Yesterday, I wasn't in the mood to write, or do much of anything else. And I blogged about that.
Now today I have the same problems I had yesterday -- unpublished, tight finances, poor freelance prospects at the moment, weeds in the yard, nutty children, a dog that peed in the sunroom -- and the day before that and all of last week. I am listening to the same music (which I still love, by the way).
But I don't feel the same way today about life or about work. True, I felt a little down this morning but a drive on a sunny day to vacuum out the car and some strawberry ice cream at lunch cured that. This morning I spent time on a freelance project and this afternoon I called an editor with a couple of story ideas. I am also going to work on the marketing for the anthology and do some writing.
Yesterday I chalk up as a Personal Day.
Now it seems that Nathan Bransford, a literary agent whose blog I sometimes read, posted a blog entry yesterday on the work of writing. He called it Willpower and he mentioned B.I.C. -- Butt in Chair. I didn't see the posting until today after I saw my wonderful friend Megan Bostic post it on Facebook. It was the right topic for me on the right day.
Writing is hard, whether you enjoy it or now. And Nathan is right. If you only write when you feel inspired, it will take 100 years to write a novel.
Janet Evanovich, an author I enjoy and admire, says that writing is a job. And to get it done, you have to show up at work. That means you work when you feel inspired and you work when you don't.
Non writers do have this romantized view of the craft in which the writer is struck by a certain inspiration and goes off to the typewriter to bang out something brilliant. And regardless of the length they stay there writing until it's done. That, of course, isn't how things generally work. Writing is more perspiration than inspiration. As Nathan said, If writing is always fun you may be doing it wrong.
Now as for yesterday, let me put it into perspective.
Every 9-to-5 job I have ever had gave you days off. Holidays, sick days, personal days, vacation days. I work for myself and I have decided that yesterday was a personal day. And I am only allowing myself one. Today is a work day.
Thanks for reading. Now get off your butt and get back to work.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Discouragement II
I haven't written about discouragement for some time and that's probably because I haven't particularly felt that way and I had other things I wanted to say.
Today, however, is different. I am feeling discouraged and I can't seem to shake a degree of sadness.
I have no real reason to feel this way. I didn't get a rejection today. In fact, I have several reasons to feel upbeat. BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD is close to publication and I learned today the two editors will be interviewed on a local television station four days before our launch party in May.
I didn't arrange for the interview but I am making progress with other promotions I have for the book.
But I was also doing some research today in Jim Herman's book guide to publishers and agents and once again was struck with the enormity of the task of getting published.
Money is tight and I don't have any new freelance writing prospects. I am playing music I love but it isn't particularly cheerful. Normally, that isn't a problem but today . . .
I don't feel like reading. I don't feel like writing. I don't feel like driving my MG. I am just down.
(And I can't seem to get the weeds out of the yard.)
I don't know what I am going to do, except possibly reread some favorite part of one novels or short stories. That generally helps but I don't feel like doing that either.
Writing is hard. But feeling like I am not progressing is harder.
I know this feeling will go away sooner or later. I am generally an optimistic person. But today I can't shake that ugly feeling.
So there is my tale of woe. Now you get back to writing.
Today, however, is different. I am feeling discouraged and I can't seem to shake a degree of sadness.
I have no real reason to feel this way. I didn't get a rejection today. In fact, I have several reasons to feel upbeat. BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD is close to publication and I learned today the two editors will be interviewed on a local television station four days before our launch party in May.
I didn't arrange for the interview but I am making progress with other promotions I have for the book.
But I was also doing some research today in Jim Herman's book guide to publishers and agents and once again was struck with the enormity of the task of getting published.
Money is tight and I don't have any new freelance writing prospects. I am playing music I love but it isn't particularly cheerful. Normally, that isn't a problem but today . . .
I don't feel like reading. I don't feel like writing. I don't feel like driving my MG. I am just down.
(And I can't seem to get the weeds out of the yard.)
I don't know what I am going to do, except possibly reread some favorite part of one novels or short stories. That generally helps but I don't feel like doing that either.
Writing is hard. But feeling like I am not progressing is harder.
I know this feeling will go away sooner or later. I am generally an optimistic person. But today I can't shake that ugly feeling.
