A 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, health issues, turning my newest release — Whispers and Other Strange Stories — in audio book format, now available on Amazon, iTunes and Audible),
this particular non-fiction 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 next letter is from Jen Blood.
Jen Blood is a freelance writer, certified dog trainer, and author of the bestselling Erin Solomon Mysteries and the Flint K-9 Search and Rescue Mysteries. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing/Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine, is a regular blogger with Maine Crime Writers, and runs a very busy editing business specializing in content and copy editing of plot-driven fiction. Jen taps into a background in freelance journalism in the heart of Midcoast Maine to write mysteries rich with atmosphere, action, romance, character, and serpentine plots. Her series have been hailed by critics and readers alike for the sharp wit and well-drawn characters.
You can find Jen Blood here.
—
Dear Crina,
Thank you for your questions. They were great, and definitely made me think.
About the experience of writing my first/debut novel…That depends on which novel you would consider my debut. My true first debut was a novella I wrote when I was twenty-one, a coming-of-age story about a girl in her early twenties running a coffee shop out of an abandoned church with a bunch of Bohemian artist boys. That (titled The One Stop Hallelujah Coffee Shop) was published by Cape Elizabeth Press in 1996, and was a huge learning experience for me. I wrote that at night while my musician boyfriend and his friends were practicing, and it was a very collaborative, magical experience — though the end result could have used some (okay, a lot of) work.
The first Erin Solomon novel was published sixteen years later, and took about twelve years for me to write. I started that as an undergrad studying creative writing at Goddard College, continued working on it through graduate school, put it away for a couple of years, and finally took it out again in 2011. The process of writing that first novella along with another full-length, unpublished novel after that and countless essays, articles, and short stories, was pivotal to my ability to not only finish the first Erin Solomon mystery, All the Blue-Eyed Angels, and put it out in the world successfully, but to then write an additional seven full-length novels over the subsequent four years. Some (brief) advice I would like to give aspiring authors…
Write! When I first got serious about becoming a writer, I was never without pen and paper — I lived for that random fifteen-minute break at work when I could sit and scribble whatever came into my head. Take every opportunity you can to write professionally, whether that means the school paper, online news source, or your own blog. Ideally, write in a setting where you have deadlines and receive professional feedback.
The essential things to do, and others to avoid, to make a good start as a writer and aspiring author…
Study other authors. Don’t just read them – dissect their work. Analyze how much dialogue they have on the page. What dialogue tags do they use? What do their descriptive passages look like? In those years when I first got started, I literally took my favorite novels and re-typed them so that the way the author used words became part of my own experience. Don’t just be a reader; be a scientist.
Let’s just say the first novel that I wrote, for argument’s sake, was actually that novella when I was twenty-one. So, I would say the way it influenced my writing was that it showed me what it felt like to actually finish something and put it out into the world, and then gave me the experience of looking at it critically to recognize that I wanted to be better. It showed me that I wanted to be a writer — and that I was willing to work my butt off, regardless of how long that took, to make that happen.
Keep learning, and don’t be afraid to follow your bliss. Write the things you want to read — there are certainly plenty of examples of people who make a living writing to market, but that has never been something that interests me. Writing is a form of personal expression that fuels something deep within, and the beauty of being an author is that we have the power to pursue that regardless of who we are, how much money we have, where we live, or what we look like.
Reading has taught me to value quiet times; it’s taught me to be still in a way that it seems the world has forgotten over the years.
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver was a hugely influential book for me. I was reading all the Beat poets — primarily men — when I was eighteen and nineteen, and suddenly finding a book like Animal Dreams made me realize that I wanted to write stories like that. The imagery and lyricism, the intricacy of the relationships… I still love that book. I know I could say To the Lighthouse or The Bell Jar or a dozen other prime examples of women writers and the immense power they wield with the pen, but Animal Dreams feels like a very accessible way to introduce a young person to literary writing.
I would tell 16-year-old Jen this:
Keep writing. Don’t freak out. And stop paying so much attention to boys!
One ‘thing’ that always makes me smile is my puppy! Who isn’t actually a puppy any longer, but at a year and a half, certainly acts like one. Regardless of anything else going on around me, I can rely on Marji to make me grin like a lovesick fool.
Best, Jen