Writing vs. Writer

I've read about wanting to write vs. wanting to be a writer.

Me, I want to write more than I want to be a writer.

So what does that mean? Allow me to illustrate by telling a story.

In January of 2009, I went to the New York Comic Con. I had a still-cooling first draft of A Monstrous War in my hands and wanted to talk to some writers, editors, marketing people, and whoever else would talk to me about the industry. I wasn't going to pitch (This is not the place to pitch, and I wasn't ready anyway), I just wanted to get the lay of the land.

I spoke to an undisclosed editor, who told me point blank that this was not the time to try to sell a traditional fantasy novel. If I wanted to get published, undisclosed editor said, I should write urban fantasy. The only way traditional fantasy would be published, they said, was someone had to be in love with the book. I'm paraphrasing, but the gist was, an agent and editor had to be willing to put everything on the line to get it published.

I was told my book had better be a very special book if I had a chance.

Now, my first reaction was to say "Don't worry, it is." However, I just nodded and asked undisclosed editor how their weekend was going and wished them the best.

I could have went home, shelved A Monstrous War, and tried to write an urban fantasy novel. Actually, that's a lie -- I couldn't have done that. Because I didn't have an urban fantasy novel in my head that needed to be written.

If I wanted to be a writer more than I wanted to write, then I would have grinded one out, and maybe it would have cut the mustard in a hot market, but it wouldn't have had any spark or magic.

I want to write. I want to tell the stories I have in me that need to be told. I just don't have that mercenary quality. If someone asked me to write for an anthology, and I thought I had something worth it, I'd go for it. But if not, I'd have to pass.

Because of that, what I write is always going to have magic in it.

Conventions

Let's get right into it.

I finished the first book, and had no idea how to go forward. My query letter and synopsis weren't good and I knew it. I also had no writing mentor, group, etc. So I decided to go to a conference. I chose Pennwriter's based on which editors/agents were going to be there, and I was not disappointed. In the meantime I worked on other projects (secret for now, sorry) and went through A Monstrous War sentence by sentence.

I learned a lot and finally got some pages in the right hands.

I want to keep things shorter, in order to update more often, so next time a little about David Pomerico of Del Rey Spectra, who in about 10 minutes vastly improved my first few pages.

A Book Down

After 350 days, my first novel is in the can. The first draft took eight weeks of intense writing. I realize now that was the easy part. Its there-writes that are the real grind, going through line by line, taking out what doesn't need to be there and cleaning it up. Each re-write took as long as the first draft, and you have to sit the draft and let it cool down in your mind. That time is essential. I didn't realize how important it was to get distance from the book.

My last draft was my forth draft, and I was still finding errors and plain bad writing. And I had two good proof readers besides myself going through it. In the end, I read the whole thing, one sentence at a time, out loud, and that helped a lot.

I'm excited to get back to the first draft of the second one. I miss drafting. I used to think of it as"real writing", but really its creating. Its all real writing, but that first draft is the funnest part.

I'm back to chronicling my day to day writing, as well as doing my best to give everyone an honest look at the submission process for a first time writer, which is bound to be brutal.

There are two roads: straight to a publisher and trying to get an agent. I plan to submit to one publisher at a time while shopping agents. For those of you who don't know, its a rejection filled process. Writers tend to have fragile egos, and the rejection tends to make people quit trying.

In the end, its about belief. I have to believe that the book is good and not give up. This is the sort of thing that no one can do for you - you have to find it in yourself. Its not anyone else's dream, its yours.

Polishing

Yes, I know. But I'm back now. Don't be mad, baby.

So, I've been polishing A Monstrous War. Its shiny.

What comes next is querying and submitting samples. I am not going to lie, I'm scared. I guess this is where a lot of new authors wash out. They have the product but are afraid of the rejection.

I'm feeling that.

There are a lot of excuses. Its a bad time in the market. Its a worse time for traditional fantasy. Saturn is obscuring Uranus, etc.

