writing

A book in the hand is worth four waiting for edits

/ Scott Nagele / 4 Comments

The last time I wrote a post here about my writing projects, and I’m ashamed to say how long ago that was, I wrote about a four-book series in which I was knee-deep at the time. The good news is that I finished writing that series. The bad news is all the post-writing difficulties. Professional editing alone represents a prohibitive cost to the production of the set. And that’s just one of the things that needs to happen to the adolescent manuscripts before they can grow up to be big, strong books.

While considering how to embark upon that transition (i.e. banging my head against a wall), I have not been completely idle in other areas, except for blogging, in which pursuit I have been near completely idle. While I have not been blogging, or producing a marketable series, I have been working on this:

Granted, it’s not a series. It’s just a solitary novel. But on the plus side, it has been professionally edited. More to its credit, it has a cover, front and back. It’s even formatted in an easily-readable fashion. It may be a little thing (compared to a multi-book saga), but it’s very nearly done. That is to say, it’s almost an actual book, the kind people could buy and read if the fancy so struck them. And as Hans Christian Andersen was wont to say, “That is certainly something.” (Disclaimer: I don’t really know what Hans said in Danish; but the English translations usually amount to the quote above.)

If I click all the right buttons on the right web pages, this book will be released in May, 2023. If I don’t, it’s off to remedial button-clicking class for me. Anyway, enough about my technology issues, here’s the marketing blurb.

Emma and her parents share recurring dreams, in which they are a different family, living 100 years ago in an unfamiliar place, and heading toward tragedy. When Emma’s parents discover their dream family actually existed, it becomes clear that these visits to the past are more than mere dreams—they are playing an unseen role in this historical family’s lives. As the century-old history of this troubled family materializes, it reveals the truth that the impending tragedy spells doom for both families. Only five-year-old Emma has the power to avert disaster, but it will require extraordinary courage against overwhelming evil for Emma to save both families from destruction in The Other Place.

I will post more updates about this book through its publication. In theory, this will serve the dual purposes of building awareness about the book and making me back into the sort of active blogger I used to be. It may also give me something better to do than bang my head against the wall trying to discover a way to manage the production of four hefty novels in succession. That would be the icing on the cake, but a good cake without any icing would be enough for me right now.

The Series Saga: one book, two books, three books, four

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It’s been two years since I posted my first update on what I’ve come to call the Series Saga. At the time of that first update, I’d already been working on the project for more than a year. Now, three years in, I hope I’ve reached the halfway point, but I really don’t know. It’ll take as long as it takes, I guess.

The Series Saga, for those who haven’t been following along, or those who forgot since my last update, 11 months ago, is my quest to turn one over-long novel into a series of novels in a major writing construction project.

READ THE SAGA FROM THE BEGINNING here

As of my last update, the series stood at three books. For reasons I enumerated at the time, I hoped it would not grow to four books.

A lot can change in 11 months. I went from hoping against a fourth book to seeing the need for a fourth book to accepting the fact of a fourth book to writing a fourth book.

I am now slightly more than halfway through writing the draft of the fourth book, which is actually the third book in the series. The chronological fourth book was the first book written. All this jiggery-pokery is explained in the earlier updates (sort of).

The good news is I’m confident I can close all the gaps with this fourth book (a.k.a. book 3) between the third book and the first book, which are actually books 2 and 4 in the storyline. In case you are marking your scorecard at home, this means the second book written is book 1 in the series.

Simple really.

“Mr. Dewey, are we supposed to organize these books in the order they were written, or in the order they fall in the narrative?”

The other good news is nobody needs to know or care in what order I wrote the books. Even if you weren’t marking your scorecard at home, you’re off the hook. The pop quiz has been canceled.

I mentioned, in an earlier update, my belief that it’s probably better to write a series in order. If the above paragraphs don’t illustrate why, nothing will. Every time I want to talk about this project, I feel like I need to make an illustrative chart. Graph paper isn’t on any lists of writing supplies.

Anyhow, I feel pretty good about being able to close out the story with all the pieces fitting into place. I feel pretty bad about what comes after that. Writing a 1200-page story in four self-contained parts shouldn’t be the easy part. I keep telling myself that like it’s going to become the truth.

False.

Writing a 1200-page yada, yada, yada, is the easy part. This makes me a little sad because there’s a part of me that feels like it should be an accomplishment. There’s a part of me that feels like pizza shouldn’t be cooked on a conveyor belt, too, and that part is also often disappointed.

For now, I still have nearly half a book to write, so I guess I’ll try to enjoy what’s left of my breezy fun time.

 

Last of the Good Proctololgists – flash fiction

/ Scott Nagele / 9 Comments

Sheila found her husband sitting at the table on the back patio. His face was ashen and he stared off into space. His mouth hung open a bit. His iPhone sat face down on the table.

