On the surface, the title of this blog is ridiculous. Because when you write a novel – especially your first novel – the fear and anxiety of what others will think of it can be quite paralyzing. Unless you are one of those people who really doesn’t care what other people think (I am not one of those). All you want is for everyone to like it. Sales are an afterthought.
The highest high of this adventure was the first review received from someone I did not know. Euphoria! “Holy hell, someone with absolutely nothing invested into me or my book except a few dollars just told the world (if the world would read every Amazon review) that my book is awesome.” She liked it. She connected with it. She said things about it that I had only read about real authors .. “the characters were developed wonderfully” … “I want to read more from this author” … “I want to have his babies” (I added that last one for dramatic effect). Were you affected dramatically?
And then another review is written. And another. Friends stop you at parties and beer league hockey games to talk about the details of the story. They tell you what they liked. They tell you what parts confused them. They ask you why you wrote certain characters the way you wrote them, and ask your motivation for seemingly meaningless scenes. They make terrible recommendations for where certain characters could have gone.
I loved every minute of this, but then it hit me. Like a heavy mallet to the skull, it hit me: “Damn. I wish I would have put more thought into this!”
You see, the way I write is very simple. I write about what I feel like writing and then I write about something else. There is an outline only if you can call something an outline that doesn’t really predict the outcome of a project. At all.
When I get bored, I kill someone (a character!). Other times when I get bored, I take the story somewhere completely unexpected. The fun is trying to see if I can make sense of the twist without having myself (or my readers) roll their eyes.
This went on for months (because I can only write about an hour a day given I have a real life). And then after a while, I said: “Enough! I’m not spending any more time on this. It might suck. It might be the most embarrassing thing I have ever done to myself.” Which is a remarkable statement when you consider all the massively embarrassing things I do to myself on a regular basis.
And so I ask my ever-patient wife to look it over (and she then doesn’t talk to me for a few weeks, but we’ll save that gem of a story for a later post) and I put it out there for the world to see, utterly convinced that I will never write another book after this one bombs.
But then it doesn’t bomb. And people ask me very specific things about the story. Many of them, I had real answers for. Many of them, I had no answers for. (Like why I sometimes end consecutive sentences in my blog with prepositions).
People hated characters I expected them to love. The most hated character in the book is the one that most readers recognized as someone from their life (“yikes” for all of you!). Had I realized so many people would read it, I would have taken a few more months to tidy up the story … to consider the things that might confuse a reader. Instead, I mostly just smile knowingly and hope they think I’m some sort of genius; say things like, “I don’t know, what do you think the past relationship was between Reggie and Ronnie?” I wink and think to myself that I added Ronnie because I felt like writing a fun character one day. And so he was born into the tale, albeit as the most under-developed (yet beloved!) character.
I didn’t plan to have to say things like, “Well, I hadn’t really considered that.”
Cover #1
I didn’t plan to have the cover redesigned because I hadn’t thought the first one through that much.
I didn’t plan to become obsessed with Amazon reviews and Twitter followers and Facebook likes and blog posts.
I didn’t expect to come up blank when people ask me what the book is about (still struggling with that one)
I didn’t expect to get ultra competitive about how high in the Amazon rankings I could get it (the record so far is #20 on the “Murder” list – “Murder” was not on the “Outline”).
I didn’t expect to discover a whole new world of wonderful indie authors who wanted me to read their books.
I didn’t expect my 80+ year old parents to be my best marketers, giving out business cards all along the east coast of the US to anyone they came in contact with … and I mean ANYONE.
And I certainly didn’t expect to have respected and ultra talented authors take the time to read the thing, and then tell everyone they are connected with how much they liked it.
The experience has been quite humbling. And more than a little bit pressure-filled. Because when I started this journey, the accomplishment was to finish it. The concern that filled me centered not just on its quality, but its reception by those closest to me. Would there be sniggering behind my back at every family function for the rest of my life?
If there is, it wont be because of the book.
Now, the challenge is: Can I do it again?
Stay tuned in late Summer for the answer to that burning (to me, at least) question.
Dave Adair is the author of Random Lucidity, proud recipient of a growing bunch of consecutive stellar reviews (many of whom are strangers).
*****On sale for .99 May 8 to June 8, 2015*****
Dave Adair 