Writing

Posts about writing.

You want to write a novel, but life gets in the way

/ Scott Nagele / 8 Comments

I read a lot of blogs these days; it’s the unintended consequence of becoming a blogger. One thing I have discovered from reading blogs is that even among bloggers who don’t blog about fiction, there are many who are working on writing a novel. Even more dream of writing a novel.

Bloggers, with some exceptions, blog because they have stories to tell. A fair number of them have special stories kicking around in their heads, waiting to spill out into great novels.

I’m still searching for commercial success as a novelist myself. But as someone who has written a handful of novels, maybe I can offer some advice and inspiration to those who feel daunted by the prospect of finishing, or even beginning, their novel.

To begin with, I have good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad news because that’s what writers would want first.

The Bad News: You’ll probably have to write more than one novel, if you want to build a readership for your work. The age of the Harper Lees is gone. Hell, Harper Lee isn’t even a Harper Lee anymore.

The Good News: Once you finish the first novel, you’ll realize how non-daunting writing novels can be. You may even become eager to start another.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s the first one that’s the trouble. How do you make it happen?

Assuming you’ve got a good story to tell, you tell it in the same way you tackle every other life challenge: one day at a time.

A daily routine

Captain Scott was on a mission to reach the South Pole and he still found a few minutes every day to write. Okay, so maybe not the best example of a success story, but you get the point. (Image: H.G. Ponting)

The secret every aspiring novelist should know is that you don’t have to put your life on hold to write a novel. But you do have to make it a part of your daily life.

It doesn’t have to be a big part as long as the commitment is there. If you write a mere 500 words a day, excluding weekends, in two weeks you’ve got 5,000 words. And you may be surprised to learn how often you can write those 500 words in half an hour. In eight months, you’d have a respectable 80,000-word first draft. The caveat is that the words have to advance the plot; your characters can’t lose focus and go on about the weather, unless the weather is about to kill somebody.

A daily 500 words is fine, but how do you consistently move the plot? Trust your characters. Let them do the logical things for interesting people to do in their unique circumstances. Also, don’t wait until you’re on the clock for your novel to happen. The most time-intensive part of writing a novel is not hammering out the story at the keyboard; it’s thinking about the story. This you can do while you’re walking the dog or waiting in the car line at your kids’ school.

If you can’t meet your goal one day, make it up when you’re on a roll. In between, think about how the place you’re in fits into the big picture. Use the writing and non-writing parts of writing a novel together to problem solve. Write the scenes; think the big picture. Novels happen one little bit at a time.

And after you’ve finished your novel, what do you do with it? Maybe somebody smarter than I am will answer that question.

If you truly love me, you’ll ignore my screams of terror

/ Scott Nagele / Leave a comment

Like many things in life, writing is a roller coaster ride. But it’s a ride that most writers can manage by themselves, or with the encouragement of a small group of peers. The scarier roller coaster departs the platform after the book is written. This is the hell ride known as promotion.

Promotion is a huge, daunting monster you can’t work out in your own head while sitting quietly. If you are a low-key, quiet type of person, it can be difficult to even board this ride without lots of support. It’s important to have a few people who love you. It’s also good to have some people who like you.

The people who love you, a spouse for example, can help psyche you up for this ride that goes so much against your nature. They comfort you and coax you toward the car, then, when necessary, in the ultimate act of love, they give you a good shove into the seat and slap down the restraint bar over your arms. You know you need to do this, but it’s hard to overcome your nature. Only the most cherished loved ones will be there to tenderly ignore your screams of terror and lock you in before you can run away.

If you are that shy, quiet writer, do yourself a favor by marrying someone completely opposite from you. Find someone who likes to plan events, rocks social media, and has no qualms about tooting your horn for you, because face it, you’ve never been any good at tooting it yourself. Your better half makes it sound much more melodious than you ever did.

running the show

“You just hold your hands out and smile big, and I’ll make sure this whole ball of yarn happens.”

Do your best to make sure they love you, because they really excel at these things when their heart is in it.

If they are the best thing you’ve got going for you in life, they will also be the best thing you’ve got going promoting your books.

This crazy ride is also easier if you have people who like you. These are the people who show up to your signings and pay their hard-earned money for your books, not because they are sure you are this generation’s Steinbeck, but because they like you and they want to show you some support.

They get excited about having you sign their copies, not because your autograph promises to become valuable, but because your signature is a memento from that time when they watched you reach for the stars, regardless of how close you came to touching any sky.

A little help

It’s nice to have friends to look out for you when your comfort zone gets turned upside down.

I’ve always tried to be likeable to the people I know. This has paid off in the support I have received from them. I wonder what would happen if I had spent more time getting to know a larger group of people. But that’s where my nature limits me again. At least I didn’t spend my life pissing off my relatively small group, so I’ve got that going for me.

And that’s a good start.

Book release: A Housefly in Autumn

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

Since I began this blog, last September, I’ve been talking about my forthcoming book, A Housefly in Autumn. Before I started this blog, I owned a traditional web site. There, I talked about my forthcoming novel for even longer. Altogether, I’ve spent a long time talking about something happening in the future. If you saw any of these mentions, you may have begun to wonder if the future would ever get here. I know there were times when I did.

