Folks, Several of you have asked me about the writing process. I think others of you who know me well are saying to yourselves, “How does ‘average working guy’ write a book?” You want to know; how do you start? What do you do? How do you know when a project is finished? These are all important, thoughtful questions. I have to assume that you have asked these questions because in the far reaches of your gray matter you have a thought to consider commencing your own project, in which case, I applaud you. It has been said that everyone has at least one good book in them. I agree with that and believe the real trick is being able to articulate that story on paper in such a way as to be organized, creative, balanced, rhythmic, and entertaining. You can see by my work that even average folks CAN tell a story. That means if I can do it, you probably could, too if you put your mind to the task. Or the way I like to think of it, if Al Franken can write a book, anyone can. We all have a skill set…and obvious voids where we lack them. For me, fixing a car is an insurmountable challenge, but mere child’s play for David Minton and his group as well as my brother and cousin. I was not blessed with that gene. However, for those of you contemplating your own body of writing (or lack thereof at this point in your life) and want to pursue a project, I offer this free advice from my experience gained while writing Striker’s Gold, hoping it may encourage or assist your own ambitions to share your tale with the world, if that is what you wish. Striker’s Gold is not my first writing project. My desk at home looks like this: I have no less than nineteen writing projects there. One is finished and published. Ten are completed, four are in process, two are continuous, two are abandoned. You might conclude that I would be frustrated by all this incomplete work. Certainly not the case. The point I make here is don’t get discouraged. Nothing good or productive will come out of harboring, feeding frustration. If you start a project and get stuck for whatever reason, put it up and hang on to it. It’s not a sign of a personal failure—these early writing projects are valuable and will be a learning process for you and your brain. Put it down and start on something else maybe. If the first project on your mind was any good and was worth completing you will realize that when you open it up in six months, or else when you do reopen it you might say to yourself, “Where was I even going with that?” And thus you save your time and frustration by abandoning it. So don’t be apprehensive about exploring a writing project. You can learn a lot about your own writing style and develop your skills by attempting a few creative writing projects. For example, my first big project was justifiably abandoned; put away on the shelf in 1988. I always wanted to finish it, polish it, and make it work out. In 1987 I thought it would be a fantastic thriller. But when I returned to it a decade later I reread it, and was so embarrassed by it that I hope to this day that all existing printed drafts (wherever they may be—and no fair checking Ebay!) will never be found by anyone. I am grateful that the only man who actually read the draft for me is now deceased and cannot tell the tale. It was supposed to be a serious fiction but the story just can’t work and goes nowhere. Readers of it may be bored to suicide if laughter at its implausibility did not kill them first. But it was not a failure as I came to understand that my writing style did not fit that kind of story. That was clear and I wasted no more time on it, thus saving the time, effort and energy I would have expended on trying to fix it. Striker’s gold took me two years to complete after I already had nine of the nineteen projects on my desk. Of all these projects, it became apparent to me that Striker’s had the best shot for entertaining a broad audience, and the writing flowed so naturally for me that I was composing paragraphs in my head at all hours of the day and night. I would jot a few lines at lunch time, and in the middle of the night, but that told me I needed to really focus on it at home and move it forward. So it went to the top of the project list. I delved into research, reading history books of the American West and jotting down a few dozen pages of notes. Striker’s Gold is actually based on a real life gold strike discovered by a fellow during the gold rush. I would not have known that without the research. I also wanted to peg certain themes and activities that take place in the story to the real life time line of the west. I think this makes the story more credible –which I believe to be the real magic in writing realistic fiction. Of course if you are wanting to write about unicorns or American politics, you won’t be burdened with the need for much research. Don’t discount the value of reading. If you come to a point where the writing in you stops, don’t beat yourself up trying to force yourself to write something. Take some time off during your project and read a book you like. My personal belief is that if you are not writing something, you should be reading something. You don’t have to be in a hurry here. You want to produce the best product you can, after all, what you publish to the world will speak volumes about you, and cannot easily be undone. Yes, you will discover as I have that it takes much intestinal fortitude to put your work out there—but no guts, no glory! For what else I have learned along the way I am happy to share with aspiring writers—except Jason Webb who has already published an excellent book of his own. I absolutely don’t consider myself an expert writer, but I will be glad to coach or help encourage any of you who have that little creative seed in the back of your mind and wish to cultivate it to find out what fruit it may bear. It will take time, patience, perseverance, temperance and much creativity, but I think you can do it if you really wanted to.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 01:01:01 +0000