February was a difficult month for me. Turning fifty (!!!) while taking the kids to visit my father was fun, but for the rest of the month, if I wasn’t sick, then at least one of the kids was. My family seems to have gotten through it finally, and all the while I managed to keep up on my teaching responsibilities, do a little mathematics research, and write a few more chapters of the first draft of Blood Game.

But it was a tough month. Spring Break starts this week-end, and it couldn’t have come with better timing. Phew!

I was at the drug store last week waiting on an antibiotics prescription, and to kill time I wandered over to the paperback rack. Not much of a selection. I grabbed the book that most looked like my genre (thrillers) and did what I always do. I estimated its word count.

It’s just a habit that carries over from back when I first started thinking about writing a book. I knew I had great characters and several books worth of good stories. But the only thing I’d ever written over 30,000 words was my doctoral dissertation (a linear algebra textbook). I honestly didn’t know if I could do it.

I decided then that my definition of “success” would be if I could produce a 75K+ word book, with a complete story, that I felt proud enough to pitch to agents. I did the research, storyboarded, outlined, wrote a 28K word “draft zero,” and finally an 88K word first draft that ended up shrinking a little during revision. Success!

I think that’s why the querying process never got me down. Querying is a tough and frustrating thing most debut authors have to go through, because most of us experience long waits and numerous rejections. I was no exception. But it didn’t bother me, because in my mind I was already a “successful writer.” I was playing with the house money, so to speak.

Was that too low a bar to set for “success?” Didn’t feel like it at the time. I think success might be one of those end-of-the-rainbow type things. It just means hitting your goals. And as soon as you do, it’s time for new goals.

Burn Card is now on submission to selected publishers’ representatives, and I’m waiting to see what offers my agent gets from them. And just as with querying, the waiting is the hardest part. Luckily, I have three awesome kids, my current work in progress, and a terrific girlfriend to distract me.

I guess it’s time to redefine “success” again. You know, I have this fantasy where I’m walking through an airport, heading out to my next signing, and I see my latest bestseller well-placed at the newsstand. I see a couple guys taking copies up to the cashier, so I walk up and offer to sign their books for them. They turn out to be Lee Child and Stephen King.

On second thought, I should probably set my next writing goal quite a bit lower than that….

Pecking away at my sequel novel tonight, and just finished the chapter which, according to my Draft Zero, marks the one-third-of-the-way mark. This is where it starts to get exciting, at least for this work in progress.

I’ve always liked the idea of a spy thriller opening with a bang. This is sometimes known as the “Opening Gambit,” wherein the hero has some quick, exciting adventure or action sequence that somehow relates to the rest of the story, and often helps set it up. The James Bond films are notorious for this. The part before the title and music sequence is the “opening gambit,” and it’s often very good.

And then the necessary lull. You can’t just have ACTION ACTION ACTION all the way through. The audience has to occasionally catch their breath. They need to learn about what just happened and understand why it will matter going forward. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of character development is in order.

But at some point, inevitably … tick tick tick tick … BANG! And it’s off to the races again. It’s a little bit of dance, bridging the gap between adrenaline bursts. Those rests have to be there, but they can’t go too long, and they need to be stimulating in some other way.

For a smart action hero, like the one I’m writing, it’s his thought processes and the emotional heights and depths that do the trick. When it isn’t time to make the reader’s pulse pound, the idea is to tickle a their neurons or tug on their heartstrings. The dance continues until, as the story finally approaches the end, the goal is to do all three at once.

Tonight, I’m just excited knowing that for the next little while, it’s adrenaline time. The kind of stuff that, as I’m writing it, I absent-mindedly roll my sleeves up. Wouldn’t want to get blood on them, you know?

When I was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, that’s what we called the doctoral level courses that weren’t really courses. Every semester, a supported graduate student was supposed to be registered for 36 units, i.e. 3 classes, but toward the end of the program we’d just be working on our dissertations, sometimes not talking any actual classes. “Reading and Research” was the fill-in term for “I’ve gone beyond coursework and am doing my own thing now.”

Ironically, I’m doing a lot more research as an author than I ever did as a grad student. And it’s more fun, honestly, probably because there is no pressure to impress the resident experts. I can just learn for my own enjoyment and betterment, and to hopefully make better art.

Lately, I’ve been bugging knowledgeable chemists and environmental activists about certain topics organic chemistry. Without giving away spoilers, let’s just say that the villains in my second novel have nefarious plans that involve hazardous materials.

Research for writing is different than scientific research, thankfully. If I were a chemistry student, I would be completely absorbed in these topics, trying to become an expert. But as a writer, my task is easier. I only have to sound like an expert, and only for a few pages.

The measure for whether I’ve done enough research: I want chemists who read the book to not shake their heads at how far off I am, and I want everyone else to wonder if maybe I’m an actual chemist.

