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Wow, time flies. It’s been a while since I looked at this site. Of course, it’s been a while since I wrote anything (other than on the bathroom walls), but one deed deserves another. I recently published my third novel, The Long Game, and that’s gotten me back to the writing experience. I tried hard–seemed hard to me, anyway–to find an agent to represent me and my work; in the end, I had to put this book to bed in order to get cracking on my next novel. I envy those writers who have launch parties and do readings. There’s a song from 1982 called What About Me by the band Moving Pictures that talks about people wondering when they’ll get the chance they deserve. I listen to the song and have a good laugh at my expense, because writers don’t deserve anything. Some folks get the brass ring and some don’t. At that point, it’s soul-searching time. Is it that we want the brass ring, or do we want to craft good stories? If the brass ring is the motivation, as I used to offer to other writers when I did lectures, then the vast majority of writers will walk away disappointed. Not everyone will be Mick Herron or Robert Ludlum (although he did use my name as his pen name, so I got that going for me), or some of the other big hitters. Guess I’ll continue to attend the book launches my friends have. Maybe they’ll let me touch their brass ring. If not, at least I’ll hope they have good snacks. 🙂


Written in 2012–an ice age ago:


I’d like to jot down a few thoughts about becoming a writer. I’ll see if I can peel this onion effectively. First, anyone can do it! I’m living proof. If you can string words together, you can write. If you can write, eventually you can hold your beautifully published work in your hands. Publishing–as I talk about it now and in subsequent blog posts, will be limited to self-publishing. If you go that route (don’t sweat it, we’ll go over that in excruciatingly painful detail later), self-publishing won’t require you to take out a second mortgage or raffle off one of the kids. It’s affordable. More on that in the next installment. Finally, I’ll ask you to determine what success feels like to you. It’s different for everyone, so before you hit ‘publish’, work through what you want to happen next, and moreso, what you’ll feel satisfied with accomplishing. That’ll be future post, as well.


Okay, let’s start with the basics. In order to be published you have to write. Most people I talk to about writing struggle with the concept of linking 70, 000 to 100,000 words with some level of coherence. Not to oversimplify, but many folks who could run a marathon are simply overwhelmed by thinking about completing 26.2 miles. Okay, I understand. Until I completed a novel I’d never done it before, and until I completed a marathon I’d never done it before. But they both start out the same way–by taking the first step. I’ll let others extol the virtues of the marathon journey, and I’ll focus on the writing journey. How do you write a novel? Start. That’s it. Start. Then take another step. Then another. And another.


What’s the first step? It’s another one of those ‘different for everyone’ things. Some writers outline the plot, the twists, the red herrings and such, and work very hard to develop the story’s protagonist, antagonist and secondary characters. These writers are called ‘plotters’–they want to plot the entire thing out, so when they’re writing they’ve already done the majority of the planning. There aren’t a lot of surprises, and I’ll wager the writing goes a lot faster, with less deletes and revisions. Another camp of writers fall into the ‘pantser’ category–writing by the seat of their pants. I lean more toward this means of storytelling when I write. The positive aspect of this is I’m always surprised by my characters and the direction the plot takes. The negative aspect of this is…not all the surprises are good ones. This means a lot of time spent, mid-story, working out plot details, character ‘characteristics’ and motivation, etc…and a lot more time cleaning up little messes.


It’s important to note, however–whether you choose to be a ‘plotter’ or a ‘pantser’, or a combination of the two, each requires you to write. There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. There is only the way you choose…whatever works best for you.


Next thing you work on is…don’t get discouraged when you hit eight or ten pages and are unsure where to go next. Many folks tell me that’s when they give up on a story. Kind of like training for a marathon again–many folks flush the dream of completing one when it means getting up early to run, fighting through cold weather or some other discomfort, or trying to fit training time into an otherwise busy life.


Noted.


It’s the same with writing. When it gets hard, that isn’t the time to stop. That’s the time to roll up your sleeves, work through the difficult parts, and get the ball rolling again. But…something to think about: a book is written a word at a time. Not a chapter at a time, or a page at a time or a paragraph at a time. Adding any words at all to a piece of work is progress. So just because you might get stuck here and there, decide that success for a day might be a well-written paragraph. It might be a sentence that you have no idea where to put in your work, but it belongs somewhere in your novel. So save it, celebrate it, and work on the next nugget of sheer writing brilliance.


Two more things to consider: all first drafts are not created equal, and not every part of a novel has to be written in sequence. Remember in English class in high school where the first draft was ‘a first draft’ and the English teacher made some edits and then said ‘now revise and resubmit’, and you had to decide if the first draft was good enough for a B, and if the extra work to get an A was worth it? Well, when it comes to writing a novel…yes, multiple edits are worth it. Multiple. As in way more than one.


At least in my case. I spent far more time editing my ‘finished novel’ than I did writing the first draft. And that’s the commitment it takes. But make sure you get the main point of this: the first draft is a jumping-off point only. Where a passage/paragraph/page starts and where it finishes may be decidedly different, so don’t get discouraged if the first draft doesn’t sing or bring a reader/reviewer to tears. The final product just may, so like the mid-twenties child who hasn’t quite found him/herself yet, don’t give up on the final product quite yet. There are a lot of ways to get to where you’re going, and some take longer than others. Write it, stick with it, edit it, and see how it develops.


I also mentioned that not every part of a novel has to be written in sequence. As I was writing Easy Street, I wrote a fun little section that I was bound and determined to cram into the middle of the novel. That’s when I wrote it–in the middle of the novel–so that’s where it belonged, dammit. Until I studied it for a while, and finally decided I’d just written the end. Now, I edited it many times after that, but the core ‘last chapter’ was written when I was about half done with the novel. This concept also works well if you stumble into writer’s block. If the absolute ‘next chapter’ won’t come, don’t write the next chapter. Write something down the road a bit. Write some more character development stuff (more on that in another post). Write…something. It doesn’t have to be the next linear thing in the plot. It just has to be…something.


Okay, I think I’ve maxed out my word count for today. This is the start of something I want to continue–coaxing/encouraging others to write that novel. If you want to be a writer, be a writer. There is no magic formula. There is no milestone that you will one day cross that determines whether or not you’re a writer. If you can string words together, you’re a writer. The sooner you believe it, the sooner the rest of the world will believe it, too.