Jackie Kennedy Onassis, a book editor for the last two decades of her life, told one of her authors, "If you produce one book, you will have done something wonderful in your life."

I've been mulling over her words ever since my publisher scheduled my new novel for publication in March 2027. What Jackie O. said was right, of course, but she left a few things out.

My novel is an AI thriller built around a murder mystery and a larger question: What makes us human? Of course, the literary ancestor of my story is "Frankenstein," begun by Mary Shelley when she was only 18. Some writers do seem predestined for the profession. Take P.D. James, the crime writer elevated to the House of Lords by Queen Elizabeth II, who said, "I knew from very early childhood I wanted to be a writer — never any doubt in my mind about that."

I was neither predestined to be a novelist like Lady James nor precocious like Shelley. Still, I've always loved words. I was editor of my high school newspaper and wrote speeches for members when I worked on Capitol Hill. That background does more to explain why I write a weekly column than why I write crime novels. I just stumbled into novel-writing when I was bored at work and signed up for a class at UC Berkeley. Maybe the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries stuck with me more than I knew.

For me, writing is like running a marathon. If you ask someone at mile 10 if they're enjoying themselves, they'll look at you like you're crazy. It takes about 40,000 steps to finish a marathon. It took me almost twice that number of words to finish a novel.

Whether the marathon is measured in steps or words, reaching the finish line brings the glow of achievement that Mrs. Onassis described. Seeing the cover of my upcoming book was a thrill, and so was seeing it typeset like a book rather than just as a Word document. There's truth in the old saying: I don't like writing, but I like having written.

And yet, when you've run the 26.2 miles of the marathon, you're done. You can eat heartily and soak in the hot tub. Not so with a book. When you finish writing it, you discover there's still at least another half-marathon of work to do. The PR people are lining up scores of interviews. I'm forcing myself to ask fellow writers, both friends and strangers, to say something nice about my book that we can put on the cover. I am hunting for any remaining typos in the final page proofs. I'm working on an itinerary to visit bookstores and hop on Zoom calls to alumni clubs.

My super literary agent says we need to generate buzz, attract preorders and perhaps even catch Hollywood's attention. Honest, I'm running as fast as I can.

The timing, my agent assures me, couldn't be better, with artificial intelligence in the headlines just about every day. The prime suspect in my thriller is an AI clone of the murder victim, identical to the dead man in mind, appearance and memory. Is he merely a machine, or is he human? He pleads to be recognized as the latter, arguing, "I'm more than a cyborg run by software code just as you all are more than creatures run by genetic code."

And what's all this work for? Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century literary critic and compiler of the monumental Dictionary of the English Language said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

Count me a blockhead, then. I write, above all, to be read. That means a propulsive plot but also more. I'm trying to follow Mary Poppins's advice that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. I want to make readers think without making them feel they've swallowed a bottle of vile cough syrup.

Nothing thrills me more than seeing someone lounging in a beach chair or squeezed into an airplane seat, turning the pages of a book I've written. Novelists spend thousands of hours alone with their characters. The reward comes if and when those characters mean something to someone who opens the book.

So, Jackie Kennedy Onassis was right. Producing a book is indeed wonderful. And it's wonderful each time a reader reaches the last page, having been entertained and perhaps even given something to think about.

Write on,

Keith

A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.

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