So there is my tale of woe. Now you get back to writing.
Monday, April 12, 2010
On-site research
I was in Philadelphia for a hot second over the weekend but was able to do some on-site research that directly affects two of my current unpublished works -- THE DEATH OF ART and AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, particularly the latter.
The last time I was in Philadelphia was last August and I wrote AFFAIR in November. There were several important things that I remembered incorrectly about the city where I lived for 20 years. Some places and locations were different and the differences are important to the story. Or at least they are important to me.
As a working journalist, I have lived with the knowledge that a reporter's credibility is the only thing he or she really has. So getting the facts right is of utmost importance to me as a journalist -- and as a fiction writer. I know as a novelist there are things I can -- and do -- just make up. But it is still best to get the verifiable facts correct.
I had a couple of locations wrong in AFFAIR and in other ways I could have written better descriptions.
So I am going to make some changes which I hope will also improve the quality. On-site research is not necessarily necessary or at times even possible. But where it is, I think it can only serve to improve the credibility of a work.
Thanks for reading and keep writing.
The last time I was in Philadelphia was last August and I wrote AFFAIR in November. There were several important things that I remembered incorrectly about the city where I lived for 20 years. Some places and locations were different and the differences are important to the story. Or at least they are important to me.
As a working journalist, I have lived with the knowledge that a reporter's credibility is the only thing he or she really has. So getting the facts right is of utmost importance to me as a journalist -- and as a fiction writer. I know as a novelist there are things I can -- and do -- just make up. But it is still best to get the verifiable facts correct.
I had a couple of locations wrong in AFFAIR and in other ways I could have written better descriptions.
So I am going to make some changes which I hope will also improve the quality. On-site research is not necessarily necessary or at times even possible. But where it is, I think it can only serve to improve the credibility of a work.
Thanks for reading and keep writing.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
NaNoWriMo Part III
I hadn't intended for this subject to have so many parts but this last installment is the one that most profoundly affected me as a writer.
I have been a working journalist for more than two decades. On more than one occasion -- generally when I'm walking Pluto -- I have tried to calculate in my head how many words I have written over my career as a reporter. I really haven't an idea but I'm sure it's well over a million words.
As a reporter, I have generally been an observer, not a participant. I have never been a columnist. Thus, the vast majority of the articles I have written were in third person. I can count on one hand the number of articles I have written from a first-person singular point of view.
(I need to clarify a point here. When I was an editor at The Philadelphia Tribune, I was on the editorial board and wrote editorials at least once a week for nearly four years. And the editorials were written in first person. But I was writing for the group -- and not necessarily expressing my own opinion -- and it was first-person plural, not singular.
One final word. The awards I have as a professional journalist were all for editorials. Now that is ironic!)
My point is that as a reporter and an author, I am most familiar and comfortable with writing in third. As an author (as with being a reporter) it has allowed me to be intimate with the story and the characters but still able to stand back and separate myself from the elements of the story. I could get caught up in a story but it was never MY story. I was just an observer, not a participant.
POV is the story-telling element about which members of my critique group criticize me the most. They say my POV shifts a lot. I rarely see it. To me, I am always the fly on the wall viewing the action. And I always know if the Marines are coming from around the corner to save the hero. You can't do that in first-person POV.
But in AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, I was immediately faced with the prospect of a story from a single POV, that of the novel's hero, private eye David Blaise. The entire story would be in first person.
I didn't plan for it that way. It just developed in my head that way and I couldn't get it out of my head. So, I went with in, although I knew it would be a tremendous challenge for me to write that way.
In this story, I identified with the main character more than I have with any other character I have created -- and there have been some in earlier works I have identified with a lot. I was in Blaise's head all the time. I, in essence, was him. I could no better determine the motives and actions of others in the novel than he could. Certainly not immediately. His life was very intimate to me. I felt uncertain when he was uncertain.
And, as a writer, I felt far more exposed, although I also felt that writing from that POV was limiting.
Members of the writing group who have seen the novel said it was the best they had seen of my writing. I'm not so sure of that but it was interesting and personal to me. Not sure if I will do it again. I may just retreat to the familiar. But I have mentally outlined two additional David Blaise stories, and, if I write them, they will be in first person.