The other topic I’m trying to research is Seneca traditions surrounding death and the dying. One of the new heroes in the book is a Seneca woman who is a local science teacher and old friend of the main character’s family, and I suspect she and her family will be fan favorites down the road.

It turns out this is a more difficult topic to research, as every indigenous person I’ve asked has been reluctant to talk to me about it, some of them totally ghosting me upon realizing I’m not indigenous. I guess they don’t trust me to portray things positively and accurately, or maybe would prefer I not write about them at all.

That won’t stop me, of course. It’s ridiculous to suggest you have to belong to a demographic to write about it or create a character from it. Imagine for a moment: Shakespeare being told he should only write stories about English people. Tom Clancy being told his novels are trash because he’s not Russian and shouldn’t write Russians.

Ironically, this only lays bare the importance of doing as much research as possible, as best as I can with whatever resources I can find. I may have to settle for reading a handful of online resources, but if that’s all I have to work with, then it’ll have to do.

It comes down to trusting myself, which is kind of how it always is in writing. Because I’m not an expert on writing, nor am I an expert in most of the topics I write about. I trust myself to fill in the blanks as much as I can with research. I trust my imagination to fill in the rest. I trust that my intent will be clear in the final result. And most importantly, I trust in my ability to spin all of that into a good story.

After a five week holiday hiatus, I return to my blog. They say everything in the publishing industry tends to slow down or stop for a while around the holidays. A much needed break for everyone. I was no exception.

I wouldn’t say I had a break, per se, but my writing did slow down for a while. It was a combination of family fun and obligations, the fact that I just happened to be at a difficult part of my work in progress, and just that end-of-the-year fatigue and ennui that besets us all. Another year gone. We made it. Happy New Year!

I’ve been doing a little reading lately, including a re-read of Neil Gaiman’s “Books of Magic.” I’m not a fan of the fantasy genre in general, but the master of any art is worth experiencing, and perhaps studying. Part 1 of 4 of that work, “The Invisible Labyrinth,” contains one of the best quick strolls through the history of the occult that I’ve seen. But it’s Part 3, “The Land of Summer’s Twilight,” that haunts my mind tonight.

That’s the part where the main character is taken on a tour of “Fairyland.” Whether it’s a Gaiman story, or Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” or any other attempts at magical fiction, the most important thing to remember when reading about faeries is that everything is a metaphor. Therein lies the power of such stories. Certain human truths are best explained in the language of metaphor.

It occurred to me the other day that writing books is my version of adventuring through Fairyland. One of the common tropes of these stories is the difference in the rate of time’s passage between magically-interlinked worlds. A year’s time in our world equates to the passing of centuries in Narnia, for example.

My first novel, Burn Card, takes place over the course of six days. From the beginning of my outlining and research, to the moment I typed THE END on the last page of my first draft, I had spent about 21 months. That’s about a 100-to-1 scaling of time, between the real world and the parallel universe I’ve created. Not time lost. Time well spent.

But quite a loss of time, when you think about it. My literary life is a burning fuse next to a ticking clock. A flower growing in a sunny grove within the deep dark woods. The song of passing geese amidst the howling of the eternal wind holding them aloft.

The most metaphory metaphor in the metaphoresque realm of metaphoriness. Pass the lemon sherbet, please.

And what’s most important — it was worth every moment spent.

I haven’t posted here in a while. Amidst life’s tumults of both the happy and weighty variety, I’ve been making some progress on my current manuscript. No word from my agent in a while. This is a time for keeping my head down and plowing through the new project, trying not to worry about the previous.

The early stages of a new art project are always uncomfortable for me. I think that’s how it should be. I recall Neil Gaiman once talking about how an author needs to write more openly than he is comfortable with.

I think that goes beyond simply being honest and forthcoming and expressing oneself before the world and its judgment. There is also the discomfort of beginning something new without knowing … not for sure … if it’s something you can even do.

Last night I finished Chapter 4 of Blood Game, which features my protagonist, Thomas Vale, talking to his counselor, psychologist Dr. Jasiri Stallworth. It’s an open discussion about how he is navigating his life, dialogue-driven obviously, and therein lies the difficulty.

While I feel like I know Thomas pretty well, I’m creating and developing Jasiri as a new character in this very scene. And that means stepping outside what I know, and trying to become someone else — a difficult thing to do. Jasiri is older than me, a woman, black, blind, and has an emotional intelligence and understanding of human cognition that I will never possess. And I get to decide how she talks and what she has to say.

I feel a little lost, because, well … of course I do. But therein lies the challenge, and the fun. As Bjork Gudmundsdottir might say, “if you don’t take any risks, you don’t get any treats.”

At the end of the day, you just have to do your research, and then do your best. And try to remember that’s it’s OK to be out of your comfort zone, because that’s where the learning happens.

