Picking Stones

Introducing my first novel

That’s me at 23 on the 24th floor of the construction project I was working on.

In September 2022, I finished the first draft of a novel called Picking Stones. It was the hardest thing I had ever done and the first time I ever saw a project through to the finish line—or so I thought. The idea for this book came to me during the fall of 2020 on a Saturday of forced, unpaid overtime while at my first job out of college. I was a construction superintendent on a high-rise superstructure project on the Long Island City waterfront. The building was probably around 25 stories high, 37 short of topping out. I was 23.

Like most Saturdays working that job, I had woken up with a brain splitting hangover, ruing the day that I had ever thought a degree in Construction Management and Engineering was a good idea. All the years from age eight to eighteen where I had sworn I was going to be a writer had gone down the drain in a weed, booze, and just plain douchebag-esque haze.

On Saturdays, I didn’t have to perform the usual task of making sure that all the contractors I had to oversee were keeping up with the construction schedule. That part of the job typically ended with me getting screamed at by a crusty and miserable fifty-year-old man hocking tobacco-laden saliva at my face. It wasn’t a fun job.

Instead, Saturdays were spent just walking the floors to keep tabs on every contractor working so we could verify the billable hours they would submit in their monthly requisitions. If you were cool with the labor foreman, which I was thanks to being a fellow Sicilian, you could stay in the makeshift plywood office all day and get the daily headcount from him—which I usually did. This wasn’t a normal Saturday, though. For some reason, even through my hangover, something told me to get up and stretch my legs.

To go up the building, you could either take the hoist (the construction elevator car you see attached to the side of under-construction buildings) or take the stairs. Most guys took the hoist to get the breathtaking view of Manhattan overlooking the East River over Gantry Park. It really is an incredible view, especially when the sunlight is glistening on the water. That is, until the hoist screeches up to the floor of choice and work commences. I decided to walk up.

So there I was, boots scraping on the concrete slab as I ventured through the dimly lit halls making small talk with a few tradesmen. Incandescent light bulbs hung overhead in orange ribbed cases. The slab was covered with spray paint marking pipe holes, door openings, floors and apartments. The buzzing of power tools could be heard coming from all corners of the job site. Some framing was up. The bathtubs were already set.

Tubs were always the first things placed on each floor. They needed to be put in when it was clear, otherwise they were too heavy to move. That’s why there was always shit in them come closeout. Imagine renting a luxury apartment for $5,000 a month and someone dropped a deuce right in your bathtub. I’m not kidding, either. There was simply nowhere else to go, so some guys would blow them up, quite literally. I never did, I promise.

Side note: what do two engineering degrees get you on a seven degree day in midwinter during the construction of a high-rise? The assignment of melting the frozen shit-clogged toilets with a heatgun so people don’t shit in the tubs. Spoiler alert, they still will (scroll back up to the photo at the top and see below for some photographic evidence in case you don’t believe me).

This is my friend Tom. I’m the one taking the picture.

Anyway. From my informant I knew there were guys working on floors 3, 4, 13, and the deck that day. The deck is the floor at the very top of the building made of plywood. Lathers, carpenters, and concrete laborers were getting the floor ready to be poured within the next day or two. They worked like absolute animals up there, rain or shine. 

By this point I had gone to floors 3 and 4 already and could have gone straight up to 13. But something or someone told me to keep going up. Floor by floor.

I reached the fifth floor, 5, a ghost town. Three flickering lights hung low from a thin cable protruding out of the 16’ high ceilings. The trek through each floor from end to end was around two hundred feet. About a third of the way through, I stopped at the opening to Mechanical Room C. Something had caught my eye. It was a little white card, no bigger than a business card, resting against the battleship gray door.

Printed on the card were three red block letters: NIM.

“Huh. Weird,” I said aloud. I tend to do that.

My eyes stayed fixed on the little card for a few minutes. I continued my walk, trudged up to 6—and couldn’t get the card out of my head. What did NIM mean? Was it a sign? Was someone trying to tell me something? My mind was racing so fast by floor 8 I couldn’t take it any longer, I dropped everything I was doing and ran back down to 5.

There it was, still resting on that gray door. NIM.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning zapped straight into my brain, I was in shock. Something happened. Providence had sent me to work that day.

Without a second thought, I ran down to my office as fast as possible and proceeded to furiously scrawl away, putting pen to paper until I had the entire outline of my first novel completely finished hashed out and ready to be written, title and all. It was perfect—and all thanks to a little card, NIM.