Maybe I am changing. May not. But it was interesting, though not necessarily comfortable. Good thing it only took me 19 days to write it.
Thanks for reading and keep writing.
I have been a working journalist for more than two decades. On more than one occasion -- generally when I'm walking Pluto -- I have tried to calculate in my head how many words I have written over my career as a reporter. I really haven't an idea but I'm sure it's well over a million words.
As a reporter, I have generally been an observer, not a participant. I have never been a columnist. Thus, the vast majority of the articles I have written were in third person. I can count on one hand the number of articles I have written from a first-person singular point of view.
(I need to clarify a point here. When I was an editor at The Philadelphia Tribune, I was on the editorial board and wrote editorials at least once a week for nearly four years. And the editorials were written in first person. But I was writing for the group -- and not necessarily expressing my own opinion -- and it was first-person plural, not singular.
One final word. The awards I have as a professional journalist were all for editorials. Now that is ironic!)
My point is that as a reporter and an author, I am most familiar and comfortable with writing in third. As an author (as with being a reporter) it has allowed me to be intimate with the story and the characters but still able to stand back and separate myself from the elements of the story. I could get caught up in a story but it was never MY story. I was just an observer, not a participant.
POV is the story-telling element about which members of my critique group criticize me the most. They say my POV shifts a lot. I rarely see it. To me, I am always the fly on the wall viewing the action. And I always know if the Marines are coming from around the corner to save the hero. You can't do that in first-person POV.
But in AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, I was immediately faced with the prospect of a story from a single POV, that of the novel's hero, private eye David Blaise. The entire story would be in first person.
I didn't plan for it that way. It just developed in my head that way and I couldn't get it out of my head. So, I went with in, although I knew it would be a tremendous challenge for me to write that way.
In this story, I identified with the main character more than I have with any other character I have created -- and there have been some in earlier works I have identified with a lot. I was in Blaise's head all the time. I, in essence, was him. I could no better determine the motives and actions of others in the novel than he could. Certainly not immediately. His life was very intimate to me. I felt uncertain when he was uncertain.
And, as a writer, I felt far more exposed, although I also felt that writing from that POV was limiting.
Members of the writing group who have seen the novel said it was the best they had seen of my writing. I'm not so sure of that but it was interesting and personal to me. Not sure if I will do it again. I may just retreat to the familiar. But I have mentally outlined two additional David Blaise stories, and, if I write them, they will be in first person.
Maybe I am changing. May not. But it was interesting, though not necessarily comfortable. Good thing it only took me 19 days to write it.
Thanks for reading and keep writing.
Monday, April 5, 2010
NaNoWriMo Part ll
When I decided to enter National Novel Writing Month last November, I faced two challenges that meant I would have to change how I write.
The first was obvious. The idea of writing a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days scared me to death. Granted, 50,000 words is not a long novel. For most fiction, editors and publishers are looking for 75,000 t0 95,000 words in most categories, although some books top well over 100,000. But unless I was writing a children's or young adult novel, where 50,000 words is the upper range, I needed to think about a novel longer than 50,000 words.
That's a lot given my usual output. Let's do the numbers. That's an average of 1,667 words to write EVERY DAY for 30 days. Generally when I'm writing, I do about 1,800 words a day but don't do that everyday. The general goal is about 5,000 words a week. I could then plan to complete a first draft of a 75,000-word novel in three months. But at that rate, I wouldn't hit NaNoWriMo-targeted quantity for 10 weeks, not the roughly four weeks required. To reach the NaNoWriMo target I would need more discipline than I have exhibited to date.
But more important than mere discipline, I would need to change how I execute a novel. In this case, it meant I would have to outline the book ahead of time. I would have time to write but wouldn't have enough time to think about what to write.
As you know, there is a large debate being raged in the writing community regarding outlining. Some writers agree with one of my heroes, John Grisham. I saw in Writers Digest over the winter where he said outlining was "crucial." I think most writing academics would agree with that (though it is not hard to understand why). That argument says an un-outlined novel is likely to be unfocused, and it's more likely to go unfinished.