Feels good to be back on track, after weeks of family illnesses and work stuff slowed me down. Rewrote the opening chapter of Blood Game, and then finished the second chapter last night.

By the thirty-chapter outline I’m working with, it’ll take three chapters to properly set everything up. Then two or three chapters to establish some side characters and side plots, before the ball really gets rolling.

There’s a lot to take into consideration when writing the second book in a series. I can’t assume the reader has read the first book — some readers will find me through the sequel, and go back and read my debut later. That means the sequel has to be able to stand up on its own.

But it can’t be entirely independent either. My main character, Thomas Vale, has to be essentially the same person, maybe a little more experienced. He has to be consistent with what readers have seen before. I have to quickly develop him in the sequel in a way that informs new readers, but without being tiresome and redundant for those who read the debut.

That means I need to give my protagonist ways to show off who he is and what he can do, early and often, but in a different way than in the debut. Simultaneously, I have to establish a new story with new support characters, and begin developing those characters.

And finally, because I’m writing in the thriller/action genre, the story should start with a bang and maintain a good pace during most of the book, and especially near the beginning.

Phew!

It’s a juggling act, but a fun one. And there will be many drafts … oh yes indeedy. But later drafts, in my experience, are a lot less grueling if you really roll up your sleeves and put in the extra effort into the first draft. Especially the opening. Take as much time as you need and really nail that opening.

The boys and I are now in Day Three of sorta-quarantine. My daughter has the flu, and is quarantining with my ex, who has COVID. My condo is the “House of Bro,” and the boys are healthy and enjoying their surprise Dad-cation.

These things just come out of nowhere sometimes. That’s life, and you make the best of it. I had hoped to have my father up to visit next weekend, or to take the kids to him, but that can’t happen now.

But at least we were prepared, enough to make the necessary adjustments on the fly. I was never a Boy Scout (interpret that both figuratively and literally), but I have a similar motto to their “Be Prepared” which describes preparation.

“Look Fastball, and Adjust.”

That’s what we say in baseball. The idea being that if you’re looking for slow junk, and the fastball comes, it’ll blow you away. But if you look fastball, and the slow stuff comes, maybe you have time to adjust. Prepare now for the contingency that you can’t prepare for later.

I’m not sure what the writing equivalent is for that. I wish I had an adage to say in lieu of just grumbling to myself about being too busy or too distracted to write.

I guess the last week or two, I’d been looking forward to swatting some homeruns. Then life threw me a curve. This little essay is me waiting on it, slapping it to right, and settling for a single, because this pitcher just isn’t giving up the longball today.

I’ve had a hard time focusing on writing lately.

It’s not writer’s block. I don’t believe in that. More like a week-and-a-half of dealing with a barrage of family illnesses, some temporary, and some not. I can’t speak more about that at this time.

Most mornings, I pick up my son from high school, as he does half-days in the school, and the other half virtually in my living room. Tomorrow, I’ll have a sick daughter with me as well. But at least I’ve finished grading the latest round of algebra finals. One less distraction, at least. Still a full cast of characters for me to juggle.

And then come the characters in my books, who are nearly as real to me. Writers create universes, but we don’t live in them. We can only visit when the opportunity arises, not unlike our readers.

I watched ABC News tonight, and saw multiple news stories which correlate highly to the plot of my current work in progress, Blood Game. Normally that sort of thing would amuse me. After all, I write action stories which take place in the real world, so similar things actually happening in the world is an indication that my writing is realistic. Which is validating, I guess.

The challenge is to create characters as complex as those in real life, and stories and scenes as indelible as an ordinary day.

Joyeux Toussaint!

I finally got the first chapter of Blood Game where I want it, and am making the appropriate repairs to Chapters 2 and 3 before continuing. It’s important to nail the opening in a thriller, especially when it contains the inciting event that will be referred back to often.

Did a little of that last night, on Halloween, or Samhain as I call it. Set a spirit plate out for my Mom at dinner. Samhain is a sort of somber combination of Memorial Day and New Year’s Eve to me, though I would certainly dress up silly and give out candy if I still lived in the sort of neighborhood where that happened.

Blood Game is going to have a bit of a spooky feel to it in places. It will introduce the character Linsey Redhouse, who is a third-generation Seneca medicine woman, but who is also a biology teacher and aspiring scientist. All my stories have strong female characters, and this woman in particular will dance on the edge between science and mysticism, and invite you to tango with her.

I love incorporating science and magic together in a story — I have several previous works (most of which should probably never see the light of day!) that do so. I think the trick is to have some key events happen in such a way that the reader is invited to come up with their own explanation.

Malcolm Gladwell was spoken about the importance of making the reader feel smart. He was talking about reporting and writing non-fiction, but I think the idea applies here. I want to draw the reader into the story by giving them things they can interpret themselves based on their own experiences.