“What’s the matter, Mike?” she asked. “You look like somebody died.”

“Worse,” he said without taking his eyes off the space before him. “Somebody retired.”

“That’s worse than death?”

He gave a little shrug. “Maybe not worse, but just as bad.”

Sharon sat down across the table from him. “I see. Was it expected or did it come out of the blue?”

“Came out of the blue, to me anyway.” Mike’s eyes fell toward his phone. “I called to make my colonoscopy appointment today. They told me Dr. Mullens retired.”

Sheila let out an exaggerated breath. “He’s probably not a day over 75 either. I can’t believe he would do this to you.”

Mike nodded his head ruefully. “I know. Left me in a pretty big lurch.”

Sheila leaned forward. “Mike, honey, I’m sure there are other proctologists in town.”

“There are,” Mike replied. “I checked. There are exactly three other proctologists in town, and not one of ‘em worth a damn.”

“How do you know that?”

He stared at his phone. “I looked them up online. Horrible reviews all around. Not a one of ‘em rates more than two and half stars.”

Sheila sighed. “Some days I regret buying you that smart phone. The kids tried to tell me you’d do better with a Jitterbug.”

“Well, maybe I’ll just quit the colonoscopies. At a certain age, what does it matter anymore? Something’s bound to take you out soon anyhow.”

“Mike, you’re 55. It’s a little soon to surrender to old age. You’ve got to get the exam; they found three polyps last time and you have the gene in your family.”

Mike made a muted motion of throwing his arms up. “I don’t know how I can get it done now, with Mullens abandoning me. It’s not like we’re in New York City or someplace, where they got a proctologist on every corner. We got three, and two of ‘em almost killed somebody, according to the accounts I read.”

Sheila picked up his phone and began tapping on the screen.

“What are you doing?” Mike asked.

“Looking up flights to New York.”

Mike reached out and swiped the phone from her. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not riding a plane to my colonoscopy.”

Sheila tilted her head a little. “Then you got to go to one of them here.”

“But they’re butchers! If I’m gonna die from medical malpractice, I want it to be during brain surgery or something. I don’t want to go from an ass wound.”

“Well, what about the one who didn’t almost kill somebody?”

“Has a horrible bedside manner. He’s callous and rude to patients.”

Sheila pursed her lips. “So, he’s a real asshole?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds like the perfect guy for the job.”

 

 

Why you shouldn’t write a novel series backward

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

For starters, you probably shouldn’t write a single novel backward. Novels are kind of long for that sort of jiggery-pokery. Short stories are fine. I’m all for writing them backward. They are small enough to see from all angles in your mind. A novel series is like a train of trailers hitched behind a truck – tricky to drive backward.

I’ve documented how I got in the awkward spot of writing a series backward, or at least from the inside out, in previous posts. Here’s the back story for those who missed them.

I had a novel that was too long, so I decided to divide it into two books. This seemed like a good idea for a while, until it became clear that my two books would have to be three.  The third book would need to consist of a bulk of new storytelling in between the other two. At the time of my last update, I had finished drafts of the two outside books and was staring at the daunting prospect of building a bridge book that would fit together with the books on either end.

The whole story:    Update1    Update2    Update3

Now that I’ve got the support beams in place, to the tune of about 130 pages of new middle, I’m staring at the prospect (and you may have guessed this if you read the previous updates) of splitting the middle book in two, giving me a total of four books.

This is not what I wanted, and it’s possible that I may be able to hold it to three, but with each passing chapter, four becomes more likely. After 130 pages, I still have lots of ground to cover. If I could do it in another 130, that would wrap things up in three books. I begin to doubt I can.

Make sure the bridge is finished before you drive your series backward over it.

Why is four books bad? In a perfect world, it’s not. But in a perfect world, I would be writing these books in order. In a perfect world, I might even have the resources of a publishing company behind me.

From the writing standpoint, four books is no problem. As I progress, my confidence in my ability to tie four books together into a viable series grows. I can tell the story.

The headache comes after the writing. Taking a single novel from manuscript to book is a difficult task for an independent author. By the time I am done with all my patchwork writing, I could have four books to shepherd through that journey. Because I am not writing them chronologically, they must all be written before any one of them is finished.

Arranging for editing, covers, layout, etc. of four books in quick succession is crazy daunting. True, I would have to eventually do all that, even if I wrote them in order, but in that case the production pieces would be more staggered, with writing time in between.

I know it amounts to the same thing in the end, but it looks like a huge wall to get beyond, rather than four separate, manageable walls.

Nevertheless, I’m the one who put this train into reverse gear, so I ‘m the one who has to bear down and figure out how to keep it on the tracks.