Others say outlining is constraining and takes away a novel's spontaneity, which helps make the novel fun to write as well as to read.
My opinion is that writing a novel is difficult no matter how you cut it. In the end, the writer must do what feels most natural. That's not really for someone else to judge.
I generally don't do outlines. I have an idea of how the novel will begin and end before I start writing. But I like the novel to develop on its own. I want to come to it in much the same way a reader would for the first time. I want to be surprised by the developments and with the introduction of new characters. Plus, I have a hard time visualizing an entire work ahead of time.
I will outline a few scenes ahead sometimes when I think I have some really good ideas I don't want to forget but generally I wing it.
But I knew that wouldn't work at NaNoWriMo. There was too much writing to do very quickly. If I was going to make my goal, I would have to outline.
So, several days ahead of time, I wrote out a 10-page outline of the novel. And at about 12:30 in the morning on Nov. 1, I started writing. And I surprised myself. The first sentence in my outline translated into more than 850 words of text. And that first day, I wrote 3,500 words.
Over the next several days, I continued to produce twice as much as would be required. Other NaNo writers I met were surprised at, and quite supportive of, the output.
But outlining in some ways was also constraining. But Day 4, I needed to deviate slightly from the outline. That caused more deviations until by Day 7, I had to stop and write another totally different outline based on where I was at the time.
(Also, halfway through, I realized the person I thought was the killer wasn't the true bad guy. Fortunately, it didn't require any changes.)
So I pressed on and at 7:23 p.m. on Nov. 15, two weeks after I started, I reached 50,084 words.
I did it without having to give up my life. I still worked, had dinner with the family every night, got to go out to dinner on the weekend and still had to walk the dog.
I had planned for a novel of about 70,000 words but I was tired after two weeks and ultimately finished it off on Nov. 19, at 54,000 words. I knew I could go back and flesh it out later. But at the time, I needed the rest.
There was another more profound challenge I faced and it was harder than just outlining. But I will touch on that later.
For now, you should do what feels natural to you. If you do, you are more likely to finish your draft. You can re-write and edit later. But first you must finish.
Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.
The first was obvious. The idea of writing a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days scared me to death. Granted, 50,000 words is not a long novel. For most fiction, editors and publishers are looking for 75,000 t0 95,000 words in most categories, although some books top well over 100,000. But unless I was writing a children's or young adult novel, where 50,000 words is the upper range, I needed to think about a novel longer than 50,000 words.
That's a lot given my usual output. Let's do the numbers. That's an average of 1,667 words to write EVERY DAY for 30 days. Generally when I'm writing, I do about 1,800 words a day but don't do that everyday. The general goal is about 5,000 words a week. I could then plan to complete a first draft of a 75,000-word novel in three months. But at that rate, I wouldn't hit NaNoWriMo-targeted quantity for 10 weeks, not the roughly four weeks required. To reach the NaNoWriMo target I would need more discipline than I have exhibited to date.
But more important than mere discipline, I would need to change how I execute a novel. In this case, it meant I would have to outline the book ahead of time. I would have time to write but wouldn't have enough time to think about what to write.
As you know, there is a large debate being raged in the writing community regarding outlining. Some writers agree with one of my heroes, John Grisham. I saw in Writers Digest over the winter where he said outlining was "crucial." I think most writing academics would agree with that (though it is not hard to understand why). That argument says an un-outlined novel is likely to be unfocused, and it's more likely to go unfinished.
Others say outlining is constraining and takes away a novel's spontaneity, which helps make the novel fun to write as well as to read.
My opinion is that writing a novel is difficult no matter how you cut it. In the end, the writer must do what feels most natural. That's not really for someone else to judge.
I generally don't do outlines. I have an idea of how the novel will begin and end before I start writing. But I like the novel to develop on its own. I want to come to it in much the same way a reader would for the first time. I want to be surprised by the developments and with the introduction of new characters. Plus, I have a hard time visualizing an entire work ahead of time.
I will outline a few scenes ahead sometimes when I think I have some really good ideas I don't want to forget but generally I wing it.
But I knew that wouldn't work at NaNoWriMo. There was too much writing to do very quickly. If I was going to make my goal, I would have to outline.
