I wrote at the age of eighteen. You could say it was my first novel. It began as a journal entry of no more than a few hundred words. But I must have gotten caught up, because I ended with about seventy-seven thousand. (You should have seen the disbelief on my poor parents' faces when I showed them how I had passed the year! It may have been, upon reflection, similar to the disbelief on your face now.)

The story concerns an adventure on which my friends and I embarked in order to recover lost treasure. It is not exactly autobiography. Though it is mostly true, some parts are exaggeration and other parts are downright invention. In that regard, it lies comfortably among many other works of fiction.

Why did I substitute a novel that I contracted to write with a novel that I wrote some fifteen years ago? The reason is simple: I prefer the latter to the former. The older work is more moving, despite the fact that it includes neither a sickly boy nor his magical dog. Perhaps I have become a decidedly uninspired adult. Perhaps I was a decidedly inspired teenager. Whatever the case, I find the work earnest and funny and just to my taste.

The prose is somewhat stilted, it is true. The narration is often tangential, so what? I have spent considerable time editing the thing, and I am now proud to say that it is perfectly legible.

In sum, then, I am sorry for disregarding our agreement. I am equally sorry for my tardiness. Last, I am sorry for ignoring your calls and emails during the better part of twelve seasons. I have never been good at keeping correspondence, although, in this case, it was rather deliberate. I was scared. That's all.

Every day, I sat at my desk creatively impotent, trying to torture myself back to health. On one such day I turned to my old works for inspiration. I found that journal entry. I reread it. I enjoyed it. Fifteen years later, it had already said all that I was now trying to say. So, like any man with a deadline staring him in the eye, I turned my sights to another project. I edited and retyped that old journal entry. I resuscitated it, and, in so doing, I resuscitated myself.

So there you are. I have not absconded with your advance. My overdue novel is enclosed. If you are uninterested in this version, I will return your money with interest, and consider my sins atoned for. (Of course, that will take time. I have already spent the advance on goods that did not retain their value — that were not, in the spirit of coming clean, all that valuable to begin with.) Still, I insist you read my book before rejecting it. Though it is not what you expected, it may nevertheless be what you desired — commercial, in a word. Hell, you may even like it.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Warm Regards,

Lawrence Levine 

[ Note to Reader: Please remember to vote and comment :) ]