Dear readers,
A 'short' while ago (summer of 2018) I started a non-fiction project titled Simple Ways to Write, Publish, Market a Debut Novel (+ Intimate Testimonials from Published Authors).
Because of various things going on in my life (working on several fiction books, some health issues, turning my newest release —Whispers and Other Strange Stories — in audio book format (full production for it has begun this Monday and if all goes well, the audio book will be available to listen to by middle of September 2019 on sites like Audible, Amazon and iTunes; see the cover just below — the narrator's name will be announced later; all I can reveal about him for now is that he's been a professor for the last 20 years)),
this particular book is taking me longer to publish.
I have, therefore, decided to release extracts from my project here, on my website in case something happens to me before I manage to publish the book, I want to make sure I'm sharing these awesome letters with you. These extracts are from Part 4 of the Simple Ways book, titled Intimate Love Letters: From Published Authors to Aspiring Authors. They contain, as the name suggests, letters I have gathered from authors about their journey to, through, and after publication. These are the questions I have asked them to specifically write to me (and you) about:
How was the experience of writing your first / debut novel? What is some (brief) advice you would give to aspiring novelists now?
What are the essential things to do, and others to avoid, to make a good start as a writer and aspiring author?
How has writing the first novel influenced writing your second one, and/or your writing career in general?
What did you learn the most from this author journey you’ve been on so far?
What lessons have you learned about life from reading?
What book changed your life that you would also give to a friend’s child on their 18th birthday?
What would you tell your 16-year-old self if you could go back in time ‘disguised’ as a stranger?
What is one thing that always makes you smile?
‘The thing’ of your choice can be tangible or intangible and doesn’t have to be writing related. Can also be a pet, person, book, movie, poem, memory, etc. If you’d like to mention more than one ‘thing’, please do.
I will be releasing their 'letters' one by one, every week or so, in the order they got back to me.
I hope you enjoy them and find them useful. I love reading them and think are most enlightening, especially to aspiring authors, but also to seasoned ones. It is always great to learn from others.
This fifth letter is from Luke E.T. Hindmarsh.
Luke E.T. Hindmarsh was born in Oxford, UK before being dragged all over the world by his parents, courtesy of Royal Air Force. Before starting to write full time, he worked as a Criminal Barrister in London for ten years, which doesn't qualify him to make good coffee but did mean he had to wear a wig and gown in court. He now lives in the Scandinavian wilds of Denmark with his wife and their half-viking children. When not writing, Luke teaches Shinseido Okinawan Karate, works on his motorcycle, and pretends he can play the guitar. He’s the author of Mercury’s Son (SF thriller, Crossroad Press) and the soon to be published 3:33 (Suspense) and Cold Sleep (SF horror). His short stories have featured in anthologies and one has been adapted for audio on the Starship Sofa Podcast.
You can find and follow him here:
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My dear fellow writer,
I’m flattered by your questions and will try to answer them as best I can.
My first novel was a work of many years — most of them spent not writing it. I had an idea which remained the key conceit of the story and the main character that I occasionally tried to craft a story around for a period of about five years. At the time, I was working in a highly demanding job where I’d frequently come home with paperwork to do. Much of my mental energy was taken up with the cases I had the next morning or after a weekend. When I sat at my keyboard to write the well was often dry. A change in family circumstances meant I left that job and in three months I’d written the first draft of Mercury’s Son. I regard the finished book as flawed and there are many things I would do differently if I wrote it now. That is my view of it now even after eight drafts and the assistance of both a content editor and a copy editor. At the end of the first draft I was very proud of what I’d produced and totally blind to the rampant breaches of point of view and other problems with my grasp of the fundamentals of craft. Bringing it up to a publishable standard taught me a huge amount about the craft of writing and I owe a huge debt to the content editor, an award winning author who was patient and ruthless in his advice. I self-published after submitting the book to only a few agents — something I came to regret. Perseverance with submissions is vital. The book received strong critical praise and sold well enough to get to number seven in one of the Amazon charts in which it appeared. I was put in contact with a reputable mid-tier US publisher who took the book on.
I’ll try to keep my advice short but saying anything of value means saying enough. So here are a few pointers that I keep in mind.
Do not procrastinate (switch off the TV and if you can’t write, read.)
Don’t worry too much about the quality of a first draft — a rare few writers can craft a clean first draft but they usually are very experienced. Take solace in the words of Hemingway, “The first draft of anything is shit.”