So, several days ahead of time, I wrote out a 10-page outline of the novel. And at about 12:30 in the morning on Nov. 1, I started writing. And I surprised myself. The first sentence in my outline translated into more than 850 words of text. And that first day, I wrote 3,500 words.
Over the next several days, I continued to produce twice as much as would be required. Other NaNo writers I met were surprised at, and quite supportive of, the output.
But outlining in some ways was also constraining. But Day 4, I needed to deviate slightly from the outline. That caused more deviations until by Day 7, I had to stop and write another totally different outline based on where I was at the time.
(Also, halfway through, I realized the person I thought was the killer wasn't the true bad guy. Fortunately, it didn't require any changes.)
So I pressed on and at 7:23 p.m. on Nov. 15, two weeks after I started, I reached 50,084 words.
I did it without having to give up my life. I still worked, had dinner with the family every night, got to go out to dinner on the weekend and still had to walk the dog.
I had planned for a novel of about 70,000 words but I was tired after two weeks and ultimately finished it off on Nov. 19, at 54,000 words. I knew I could go back and flesh it out later. But at the time, I needed the rest.
There was another more profound challenge I faced and it was harder than just outlining. But I will touch on that later.
For now, you should do what feels natural to you. If you do, you are more likely to finish your draft. You can re-write and edit later. But first you must finish.
Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Red Planet Blues
I was in a lot of theater productions in high school, particularly in my junior and senior years, when I was in virtually everything my school staged. Oddly enough, though, the thought of going on stage terrified me. You wouldn't know it but I'd be a nervous wreck beforehand, although I truly loved actually being on stage. I loved the audience and I loved the applause. Probably my best times in high school were being in theater.
Something that calmed me down in the time before going on stage was that for a long time I only let one person apply my theater makeup. She was this skinny little white girl named Kerry Lou Kirch.
Kerry and I developed a certain bond through the ritual of preparing to go on stage, and later when we worked on a column together for our school's daily newspaper, The Echo. That bond has lasted over the decades and will probably continue to the end of my natural life -- and probably beyond that.
My friend Kerry Lou died last Sunday in Georgia doing something she always loved and which I never understood -- skydiving.
Ker had a joy of life and of living that I have witnessed in few people. She experienced her share of sadness and sorrow, as do we all, but I can never think of a time when she wasn't happy. I can't think of a picture I have seen of her when she wasn't smiling.
She was smart and talented, spoke fluent German (a language I could never master despite years of lessons in high school and college), and loved animals (particularly dogs), the outdoors, sex and skydiving.
And she was a writer.
Perhaps the best expression of who Ker was is on display in RED PLANET BLUES (Mothership Press, 1998), which she wrote under the name Kerry Lou. Dedicated to her mother Fran (another extraordinary woman), Red Planet, as the cover says, is about "interstellar love and the end of the world as we know it." It is the story a present-day Earth woman named Amber who falls in love with and marries a blue-skinned Martian, who comes to Earth to warn it of its destruction if humans don't change their ways.
Like Kerry, it is about fantasy and romance, and about peace, the environment and saving the planet. It is part science fiction and part erotic fiction.
(In the inscription of my signed copy, Kerry says "Martians make better lovers" and thanked me as a "fellow writer and inspiration." I'm not sure what the inspiration was about but there is a thin black journalist in the novel named Dab Mitchell. Dab is a minor character until late in the book but he does manage to get some nookie. All I could say was, as a member of the human species, I was glad to make a contribution to intergalactic peace and understanding.)
Kerry visited us both in Philadelphia and in Indianapolis. And though their encounters with Kerry were only for a day or two at a time, even my daughters remember her with joy and fondness. It is because Kerry had an incredible mind and imagination. And she reached out to my kids in an uninhibited way that made her visits memorable to them.
(Though she was invited, of course, Kerry missed my wedding. But I forgave her. She attended her sister's wedding, which was the same day.)
Kerry loved to explore the idea parallel universes and extraterrestrial or interdimensional life. And at Christmas and birthdays she would send me peace angels to help guide my way. I will truly miss those cards and greetings.
