Category Archives: Role of the Writer

Abandon Comparison

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

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It is our nature to compare. It’s undeniably human. We compare everything. We compare restaurants, movies, cars, and jobs. We compare this weekend to last, this vacation to that one. All experience is deemed relative. Such comparison can be helpful. It allows us to make decisions, to rank, and in many contexts to improve. But in our personal lives it’s usually destructive. It can hold us back, cause us to miss opportunities, cause us to settle and sometimes give up. 

In creative work, this default of comparison is downright destructive. Every poem, painting, film, song, and sculpture is different. Each piece of work has a unique set of challenges and needs. Each lives a life of its own. The job of the artist is to simply facilitate that life.

As I work on my second manuscript, this tendency to compare is great. The drive to compare the experience, process, and outcome of The Confessions of Adam to my next manuscript feels as natural as walking. Perhaps even helpful, a guiding light. But it’s not. It’s a dead end. In order to allow this second project to develop on its own terms, to find and realize its latent potential, there can be no effort on my part to hold up the first book as a metric. The second project will excel differently and fail uniquely. It’s foolish to think that a comparison to my first book can somehow illuminate or anticipate these idiosyncrasies. Comparison is a species of procrastination. A very sneaky sort of distraction from the work that must be done. It’s a hunt for short-cuts, an effort to grasp stolen insights. Comparison must be given no space in the toolbox.

To What Might We Compare the Writing of a First Draft?

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline, Writing Life

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Verily, Verily, I say unto you, the writing of a first draft is like hacking a path through a previously undiscovered forest. One observes and responds to the rise and fall of the ground at his feet, while at the same time devising a plan for how the path might one day be converted into a super highway with restaurants lining the exits.

Again, the making of a first draft is like picking a splinter from one’s palm. The pain and frustration of the effort far outweigh the progress and it seems gaining leverage on the source of the concern inches further away with each attempt.

Or put another way, the making of a first draft is akin to a starving man who feeds himself, not by stealing bread, but by planting a field of wheat. His patience and focus must displace his hunger.

Once more, the making of a first draft may be compared to a man who, upon digging in a place that has captured his wonder, finds much rock and dirt. Yet upon breaking the clods and splitting the boulders he discovers traces of precious metal. At this he gains a vision for the smelting of goblets and platters––an entire table-setting gleaming—and as he digs he imagines those who might dine, their conversation, laughter, the ruffle of their collars and cuffs.

Mood Work

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Reading as a Writer, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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In 1998, not long after my father died, I read 1984 by George Orwell. A great novel, far from great timing. When we read a dramatic story, watch a film, listen to music, our brain releases the same chemical responses as when we experience ‘real’ emotion. Our brains don’t process fictional stimuli differently. The recovery is certainly different, but in the moment we’re there, we’re all-in. Between my father’s death and the murk of 1984 I found myself in such a funk it took some months to find balance again. Of course having a son under six months old, no doubt added to the brew of emotions.

As a writer I have found the same potential pitfall. 

I don’t know if my current project is darker than The Confessions of Adam, but it has fewer highs and less humor. Writing drama or tragedy is not immediately different than reading it. Writers are the first readers of their work. We immerse ourselves in it––is there any other way?––in order to create it. For this reason we are the first to traverse (and re-traverse over and over) the emotional terrain of the narrative. Only later does the craft of making story begin to take hold. There is an early, necessary, and significant emotional investment on the part of the writer. And this is an investment on which we’d do well to keep tabs.

Release Day Review

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

Posted by in Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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Yesterday my debut novel was released. The Confessions of Adam is in the wild. It must now fend for itself. I can no longer tinker with it. Edits complete. It has found its voice. It is finished. And I am happy with what it has grown to be.

I spent the day on social media and the evening at Court House Grounds in Danville, Indiana with 100+ local and regional readers and lovers of books. 

A day unlike any before.

With gratitude.

I am thankful for my wife, for our partnership in writing and in life. 

I am thankful for my publisher and the many creative efforts that went into making a manuscript a book, immense work, up to the hours before release.

I am thankful for my launch team and my writer’s group, a few members of which overlap. 

I’m thankful for the hospitality and creative partnership of Court House Grounds and OurSpealcialTEA. 

I am thankful for readers past, present, and future. You who have and are teaching me what this novel is about and the personal meaning to be mined from it.

And I am thankful to The Maker, for the opportunity to riff on this epic drama of mankind’s origins. Our first story.

The Last Read

31 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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This week I finished reading, for the fourth time in six months, my debut novel The Confessions of Adam. This was my last reading. With an advance reader copy in hand, it was the last opportunity to edit the text. I finished the novel.