But the truth is I'm just plain scared. I know I have a good book. Now I have to get the right people to look at it.

A Monstrous War, the 2nd Draft

Once again, I have to give credit to Stephen King's On Writing. I used it as a guidebook when I tackled the second draft of A Monstrous War.

When I was writing the first draft, I didn't let anyone read it. I'd call my close friends and read them a few paragraphs here and there. Writing can be very lonely, and I needed a little encouragement. I'm not going to lie...I only read them the best bits.

As an aside, I write for other people. I write to entertain. I know some people write for themselves, but I can't imagine that. I could never write something and pack it away in a box. So when I finished the first draft, I was dying to have people read it.

I made ten copies and thought about who would get one. Half the people I chose were readers of the fantasy genre. The other half - not so much. Half were familiar with my fictional world, its characters and history, and the other half had no idea. I wanted a few total noobies, and here's why:

Fantasy is a strange genre. When you write a mystery book set in NY or LA, you assume that the readers know what a car is, or how an elevator works. But when you make everything up there is a definite worry that the reader is going to have no idea what the hell you are talking about. I wanted to know if I had written a book that was accessible and comprehensible. (Also, this might be why urban fantasy is becoming so popular. The real world settings are easily identifiable and don't require such a jump.)

So I passed out the copies and waited for someone, anyone to finish it. This was the single most nerve wracking period in the process. Would people like it? If they didn't, would they be honest and tell me? We're talking about friends here. It's hard to ask a total stranger to read a book for you.

A friend of mine whose opinion I highly value finished it first. He's very good at tearing apart stories, the sort that sits down to watch a movie and always knows what's going to happen next. Also, he's not the type that is going to spare your feelings.

His review was very positive. My impression was that he a little shocked at how much he liked it. He admitted he had been worried that it would suck and he'd have to tell me so. We talked about the book and what it needed, where it was slow, what characters needed more "camera time". All his suggestions made good sense. I took notes while we talked, thanked him profusely and hung up so I could go breakdance in my living room.

Other reviews began to trickle in. All the reviews were positive, but let's face it, it's your friends and family. The trick was to get people's real feelings out of them.

If someone just said "it's good", I ignored them. Passing the draft out wasn't an ego-building exercise. I needed honest feedback. If they asked questions about the characters (as in they want to know what happens next) or bring things that happened in the book up casually when we were just hanging out, then I realized they really liked it. If they never mentioned it again, chances were I was being humored.

Certain threads began to emerge. When five people tell you the book needs a certain thing, it's time to listen. I'm not the sort that holds his writing sacred, let's get that out of the way.

According to On Writing, you're supposed to let the book rest for eight weeks. This gives you time to forget about it a little. It puts distance between you and the book. I'm not going to lie, I thought but for a few grammar/spelling issues my first draft was golden.

Still, I put it down and tried not to touch it...

...and failed miserably. Every day I'd crack it open, read a few pages, then make myself stop. I didn't make any changes, I just would hold it and flip through it and assure myself that yes, I had written a book. It was real. I carried it around with me like it was a child or a new pet. After reading it once (or twice), I was finally able to leave it alone.

On February 4th, the eight weeks were up and it was okay to look at it. I sat down to open it up and found that I was terrified. Every day, the same thing, paralyzed by fear. Two weeks went by before I realized why I was so scared.

I'd never written a second draft before.

I told myself: "Look Self, you didn't know how to write a first draft either and that didn't stop you. Do you really want to be a writer? Is this your dream or what? Are you going to wuss out now because you might fail?"

Damn straight. That Self guy is a hardass, just listen to him. So I sat down and opened the book up and I learned something.

My first drafts are ugly.

Holy crap was it ugly. Remember when I said I was worried about it being comprehensible? Yeah, I guess so, because I said the same thing over and over again. All over it was the sign of a writer who was worried he wouldn't be understood. Also there was a writer who was at times too timid.

"It was as if..."

I used that a lot. Let me make up an example real quick.

"It was as if the man had a limp."