Kerry's mother and two sisters are planning a celebration of her life this Saturday in Sarasota. And it kills me that I won't be able to make it. But a 4 o'clock, I will celebrate the passing of one of my oldest friends, knowing she is soaring around somewhere with all the other peace angels.
Starting back in high school, Kerry Lou Kirch provided me with an example of how a joyous life should be lived. I will miss her but feel privileged to have known her.
May she soar in peace.
Thanks for reading.
Something that calmed me down in the time before going on stage was that for a long time I only let one person apply my theater makeup. She was this skinny little white girl named Kerry Lou Kirch.
Kerry and I developed a certain bond through the ritual of preparing to go on stage, and later when we worked on a column together for our school's daily newspaper, The Echo. That bond has lasted over the decades and will probably continue to the end of my natural life -- and probably beyond that.
My friend Kerry Lou died last Sunday in Georgia doing something she always loved and which I never understood -- skydiving.
Ker had a joy of life and of living that I have witnessed in few people. She experienced her share of sadness and sorrow, as do we all, but I can never think of a time when she wasn't happy. I can't think of a picture I have seen of her when she wasn't smiling.
She was smart and talented, spoke fluent German (a language I could never master despite years of lessons in high school and college), and loved animals (particularly dogs), the outdoors, sex and skydiving.
And she was a writer.
Perhaps the best expression of who Ker was is on display in RED PLANET BLUES (Mothership Press, 1998), which she wrote under the name Kerry Lou. Dedicated to her mother Fran (another extraordinary woman), Red Planet, as the cover says, is about "interstellar love and the end of the world as we know it." It is the story a present-day Earth woman named Amber who falls in love with and marries a blue-skinned Martian, who comes to Earth to warn it of its destruction if humans don't change their ways.
Like Kerry, it is about fantasy and romance, and about peace, the environment and saving the planet. It is part science fiction and part erotic fiction.
(In the inscription of my signed copy, Kerry says "Martians make better lovers" and thanked me as a "fellow writer and inspiration." I'm not sure what the inspiration was about but there is a thin black journalist in the novel named Dab Mitchell. Dab is a minor character until late in the book but he does manage to get some nookie. All I could say was, as a member of the human species, I was glad to make a contribution to intergalactic peace and understanding.)
Kerry visited us both in Philadelphia and in Indianapolis. And though their encounters with Kerry were only for a day or two at a time, even my daughters remember her with joy and fondness. It is because Kerry had an incredible mind and imagination. And she reached out to my kids in an uninhibited way that made her visits memorable to them.
(Though she was invited, of course, Kerry missed my wedding. But I forgave her. She attended her sister's wedding, which was the same day.)
Kerry loved to explore the idea parallel universes and extraterrestrial or interdimensional life. And at Christmas and birthdays she would send me peace angels to help guide my way. I will truly miss those cards and greetings.
Kerry's mother and two sisters are planning a celebration of her life this Saturday in Sarasota. And it kills me that I won't be able to make it. But a 4 o'clock, I will celebrate the passing of one of my oldest friends, knowing she is soaring around somewhere with all the other peace angels.
Starting back in high school, Kerry Lou Kirch provided me with an example of how a joyous life should be lived. I will miss her but feel privileged to have known her.
May she soar in peace.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
NaNoWriMo Part I
A strange thing happened on my way to writing a novel during National Novel Writing Month last November. I changed my mind.
Actually, the change was forced on me.
Early in the year, I outlined a novel, mostly in my mind, about a man who overcomes profound professional and personal adversities. In this case, the man was a race car driver, Indy car, specifically. (Given his job, you can imagine the type of adversity he could face.)
Now as many of you know, I love auto racing, primarily open-wheel racing. (I love Indy car and Formula One, not so much NASCAR, which I watch sometimes but it isn't my favorite. Being from Indiana, you can probably understand why I love open-wheel.) I know a lot about racing but not so much from a technical angle. And while the novel wasn't going to be loaded with technical material only a gearhead could understand and love, I needed to know more about the technical side in order to give the book greater credibility. I wasn't planning to mention the ratio between aerodynamic downforce and drag, or what spring rates are, or how air temperature affects the horsepower of a normally aspirated engine. But I did have to have some understanding of those issues and more.
