I’ve used the time off wisely of course, and put a lot of energy into outlining and beginning to write a science fiction novel, as well as revising and editing a short story I’ve let rest for awhile. The problem is that I’m getting used to this and would love to be able to wake up each day, get ready, and head downstairs to write for a few hours. I could hit the gym, run a few errands, then spend the afternoon writing and revising. I probably won’t see that kind of schedule until I can retire from my job, but I can dream, and for the time being, I can live with it while the snow keeps cooperating!

My return to writing(after a hiatus of a few years) began about a year ago, but perhaps I never stopped writing.  Discovering Tolkien as a nine year old child was enlightenin; like many people, it beckoned me to begin the journey of writing.

I remember my mother buying me a small binder and paper to begin my life as a writer.  I was in the fifth grade, and when I declared to all who would listen I intended to write a book like The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Rings it was met with enthusiasm.  Over the course of the next couple of years, two friends would assist me in the completion of this Hobbit/LOTR ripoff.  At the time, I remember thinking how great the book was, and perhaps for how young we were it was okay.  I still have that black binder filled with the Tolkien ripoff, and I smile at how bad it is.  Every writer has to start somewhere.  I was lucky to get some of my horrible writing out of the way as a child!  Having accomplished my goal, I stopped doing and creative writing during high school.

The writing bug wouldn’t hit me again until I was in my early twenties.  I had no desire to overhaul the novel Iwrote as a youth, so I decided to write a mystery.  I outlined and plotted the entire novel and talked about it so much that I got tired of it and quit.  I still have all the notes on that one, but that story was a stinker from the start.  I keep it to remind myself how bad I was back then and how much I’ve improved over the years.

A year or so later I researched, outlined and began writing an alternate history fantasy set in ancient Egypt during the reign of Hatshepsut.  Mind you, this was around 1992-1994, so the idea was fresh back then.  I had a lot of fun writing that during my tour of duty with the U.S.Navy.  I may revisit the idea of that story someday, but for now I’m willing to let that one rest.

I remained fairly active in my writing throughout the 90′s, composing music and writing lyrics as well as putting down ideas for another fantasy novel.  Around 1999 or 2000 I began to do some worldbuilding and character creation for the new fantasy novel.  I wrote maybe one hundred pages of the story and it felt so derivative that I got discouraged and quit.

That brings us to 2008; a year ago I got the bug, and got amped up to write.  I purchased a great piece of software for my Mac called Scrivener.  This is by far the best writing and organizing software I’ve ever used.  Life got in the way of writing and I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast and lost bug.

I’m really going somewhere with all of this, I promise!  In January 2009, I began to research my family tree.  I began to see interesting names of ancestors from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  I began to research the regions my ancestors were from and I began to ask myself a lot of “what if” questions.  I knew right then the writer in me was begging to be unleashed.

I decided to dig out the research and writing on the unfinished fantasy novel from 2000 to see if there were any ideas worth salvaging.  There were a few interesting ideas, but nothing worthy of being included as plot points for the new novel.

I spent the month of February worldbuilding:  religions, government, regions, timeline, characters, etc.  I began the current novel  on February 27th 2009, and now I’m currently sitting at over 100k words.  I intend to wrap up the first draft of the first book (I am planning on this being a duology) in the next couple of weeks.  On a great day I can write 4-5000 words and on my lousiest day, 500 words.  The important thing is that I’ve written nearly every day since I began in February.  It may not always be on the current novel, but it’s writing.

The writer in me has always yearned to break free, and ideas have been incubating for years.  This novel is the culmination of many years of false starts, countless ideas, and life experience.  I could not have written this book at any other time in my life.  Just finishing the first book of the series will be a major accomplishment.  If it manages to attract any interest from an agent or publisher that is a bonus.  Maybe I’ll get published my first time out or maybe it won’t happen until I’ve written many novels. 

The result will be the same:  I am a writer.  Always will be.

Alistair

Current book:  I researched for about one month.  I assembled the world, created the main characters, religions, government, and created a loose outline.

Almost from the beginning I realized my outline would be close to useless.  I started off with the intention of following it, only to find out I’m pretty much a discovery writer.  Oh, I have a pretty good idea of where things need to go for the book to work, but sometimes the characters end up changing what I had planned.  It’s exciting when that happens, it feels more natural to me.  Following a strict outline feels too confining and artificial.

Plotting and breakthroughs:  The characters and the problems they are facing constantly float around in my mind all day while I’m at work.  I rarely have a breakthrough moment at work though, as there are too many other things happening.  My breakthroughs are either at the keyboard when a character does something I was not expecting, or while I’m working out.

While working out is hard for multiple reasons.  If I’m out on a jog (I’m usually running pretty hard, so recording my ideas would be tough) and I have a great idea of how to resolve issues in the story it’s a great feeling.  My problem is not that I won’t remember, but I want to turn around right then and go home to write it.  Plus, once I am done with the jog, I have to cooldown, take a shower, eat, and by then I feel too out of it.  The spark is gone.  After a couple of hours I feel like I can get into some productive writing, but I do feel like I’ve zapped myself.  It’s tricky because if I didn’t go for these runs I may not have these amazing breakthroughs.  I guess I just have to deal with it.  Working out is important and it is providing me with answers to problems in my story. 

If only sitting around eating cookies and ice cream provided me with those amazing breakthroughs!

Alistair