Yeah, guess what pal? He has a limp. Delete that junk.

"It seemed that..."

"It seemed that he was out of orange juice."

No, he's just out of orange juice. Delete, delete, delete.

Also I had fallen in love with the word "great". As in "the great doors of the castle....he drew his great sword....she had a great love for roasted chicken."

Can I just say I'm not the thesaurus type? Writing the first draft, I was just getting my words down, man. I don't like to stop and look words up. I think you can trap yourself trying to craft the perfect sentence, or find just the right word, when you should just forge ahead.

So I got out my shears and started pruning. I reminded myself to be bold with my writing. I took out as many adjectives and adverbs as possible.

I deleted a great many greats.

What else? A lot of sentences had too many words. I combined sentences and deleted whole paragraphs. Looking at it now, they won't be missed.

I added new passages where they needed to be added, fleshed out characters people (rightly) suggested needed more attention.

Between the fist and second drafts I somehow added around 3,000 words. I have zero idea how that happened. I remember adding three new scenes, each about a page long. And I revised a few things, but they seemed around the same length.

I've read that that when it comes to writers, they either a natural adders or subtractors. I guess I'm an adder. But anytime I went to add something, I made damn sure it belonged here.

If it doesn't move the story, build the world, or build the characters, what the hell is it doing in there?

I finished the second draft on March 29, 2009. So, give or take six weeks.

The time had come for a few trusted souls to read it again and scrub it clean, so I could try to sell it.

A Monstrous War, the 1st Draft

Before I get into how I wrote the first draft of A Monstrous War, I have to give credit where credit is due. I owe a lot to Stephen King's On Writing. Whether or not you're a fan of Mr. King, if you're a prospective writer, this book is a must read. It gave me the structure, guidance, and the kick in the butt I needed to sit down and write a book.

I started writing A Monstrous War on October 12, 2009. At first, I resolved to sit down every Sunday and write for 8 hours. I wanted to write 2000 words a week, and in a year have a first draft done.

That first Sunday, sitting in the sun room of my grandmother's lake house, hearing the water outside, it took me around three hours to get down 2,000 words. It went much quicker than I had hoped, so I decided that every day I'd sit down and write a minimum of 1000 words, more if I was on a roll.

At the end of the first week, I had 16,000 words. I again revised my plan. I was going to get serious. I would write 2,000 words every day, just like Stephen King and Isaac Asimov.

And I did. Some days it was easy. If the road was clear at 2,000 words, I'd keep going until I hit a bump. On my best days I'd cruise to 5,000 words and when I was done I'd sit there in utter disbelief that I had done it. Other days it was like running a marathon. I'd be checking word count every 200 words, wondering if the damn thing was broken. But I never gave up until the 2,000 words were done.

All the while I fought doubt and worry. Was it any good? I thought some of it was, and believe me, I'm pretty hard of myself. Was it going to be a book? I mean, what if I told the story I wanted to tell and it was only 100 pages? That isn't a book.

I hoped to hit 70,000 words. I didn't try to hit it, I just told the story I had in mind and when I sailed over the 70,000 word mark I breathed a sigh of relief.

I learned a lot of things about myself writing the book. I learned that for some reason, once I had gotten my words in the new ideas would come. I'd get up from the desk then run back in half a dozen times to type notes into my outline document.

I learned that when you work every day, the book takes over your mind. You're always running back to the laptop to make a few notes. In the shower, things start coming and you fight to hold onto them, running to the laptop dripping with a towel held around yourself.

Did I always know where I was going? Well, I knew how the book ended before I had committed a single word to the paper. I am an ending oriented writer...I know where my characters will end up. Most of the time I start with the ending, or its clear to me early on how things will end.

While I knew the ending, sometimes I had no clue how i was going to get there. But I knew my characters, and I knew what they wanted. Knowing that, it became clear what they would have to do and where the book would go.

On 12/10/2009, I finished the first draft. If you write 2000 words a day for 60 days, you have a 120,000 word book.