A guy I knew from Philadelphia was, last year, at least, working as an engineer for a top Indy car team. I connected him and planned to pick his brain on the technical side of racing, including race strategy. But then, my health became an issue and dealing with that in the late summer and fall consumed more and more of my time and intellectual energy. The upshot is that by mid-October (when I started to focus on writing fiction again), I wasn't far along in my research and didn't have time to do a proper job of it. I could still write the story but it would lack heft. And I didn't want that.
So I had to change course and pick another story, one that wouldn't require a lot of research, which I didn't have time to do. Thus started the journey that became AN UNTIDY AFFAIR.
I thought back to my time in Philadelphia and recalled a particular person I wasn't overly fond of, and I used them as the starting point. In my head -- and later with the help of my wife -- I developed that person as a character and added other characters to interact with the first. It was going to be a story about overcoming challenges (and not a crime story) but quickly it changed.
Since I knew the first person in the mid-1980s, I decided the confrontation between the radical group MOVE and Philadelphia police would be a perfect backdrop to conceal a murder.
In the week before Nov. 1, I wrote a 10-page outline of the novel and prepared to tackle the challenge of writing at least 50,000 words in less than 30 days. In addition to writing an outline (which I normally don't do), I faced a couple of other major challenges with this project. But I will get to those later.
For now, I wanted to lay out some of what got me to Nov. 1. Mustering the creative strength to move ahead was difficult at first because of the medical issues I had been staring down for a couple of months. But once I was back to serious writing, the story came quickly and easily.
And in the end, that is what I want to impress upon you now. If you want to be a writer, then write. Circumstances may change what you write but write you must. So get back to it.
But first, thanks for reading.
Actually, the change was forced on me.
Early in the year, I outlined a novel, mostly in my mind, about a man who overcomes profound professional and personal adversities. In this case, the man was a race car driver, Indy car, specifically. (Given his job, you can imagine the type of adversity he could face.)
Now as many of you know, I love auto racing, primarily open-wheel racing. (I love Indy car and Formula One, not so much NASCAR, which I watch sometimes but it isn't my favorite. Being from Indiana, you can probably understand why I love open-wheel.) I know a lot about racing but not so much from a technical angle. And while the novel wasn't going to be loaded with technical material only a gearhead could understand and love, I needed to know more about the technical side in order to give the book greater credibility. I wasn't planning to mention the ratio between aerodynamic downforce and drag, or what spring rates are, or how air temperature affects the horsepower of a normally aspirated engine. But I did have to have some understanding of those issues and more.
A guy I knew from Philadelphia was, last year, at least, working as an engineer for a top Indy car team. I connected him and planned to pick his brain on the technical side of racing, including race strategy. But then, my health became an issue and dealing with that in the late summer and fall consumed more and more of my time and intellectual energy. The upshot is that by mid-October (when I started to focus on writing fiction again), I wasn't far along in my research and didn't have time to do a proper job of it. I could still write the story but it would lack heft. And I didn't want that.
So I had to change course and pick another story, one that wouldn't require a lot of research, which I didn't have time to do. Thus started the journey that became AN UNTIDY AFFAIR.
I thought back to my time in Philadelphia and recalled a particular person I wasn't overly fond of, and I used them as the starting point. In my head -- and later with the help of my wife -- I developed that person as a character and added other characters to interact with the first. It was going to be a story about overcoming challenges (and not a crime story) but quickly it changed.
Since I knew the first person in the mid-1980s, I decided the confrontation between the radical group MOVE and Philadelphia police would be a perfect backdrop to conceal a murder.
In the week before Nov. 1, I wrote a 10-page outline of the novel and prepared to tackle the challenge of writing at least 50,000 words in less than 30 days. In addition to writing an outline (which I normally don't do), I faced a couple of other major challenges with this project. But I will get to those later.
For now, I wanted to lay out some of what got me to Nov. 1. Mustering the creative strength to move ahead was difficult at first because of the medical issues I had been staring down for a couple of months. But once I was back to serious writing, the story came quickly and easily.
And in the end, that is what I want to impress upon you now. If you want to be a writer, then write. Circumstances may change what you write but write you must. So get back to it.
But first, thanks for reading.
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