That day changed my life. It took months before I actually started writing the book. Many a break was taken during the writing process. My sanity was tested over and over. I considered blowing it all up, quitting writing and my job, and just starting over somewhere fresh.

Then, two years after initially devising the idea for Picking Stones, I had finished it. I was expecting to be thrilled. I was not. Since starting the book, I had finally left that job I hated (although I do believe I was put there to eventually be given the idea for this book). I had read The War of Art for the first time in August 2022. It had given me the final push to complete Picking Stones after an almost three month hiatus. My life had changed, but I was in turmoil.

“The first draft is done. I’m finished. This book sucks. It’s so cheesy, etc.”

The day after finishing the first draft, I was lost. Melissa and I were at the Hunter’s Point Library, right by my old job and the location for one of the final scenes in the book. My head was in my hands. I was toast, a failure. I couldn’t go on.

“What would Steven Pressfield say?” Melissa said. “Start the next one.”

“But I don’t have an idea!” I cried.

“Be a channel. Start writing, something will come.”

I listened to her. A few minutes later, maybe ten or thirty, I was given the idea for a second novel. It was an idea so fantastic, I was shocked that I had even written it down. Within hours I had the first chapter of this new book written, and the whole first draft done in six months. I had turned a corner, and because of this I deduced that Picking Stones had just been a stepping stone to a far better book and writing future—nothing more. But then something happened. I couldn’t bring myself to write a second draft for this second book. When I finally did, it was horrible. So was the third draft.

My dreams were over. I then pivoted to a middle-grade dark fantasy series, writing and finishing two books and realizing agents don’t want to pick up no-name losers like me. (I actually saw those two all the way to final edit if you’re wondering.) I knew the end goal was getting my second novel 100% ready and finished. I knew that it would be the one that would change my life. But I just wasn’t ready yet.

In the meantime, I thought I needed to start another adult novel. This one would be about a laborer working in a high-rise construction job. During this time, say between September 2022 to June 6^th, 2024, I referred to Picking Stones as complete dogshit. I mocked it for being horrible, a learning experience, and a downright bad story. Then something happened. The construction book stalled. After 15,000 words, I was out of ideas. I had no choice but to abandon it, like everything else I’ve ever done.

With all our talk regarding The War of Art and Steven Pressfield here on Thinking Man lately, Picking Stones started to pop into my head. Suddenly, I realized what I needed to do—actually, as usual, Melissa did.

“Melissa,” I complained. “For some reason I keep thinking about Picking Stones. Maybe I could try to put it on Thinking Man.”

“You just need to edit it. Really finish it for once.” Melissa had been there for each of my frustrating decisions to stop working on a novel without seeing it through to the completely edited ends.

“Maybe that’s why you haven’t been able to finish book 2 or get a good story going for the construction book. God won’t let you finish those without you ever finishing your first one.” Her words cut deep.

The next day I decided that I would publish Picking Stones in installments here on Thinking Man. I’ll self-publish a physical version once I’m done uploading it on Substack. To get it right, I needed to actually read the thing—something I hadn’t done after finishing the first draft.

I picked up the copy of it that I had printed at Staples the day I finished the first draft and realized a funny thing. The book was actually good! The story was a bit cheesy, but there was something good in there; it just needed to be severely edited. And that is exactly what I will do before uploading each chapter. There’s hope yet!

Without Melissa, this would have never been written; I owe it all to her.

Picking Stones, by John Mistretta: Limited Staples edition

Picking Stones is the story of Will. It is a story about life, both inside and out. There are some autobiographical elements to the story, but it’s his story, not mine. It’s a story about growth, about questioning life and what you want out of it. In short, it’s a love story (an aspect I didn’t realize until 3/4 of the way through writing it). It’s going to be cheesy, but it’s a fun story that may make you question your own reality as you read about Will questioning his. I really hope you enjoy it. Just go easy on me—it’s a book a twenty-three-year-old wrote that a twenty-seven-year-old is rewriting. It may not be pretty, but there’s hope. I leave you with an excerpt from the novel which perfectly summarizes the story. Think of it as the little blurb on the back of the book:

“This is the story,” I said as I clutched the little white card with the word NIM printed on it. “Basically, I was walking home from a restaurant one night. I can’t tell you why yet, but I thought I was being followed. That’s when I found this card. That’s important because the card may have potentially been given to me by either a demon, or ghost, or some other entity. And that entity may be playing a game with me. A game that’s been making me experience coincidences that have led me to this state, this city, and this very bar.”

Thank you for reading. I hope you follow along for this; it’s going to be a crazy journey for me.

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