That fantastic thing that happened in the story … was it scientific and logical? Or was there some divine hand behind the scenes?

If I can write the story so that either idea could explain it, then the reader can decide for themselves. I loooove doing that! And if the readers are astute enough to believe one way but see the possibility of the other, maybe I didn’t just treat them to a good story. Maybe I’ve tricked them into opening their minds too.

I didn’t set out to create the “first autistic spy” in literature. And if you count the main character of that so-so Ben Affleck film “The Accountant” as a spy, then I definitely didn’t.

But then Thomas Vale isn’t exactly a spy either. He’s more complicated than that. It’ll take a few novels before that becomes apparent. But I digress…

I had a notion of Thomas Vale, the main (but never the only) protagonist of my stories, that goes back almost thirty years. You could almost say he grew up with me. We’re old pals. And when I began to realize I was autistic, about three or four years ago, he became autistic too. Or maybe, like me, he always was, only now we have a name for it.

When I was preparing to query agents, one of the things I worried most about were “comp titles.” Queries are sort of like job applications, and agents and publishers use these “comparative” titles to estimate how well and in what market(s) a book might prosper, and some financial decisions are affected by them. When you include a comp title, the idea is to make your book sound like other books, preferably successful and recent ones.

So I went to several libraries and bookstores, and I told the counter people I was looking for a book I’d heard about, and if they could direct me to it. And then I told them all about my book. I was hoping they’d give me similar books I could use as comps.

Not a one of them had ever heard of anything like “Burn Card.” They couldn’t even come up an adult adventure spy or action novel with an autistic protagonist. The best they could come up with was “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” which was excellent and won awards, but is nothing like what I’m doing.

And I thought, “Shit! Now what do I do?” Coming up with good comps is tough when you’re the first to write something.

The interesting thing was that every one of the bookstore and library folks could recite from memory several titles of young adult novels with autistic heroes. But nothing in the adult genre.

Young adult readers grow up to be adult readers. Eventually, there will be a need for grown up heroes.

So apparently there’s a hole to be filled in literature. And just as nature abhors a vacuum, there will eventually be a tidal rush to fill that hole. I like the idea of being on the crest of that wave. That wasn’t the plan in the beginning, but it’d be pretty cool if it turned out that way.

Writing this next to the stove, waiting for my black beans to bubble. Three sick kids in the other room, home from school but working on their laptops on school stuff, or at least pretending to convincingly.

Family. Job. Obligations. Responsibility.

From what I understand, most of us aspiring authors are part-timers. Best piece of advice for an new writer: “Don’t quit your day job.” Not that you can’t be successful. Heck, you just might be the next James Patterson. But until some Patterson-esque royalties start showing up — don’t quit your day job.

One of the hardest things about writing is just finding the time. But maybe it’s the effort to find it that makes it seem so joyful. A reward earned feels more special than a reward given. There’s truth to adage that making art should feel like its own reward.

Sat out on my back patio for three hours Saturday, a beautiful Michigan “Indian Summer” day, and banged out the first thousand words of my next book. Came back inside at dusk, still writing, and another four hours and fourteen hundred words later, Chapter 1 is written!

And I’ve already scribbled down some planned improvements, since no first volley is ever strong enough. Such is the nature of the art.

Since then … sick kids, cooking, cleaning, grading pre-calculus midterms, et cetera. We’re minutes a way from a quick trip for ice cream, which will yield smiles and soothe sore throats. I don’t experience one great big joy in my life. I have lots of part-time joy.

My author site and accompanying blog is only a few days old, and probably only one or two dozen people have heard of it so far, but it’s already had an emotional impact on people. The emotion was expressed in the form of side-splitting laughter, emanating from my kids, at the site of what I looked like when I was only a little older than them (see About the Author).

In just a few minutes, or maybe an hour due to procrastination (every authors’ sacred rite), I’ll be typing the first lines of the first draft of Blood Game … Book 2 in my debut series. Call me Ishmael? No, can’t use that for my first line. It’s been done.

One of my favorite books, the first “big kid” book I ever read, begins: “It was a dark and stormy night.” A tip of my proverbial cap to the first person to guess the title in the comments. Award-winning book, despite the cliche opening.

I began writing Book 1, titled Burn Card, on May 1st, 2021. That’s almost 18 months ago. But deduct the two months when I set the first draft aside and decompressed. Deduct another three weeks for each of the two times I had to set everything aside to write a massive promotion portfolio for my day job, and deduct about a month or so for all the effort that went into several months of querying, which I hope I never have to do again.

It comes to about 13 months between starting one book and the next, assuming no more of that other distracting nonsense. Looks like I need to step up the pace just a smidge, if I hope to be one of those book-a-year authors. Or write slightly shorter books?

Of the emergency blogging system. This is only a test.

BEEEEEEP….