So you want to be an author?!

When I started this process two years ago, my first thought was:

"How hard can it be to write a book?"

Well...
Do you have a genre?  There are plenty out there, but will it be nonfiction or fiction; perhaps bio or autobiographical.  Fiction it is.  Nonfiction is too technical and would not give me the proper the outlet I was looking for.  Good, step one complete.  Now, follow through the next few ideas; murder, mystery, action, drama, romance or fantasy.  This part comes with another few questions.  Is there really anything that drives you?  What do you like to read?  And why?  Fantasy.  Why not?  It is fun, takes your mind away and does not necessarily have to be confined to the rules of reality.  Done and done.

Your decision is made, and everybody is happy right?  Now your direct competition is 'The Lord of the Rings', 'Harry Potter' and 'The Hunger Games'.  Well, if you are going to do it, you might as well do it right.

I jumped the gun a little bit.  What do those stories have?  A plot line.  So, do you have one?  Or how about an idea for one?  Is it any good?  I hope mine is; time will tell.  But this is where some real mental energy gets put to use.  There isn't a reason to write a book without a plot.  So, once you get the plot, the next step is to make sure it differs from the storyline.  Those two things are related and need to work as a team, but they are way different.  The plot is going to tell you the main parts of the adventure, but I had to hold myself back constantly from telling the whole story all at once.  I wanted to capture the readers and keep the story moving, while staying within the plot line.  Again, harder to do than to say, or even think.  It is hard not to let your mind race ahead and want to write it all out right this second.  I had to resort to starting five or six chapters at once so that I could feel the excitment about writing everything, but also not trip myself up.  My wife would ask me what was going to happen, and I would tell her, "I don't know.  The story hasn't told itself to me yet."  That is a weird feeling.  To be the author of your own book and not know how it was going to go, or end.

Now, you may have guessed this, but a story does not work unless you have characters!  So, then you need one, two, three...70 people, give or take, to be in you story.  They all look different and each has their own background and story to tell, themselves.  It is interesting to have all of these people that do not exist and then you...get to know them?  Yep, you get to know them and change them.  You can make them be good, or evil.  They can have a speech impediment or be a little looney.  Talk about imaginary friends!  The best part is that you can make them do anything.  Or anything can happen to them.  In fact, it is particularly fun to make horrible things happen to the characters, just to see what happens and how they react.  Not only does the story develop in a believable fashion, but you build character (no pun intended) in your characters.

Ok, you have characters, droves of them.  Do they live anywhere?  They sure do.  But, you have to make some landscapes for them.  Some live by the sea, or on farmland, or in the mountains.  You know that the characters are the main players of the story, but does the landscape have anything to do with it?  You bet it does.  The landscape can trap a character or even kill them.  Send them into a pit, or across a desert.  Make it rain!  Again, you might think of yourself as a sadist, but bad things must happen to your characters, so that they may overcome them.  A dreamland is not entertaining, but neither is a depressing hell.  Meet it somewhere in the middle.

Here's the checklist so far:
Ideas, plot line, story line, characters, landscapes...
Phew.  Just a little more to go.

Time to sit down and actually do it.  Come up with an outline that uses the plot as a basis and fill in the gaps with storytelling.  This is going to get it all out on paper.  It won't look like much, and I admit this part wasn't that much fun.  I kept looking at this as getting in the way, like it was sort of delaying my creative process.  But trust me, you need this.   There is no way you can remember everything you ever thought of.  This is constructive, even though it is not what you want to truly be doing.  Then when I actually sat down to write I had my ideas ready.  What a feeling to start with a blank piece or paper (Word Doc) and write out: Chapter I

It was liberating.  My mind was set free.  I wrote and wrote and wrote.  Then, when I looked back at what I accomplished, it was a lot longer than I anticipated.  I was getting somewhere.  This could actually happen!  Ok, let's devote some time to this.  Before I knew it, writing became one of my hobbies.

It took me about six months to write my book using lunch breaks or some early mornings.  But the planning stage was about twice that long.  That was hard, waiting for so long to see anything come together.  Now that the book is finished, another big decision needed to be made.  Is this all there is?  Should I sit on this stack of papers and call it a completed project?  Or, can I get it published?  That is the final frontier and one that I am working on as I write this.  And I'll tell you, getting this book published makes me want to start all over again and write another book.  A sequel will be coming to follow the story even further.

I can't tell you more about my book than I already have because I am in the process of getting a copy write, and ISBN number.  In fact, most of the "book work" is not any farther along than that stack of papers.  But I have seen some proofs of the cover design and that was pretty exhilarating.  I am not even sure which remaining steps need to be taken, but I have good people working with me on it.  Then, you might actually see it in the stores.  What a day that should be!