It took its sweet time, but the future has arrived.

Available in Kindle and paper

If you buy the paperback at Amazon, you can download the Kindle version for free. Just in case you can’t decide which you like best.

Today is that day. I can finally hold a real live copy of A Housefly in Autumn in my hands. I can download the e-book to my Kindle. In fact, I have already done both of these things, and now so can you.

A Housefly in Autumn is available in paper and Kindle formats.

Where to buy:

Amazon Barnes & Noble Createspace
Paperback Paperback Paperback
Kindle

This book has taken longer to publish than my previous ones. The editing, the proofing, the cover art, it’s all been a longer trek. That’s why this day is sweeter to me than past release days. It’s the culmination of more investment, more sweat and toil.

That also may be part of the reason there’s more trepidation than before. There’s more toil at risk. But the toil can’t be undone so it might as well be pushed with all the other chips into the pot.

I’m all in. Now I get to see what kind of hand I’ve dealt myself.

Introducing:

A Housefly in Autumn

                Book Description

A Housefly in Autumn is intended for Young Adults and up. A historical novel, set in 19th century Europe, it follows the life of a young man whose dreams have crumbled down around him. In an act of heroism, he sacrifices his own promising future to save the life of another. Now he must decide whether to cling to the unlikely hope of regaining his old life, or aim his efforts toward making the most of the life fate has dealt him. Though it is difficult to let go of the rewards that life once promised, perhaps the greatest rewards are the ones earned by building new hope from the bits and pieces of wrecked dreams.

                Synopsis

At 17, Anders Christiansen was a young man overflowing with potential. All his teachers believed he was destined to blossom into a leading man of letters, enjoying a life of rich rewards.

That was before the accident.

Now, Anders’s great talent lies fallow. He can’t produce the complex ideas he once did. His thoughts are slow and his words simple. The world holds little promise for him anymore.

Struggling to build a meaningful life out of the wreckage of his dreams, Anders learns the value of simple treasures. Loyalty, devotion, and even sacrifice hold rewards of their own to renew hope after tragedy. Love can cause hurt, but he who gives love when he hurts the most will reap a joy outweighing the pain.

Anders gives meaning to his life in the way he spends it. He will face grave danger to spare those he loves, and though his gifts be diminished, he will share them freely with even the humblest of children. Though never sought, Anders’s reward is immense and enduring, showing the millions of reasons to go on sharing even the simplest of gifts.

 

So now I guess I have to find some new future event to start talking about. Fortunately, my future is full of things that probably will happen but might take longer than I expect. There will be plenty to talk about.

The 5 stages of self-publishing

/ Scott Nagele / Leave a comment

This book is going to happen. I’ve approved the final proof, and more importantly, I’ve entered the last psychological stage of self-publishing.

Some might claim self-publishing is nothing but grief. I wouldn’t go that far, though it does bring its fair share of grief with it. Looking back over the years it’s taken me to produce A Housefly in Autumn, I realize I’ve gone through at least five stages self-publishing. If you are familiar with self-publishing, you may recognize some of these emotions.

Denial

This thing will never come together. You’ve rewritten it over and over, and it’s still not right. You don’t know why you spend so much time on this project. If you ever get a decent book out of it, it won’t be worth all this aggravation. Maybe you should just start something else. But what? You’ll just work on this until you come up with an idea for something totally kickass that writes itself.

Anger

Why do you have to have this compulsion to write? Why couldn’t you have been a painter? Then, you’d just paint a picture and be done with it. Now, you’ve got to locate beta readers, editors, a cover artist, and God knows who else. Too bad writing doesn’t involve more writing and less coordinating. If you wanted to run a business, you’d open a coffee shop.

Bargaining

Okay, you may not agree with all the beta readers’ criticisms, but you have to address them. They are representative readers and you can’t afford to ignore their suggestions. You’ll address their concerns, but only to the point that it doesn’t turn the story into something you don’t mean it to be. It should appeal the greatest possible number of readers, but it still has to be the story you want to tell.

Depression (mostly simple anxiety)

This is getting to the point of no return. It’s a new genre for you. You wonder if you did it right. Does it even fit into a genre? Have you come up between genres? Is the tone right? Are the characters likeable enough? Are they too likeable? Do they need a harder edge? Is the writing style universal enough? Is there enough emotion? Is the emotion over the top? Too many commas?

Acceptance

It’s done. Some will like it; some won’t. You could toil over it for 20 more years and it would still be the same: some will like it; some won’t. There’s no point in worrying anymore. You wanted to be a writer didn’t you? This will give you a good chance to see how that whole thing is working out for you. If you want to be a success, you’ve got to take the risk and put yourself out there. If worst comes to worst, with all your self-publishing experience, you could probably open a coffee shop.

 

Author anxiety

“Don’t worry about it, James. You put lots of unnecessary words into the novel, didn’t you? Then I’m sure people will love The Back Woods Guy who Couldn’t Resist Giving Long-winded Speeches to the Last of the Mohicans.”