Don’t listen to naysayers. This is bad advice in some ways. If the opinion of anyone else can put you off writing, you probably lack the passion to make it work. If you have the passion, you don’t need me to tell you to ignore the doubters. Perhaps the better response is to say, ‘Just wait ‘til I prove you wrong!’
Craft. You’ll come across people who tell you there are no rules or that the rules are there to be broken. They tend to say this out of their own ignorance. You cannot break the rules in a way that will produce good writing without knowing the rules. Learn correct grammar, understand the different usages of POV, study writing as a skill and a discipline. When you have a strong grasp of the rules, when they are part of you so you don’t need to think of them, that is when you will break them to brilliance. Any earlier than that and you’ll just produce drivel.
Read outside your genre. Read the ‘classics’. Read the financially successful. Try to be better than any of them but remain humble and self-critical.
There are two kinds of writers. Those who plot and those who do not, often called ‘pantsers’. Those who plot must not allow themselves to be stuck on the tramlines of their planning. Thoroughness is probably an advantage. If you plot to any extent then you should work on making your plotting as useful to you as possible while avoiding contrivance. You are, in my eyes, a conscious writer.
I do not plot, and I and those like me are best thought of as subconscious writers. They should trust themselves to sit at the keyboard and let the story flow. The techniques of the plotter will get in the way of your natural process. Ignore anyone who tells you to draft plans if that is not for you. The story is already there inside you, complete in every detail but your conscious mind has yet to see it. Don’t try to control the story. You do not need notes or plans; you let your characters show you the way. Despite what you are told, you can produce well-structured works just as conscious writers can produce stories that are not contrived. This will come as you improve your craft so that you have the skills to reveal what your subconscious has wrought.
Many writers claim to be a hybrid of the two. Maybe they are but before you settle yourself in this category of neither fish nor fowl ask yourself if you need either to work more on your plotting or have the courage to do away with it entirely.
Don’t talk about your book until the first draft is finished. If you are able to hold out so long, don’t show anyone it until the second draft is done. Speed is not essential. If a novel flows out at high speed that is fine but if you force out a novel it will not be your best work. Leave thoughts of writing books in one month for the hobbyist and focus on doing yourself justice. If a book flies from your fingers that’s fine. I wrote a 40,000 word novella in a single week and it was by far my tightest and best work to date. It came that fast because it chose to, not because I forced it. Other books have taken me many times longer.
Write for your reader while still being true to yourself and your characters. Stephen King called writing ‘telepathy’. He was right.
Making a start as a writer involves getting a grip on your ego — don’t let it get in your way by telling yourself you’re brilliant or terrible. Just try to improve every day and don’t play the ‘real writer’ game — if you write, you are a real writer; if you just talk about it, you’re not. Ignore toxic people. Find genuine fellow writers who will still give you ruthless constructive criticism. Give the same to them. Write as often as you can, whether you are in the mood or not. You can condition yourself to it so that words come whenever you sit in front of the screen but it takes time. Invest in yourself.
My first novel taught me a lot about writing or rather it was ‘learning to write’ novel — it covered the basics of a process that never ends. My second novel was a different genre and I aimed to avoid all the biggest errors of the first novel. I might have succeeded in avoiding half. That’s writing — always trying to improve.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned from my ‘Writer’s Journey’ so far is that when you find what you are meant to do with your life, you know. I’d choose to live in a cardboard box before I’d quit writing. It’s important to remember the power we have as writers. Power to teach, power to heal but most of all the power to entertain. At our best we can show our readers that we all carry within us many stories. Whether we’re writers or not. Other people really do conceal whole universes of thought that are mostly kept out of our reach. They each have value, even if we never know them.
No one book changed my life but I’d choose ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway as an 18th birthday present. It isn’t the greatest book — there isn’t a greatest book — but it is a story that stays with you long after you read it.
As for time travel and speaking to my younger self? Well, I wouldn’t need the disguise — I often expected my future self to visit me when I was 16 and was always disappointed I never showed up. I probably would tell myself nothing. I wouldn’t want to rob myself of the surprises. That said, maybe I’d give myself the winning lottery numbers from last week’s draw…
I love writing, it’s my passion but there are days when it can be hard. Rejection. The words not flowing. On days like these I know that I can find something that will always make me smile, something beyond the demands of my vocation. That’s my children. They’re rascals. Keeping family and friends in their right place — above your drive to write — will make sure you still have a life worth writing for.
I hope that in answering your questions I’ve given you something useful — either advice you can accept or advice that provokes you to find your own approach. That’s the thing about writing — finding out how YOU do it.
I wish you the best on your journey and hope it’s one that lasts the rest of your life.
Luke