Three thoughts come to mind at this milestone:

  1. It is strange to be so familiar with a text. A sort of blindness sets in, an inability to process any further what text is doing. Instead of learning more about the intent of the story with each pass or draft, I now learn what the story is about from readers, from engaging with readers in conversation about the novel. 
  2. I’ll not do it again. The temptation is to say to oneself, ‘I must do this again. I must write another novel like this one.’ But the fact is I won’t. I won’t do this again. The next novel will be different in more ways than it is similar. The next novel will have its own challenges and personality. Each book is a unique, a custom effort.
  3. You never finish a book, you just stop. Leading up to this reading, there had been dozens of beta readers and editors, including Cyndi and I. Yet we still identified around 35 edits. I am convinced that I could read this novel every month for the next year and find changes I want to make. It is time to stop, to go to press. I’ve done all I can.

So long, Adam of Eden and Oren of Susa. It has been a pleasure working with you.

First Copies

17 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Contract with the Reader, Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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At a conference last week my publisher had a book table and sold the first pre-release copies of my debut novel, The Confessions of Adam. About a dozen copies went home with readers from various locations across the US. 

It is surreal to think that at any given time a stranger somewhere could be reading your novel. I have moved the work from that silent and solitary place of daily writing, through months of maneuvering a manuscript toward publication, to this new and foreign stage of observing from afar unknown readers as they react to a book with my name on it.

I am reminded of the axiom ‘the story must stand on its own.’ I’m not sitting next to each reader giving them a synopsis of the novel or telling them how I came to write the story. They’ve never seen my name before. I’m an unknown. I’ve nothing to do with the reader’s experience. The book is now theirs to complete, to read and to imagine.

The story must stand on its own—while I write the next one.

Next

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline, Writing Life

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I am well into the throes of writing my second novel. I’ve heard that many writers don’t get the first novel they write published. The first one is often practice, the novel they learned on. The one that sits forever in the desk drawer. I recently heard the non-fiction writer Eula Biss state that a friend’s debut novel—at age 52—was the fifth he’d written. This hasn’t been my experience. In my case, the first one done is the first one out the door.

But none of this matters—which novel, how many, when.

What matters is that there is a next. A now. A work-in-progress. The writing is the thing. In the writing is where the work begins and ends. There is a current project that has captured me. If it is fit for readers at some point then so be it. If not, another next awaits.

What matters is the writing.

Ending

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

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It’s been said that no one finishes a novel, they just stop working on it. If there is anything that is true about the craft of creating fiction, it is this. There is no ending for the writer, only a stop.  A surrender of the text to the editor. The writer’s temptation is to keep working and working on a manuscript. To tweak, adjust, straighten, repeat. I’ve heard authors in readings alter the published text – edit their work for a reading. This is how strong the desire is to continue. To avoid ending. To fix, affix, and reaffix. But you must stop. You must cease your effort. You must stand down. Beginnings demand endings. One day you finish, whether you like it or not.

The story is in the possession of the reader now.

And you move on to the new, the next. 

Beginning

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline

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The work of writing looks exactly the same today as it did ten years ago. I go sit in a chair at a table and open my laptop or notebook, and form and order words. It’s no easier or harder than it was yesterday and it’ll be no easier or harder to do tomorrow. 

Picasso said, to know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing. Any understanding that I gain of the product I’m seeking to produce comes when I’m in the throes of writing. 

Thus, each day I begin again. 

The planning is very thin. I plan to sit down at a specific time with a specific starting place. That starting place may be where I left off yesterday, or a character that needs further development, or a snippet of dialogue that needs reworked. But very quickly after taking my seat any notion of where I thought I might be going that day is dispelled. The work tells you what it needs.

Beginning isn’t something you do once, or at the top of each story. 

Beginning is what you do every day.

It’s Like Starting a Business

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Life

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On the morning of February 25th, I had a conference call with my publisher, Karen Porter at Bold Vision Books. She and I discussed social media, manuscript edits, cover art, publicity, release prep, and endorsements. I left the call with a couple dozen action items – from compiling edits on the manuscript to ordering business cards to installing plugins on my website.

With the success of a publishing deal for your debut novel comes the requirement to not only ensure the quality of the product, but to also establish the structures of public commerce. 

I’m just getting started on this journey. Here is my first lesson learned:

Engage with the collaborative team that is forming around you.

This product that I have worked solo on for so long has now become a significant concern for other skilled and creative people. I need to now view these as my team, my colleagues, and fellow creatives. I am the founder of a co-op that is rising and forming. This has nothing to do with writing. This is about being a conscientious team member and ensuring that I engage my colleagues around the table.

So to my agent Joelle Delbourgo, my publisher Karen Porter, my photographer Connie Phillips, my social media consultant Scott Carter, and the other team members whose names I’ve yet to learn – my cover artist, my editor – welcome and thank you for all you’ve done and are doing to make The Confessions of Adam a successful debut. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be part of your team.