The editor of our town paper asked me to write about how the books were written. This was in this weeks edition with a few changes he made:
Officially, my first serious attempt at writing a novel was a science fiction adventure called Timelash. It took me years and years to write and I eventually offered the few people who had read it $5.00 not to tell anyone about it. After that I wrote a few short stories here and there but writing was really something I did in odd moments without much progress.
Several years ago that all changed when I saw that BBC books was accepting unsolicited proposal for their Dr Who book range. Having been a fan of the series for about as long as I can remember I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I was determined to make it work so I set about writing Dr Who: Shadows of the Past. I understand a lot of writers will start with the proposal and, if there is some interest, go ahead and write. I’ve never felt comfortable doing things that way so I did the opposite and wrote the novel first.
In the past one of my problems with writing was self discipline. I’d think about it for a while, a few weeks, a month, then write something over a few days and go back to the thinking phase. Knowing how much I was wasting time that way I sat down and forced myself to write every day. No matter what I sat down at least once a day to write. Some days I’d get home from work at midnight and add a question mark, some nights I’d take one out, but there were also nights I’d be up until sunrise. I kept at it and thirty weeks and 110,000 words later I finished a novel. It was great, I was proud of it, and I sent my submission off to the BBC.
Considering it was a novel about time travel it’s ironic that timing was against me. Just after I made the submission the BBC announced that they were reviving the series and, to avoid confusion with new fans, bringing the book ranges to an end. That was it! It could have been a classic story, piece of junk, or something in between but I’ll never know if it would have been published or not. The other downside about writing that book was there was there was only one place I could send it to get published so that was the end of the road.
There were two good things, however, that came from the experience. One was that I had gotten into the habit of writing every single day and it was second nature to produce fiction. The other was that I was now confident I could do a full length novel. It was time to write without a net.
So I spent some time tossing around a few ideas and one night I started to wonder about a mountain so high the people thought it could reach the stars. What kind of secrets would be found there? That was the idea that started this project. That was easy. The next step was to create the characters that would inhabit this world that was the hard part.
The first character was a 17 year old, then a 22 year old young man, then a 16 year old orphan. The ideas were coming fast and furious and they were all incredibly boring. I couldn’t stand any of them. I might as well have called them Ben There and Don That because there was nothing in them I hadn’t seen before.
Going back to Dr Who, all things go back to Dr Who, I remembered how much I liked the main character I had introduced. Ok, so, there were three good things that came from the unpublished experience. This character was smart, she was tough, and she was exciting to write. With a few changes in her own history I transplanted her into the Land of Starpoint and, after that, everything fell into place. With Gallif as my main character I started writing on December 8th, 2005, my birthday, and 54 weeks and 170,000 words later the first draft was done.
Then I had the decision of where to take it to get published. The two choices were to shop it around to agents and publishers. That is the traditional way of doing things but it’s a long and difficult process. Most publishers won’t even look at your work without an agent and most agents won’t look at you without having something published. It’s a catch 22 that you can wait in limbo for months to get a generic rejection slip. The other choice was self publishing. The advantage of it is you have complete control, no one finalizes your book but you, so you know what gets published. The down side of it is, even though it’s print on demand, you also have to pay to get it together. No big machine to take care of the advertising either. Lulu publishing was the best option I could find.
Rewrite, rewrite, title change, rewrite, corrections from Molly and a fantastic cover from Jesse followed and The Secrets of Starpoint Mountain was officially unveiled in the world of self-publishing in January of 2008. At that point it was too late to turn back. More writing every day and corrections from Molly, Beverly, and another cover from Jesse and Shadows of Starpoint Mountain is on the shelves. The third book in the series, Ghosts of Starpoint Mountain, well underway and I expect that to be on the shelves in another year.
A fourth book? Yes. After that? To be continued…
Several years ago that all changed when I saw that BBC books was accepting unsolicited proposal for their Dr Who book range. Having been a fan of the series for about as long as I can remember I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I was determined to make it work so I set about writing Dr Who: Shadows of the Past. I understand a lot of writers will start with the proposal and, if there is some interest, go ahead and write. I’ve never felt comfortable doing things that way so I did the opposite and wrote the novel first.
In the past one of my problems with writing was self discipline. I’d think about it for a while, a few weeks, a month, then write something over a few days and go back to the thinking phase. Knowing how much I was wasting time that way I sat down and forced myself to write every day. No matter what I sat down at least once a day to write. Some days I’d get home from work at midnight and add a question mark, some nights I’d take one out, but there were also nights I’d be up until sunrise. I kept at it and thirty weeks and 110,000 words later I finished a novel. It was great, I was proud of it, and I sent my submission off to the BBC.
Considering it was a novel about time travel it’s ironic that timing was against me. Just after I made the submission the BBC announced that they were reviving the series and, to avoid confusion with new fans, bringing the book ranges to an end. That was it! It could have been a classic story, piece of junk, or something in between but I’ll never know if it would have been published or not. The other downside about writing that book was there was there was only one place I could send it to get published so that was the end of the road.
There were two good things, however, that came from the experience. One was that I had gotten into the habit of writing every single day and it was second nature to produce fiction. The other was that I was now confident I could do a full length novel. It was time to write without a net.
So I spent some time tossing around a few ideas and one night I started to wonder about a mountain so high the people thought it could reach the stars. What kind of secrets would be found there? That was the idea that started this project. That was easy. The next step was to create the characters that would inhabit this world that was the hard part.
The first character was a 17 year old, then a 22 year old young man, then a 16 year old orphan. The ideas were coming fast and furious and they were all incredibly boring. I couldn’t stand any of them. I might as well have called them Ben There and Don That because there was nothing in them I hadn’t seen before.
Going back to Dr Who, all things go back to Dr Who, I remembered how much I liked the main character I had introduced. Ok, so, there were three good things that came from the unpublished experience. This character was smart, she was tough, and she was exciting to write. With a few changes in her own history I transplanted her into the Land of Starpoint and, after that, everything fell into place. With Gallif as my main character I started writing on December 8th, 2005, my birthday, and 54 weeks and 170,000 words later the first draft was done.
Then I had the decision of where to take it to get published. The two choices were to shop it around to agents and publishers. That is the traditional way of doing things but it’s a long and difficult process. Most publishers won’t even look at your work without an agent and most agents won’t look at you without having something published. It’s a catch 22 that you can wait in limbo for months to get a generic rejection slip. The other choice was self publishing. The advantage of it is you have complete control, no one finalizes your book but you, so you know what gets published. The down side of it is, even though it’s print on demand, you also have to pay to get it together. No big machine to take care of the advertising either. Lulu publishing was the best option I could find.
Rewrite, rewrite, title change, rewrite, corrections from Molly and a fantastic cover from Jesse followed and The Secrets of Starpoint Mountain was officially unveiled in the world of self-publishing in January of 2008. At that point it was too late to turn back. More writing every day and corrections from Molly, Beverly, and another cover from Jesse and Shadows of Starpoint Mountain is on the shelves. The third book in the series, Ghosts of Starpoint Mountain, well underway and I expect that to be on the shelves in another year.
A fourth book? Yes. After that? To be continued…
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