Dale E. Lehman's Blog: Lehman's Terms, page 4

George Mayes’ Autobiographical Novel

Recently I’ve been reading novels by newer, largely unknown indie writers. By way of helping them along, I’ll be introducing some of them here. These authors are up-and-coming, at varying stages in their development as writers. They may not all have the polish of traditionally published authors, but I think they all have potential and deserve encouragement.

Pen, Please is an intense coming-of-age novel set in Oklahoma. We meet protagonist Andre Young at age sixteen when he returns home from a summer leadership program in Texas to find his father hospitalized with a blood clot in his lung. The first of many trials Andre faces in the novel, it’s far from the first in his life. Through flashbacks and present-day narrative, this young black man’s journey is exposed as a chronicle of heartbreak, tragedy, and headlong rushes down blind alleys, some imposed upon him and some of his own making.

Andre is fundamentally a decent guy struggling to make sense out of a life in which every joy is followed by a dozen sorrows. But he’s also headstrong and easily tempted to take the easy way out. His troubled relationship with his father and his distance from his absent mother haunt him throughout life. He can’t sort out his relationship with women, nor can he hang onto a job in spite of being an excellent worker. He even briefly descends into selling drugs. But through it all, he valiantly struggles towards something for which he has no good role models: how to be a man.

This is indie writer George Mayes’ first novel, and as such it has its ups and downs. The story is solid and engaging, while the key characters are drawn well and generally intriguing. Mayes has definite potential. He can turn a good phrase, and one or two particular witticisms made me laugh. But the narrative passages read like he’s trying too hard, and the dialogue needs work. Somewhere about mid-story the novel seemed to become a rush of scenes separated by time gaps of indeterminate length. A number of events alluded to should have been shown .

I don’t fault Mayes for these shortcomings. Most writers start this way. I expect that as he develops his craft, some really good things will come from his pen.

I recently asked George Mayes about his writing. Here’s what he said:

What inspired you to write Pen, Please?

I believe that each person is born with a unique purpose. Some are born to become doctors, others are blessed with speaking talents. For me, transferring my thoughts to paper always felt better than anything else. So I decided to tell a story: my story. Hence the title Pen, Please.

That’s interesting, because toward the end I did wonder if the novel was autobiographical. How heavily does it draw upon your own experience?

So much that if I changed one story about Marcus I would have a real-life story to match the rest of the novel.

I was interested to see the positive role religion played as protagonist Andre Young faced various trials. Outside of specifically religious fiction, that isn’t often found in novels these days. Can you comment a bit on how that comes into play in Andre’s life?

There are traces of a higher being throughout the novel, whether it’s Andre seeing his dad in angelic form, his brother having the right girlfriend at the right time, or being arrested by his cousin. This is important because Andre could have gone even further down the wrong path without this “spiritual realignment”.

Had you written or published anything prior to Pen, Please?

No, Pen, Please is my introduction inside the world of writing.

What advice do you have for writers, or for that matter readers?

I just want to say that I truly believe in everyone aspiring to reach their goals. They say, “It’s the start that stops most people.” Don’t let that be you. Don’t let fear talk you out of what you were born to do. Will the journey be hard? Yes. Will there be times you want to quit? Yes. Just keep pushing each day until you arrive. Once you’re there, you’ll realize it was all worth it! Thank you for your time.

Where can readers find you?

On Facebook and GoodReads.

Clarksville, Maryland: A Wealthy Crossroads

The unincorporated community of Clarksville, Maryland figures in my Howard County Mysteries largely as a crossroads through which characters pass and once or twice meet for lunch.  This mirrors my own experience of it. I’ve occasionally stopped at the McDonald’s on Clarksville Pike (state route 108), and my bonsai club has sometimes held meetings at the River Hill Garden Center.

Those establishments are north of state route 32, much of which is now part of Columbia. Clarksville proper is largely south of route 32 and harbors some of the most expensive homes on the east coast. It’s among the wealthier parts of Howard County, which is itself the second wealthiest county in the United States.

According to the Trulia real estate heat map I sometimes consult when researching story elements, the highest concentration of high-priced homes in Maryland border Washington, D.C.: Bethesda, Potomac, and nearby areas. But Howard County has its share of pricey homes, too. The same heat map shows Clarksville in the midst of a great swath of fairly expensive real estate that arcs from West Friendship near Interstate 70 all the way down to the banks of the Patuxent River. If you browse satellite photos of the area or check real estate listings, you will readily spot multi-million dollar houses.

Yet this rolling land is something of a contradiction. In the midst of expensive housing developments, you’ll find undeveloped stands of woodland and fields actively being farmed. In fact, upscale housing mixes rather freely with nature. In 2004, a local resident even captured a coyote on camera!

All this hearkens back to Clarksville’s beginnings. Today a community of over 50,000, it is named for farmer William Clark, who originally owned much of the land here. His ancestor John R. Clark had immigrated from Ireland in 1790 and purchased John Howard’s blacksmith shop which had been one of the few African American operated blacksmith businesses in the country.

In 1869 the town was connected to Ellicott City by a ten mile privately owned turnpike, which later became part of route 108. Yet by the 1930’s, the population of Clarksville was still only 65, with its key industries being agriculture and limestone mining.

With the creation of Columbia and swelling population in the Interstate 95 corridor, things have changed markedly. Today, retail businesses sprawl near the junction of routes 108 and 32 and considerable farmland has fallen to development, making Clarksville a busy place in spite of its semi-rural setting. You will still find long roads meandering through hills and valleys, flanked by agricultural land and woods, but come around a bend and suddenly you’ll be passing great houses that most of us can’t afford.

And if you happen to stop for a bite at a fast food joint on the north side of route 32, you just might catch a glimpse of Rick Peller and Eric Dumas discussing a case over lunch.

Introducing Laura Koerber

Recently I’ve been reading novels by newer, largely unknown indie writers. By way of helping them along, I’ll be introducing some of them here. These authors are up-and-coming, at varying stages in their development as writers. They may not all have the polish of traditionally published authors, but I think they all have potential and deserve encouragement.

Laura Koerber wrote her remarkable literary debut, The Dog Thief and other Stories under the pen name Jill Kearney.  Dogs and sometimes cats meander through this collection of twelve beautifully told stories. Populated by the infirm, the destitute, and the desperate, these are not pretty tales, but they are riveting. I was hooked right from the start with the bold rescue of abused animals in “The Dog Thief,” and I stayed hooked until, like the little fish in “Circles,” Kearney finally let me go. Her character sketches are drawn with bold lines, bringing to life a collection of pathetic, courageous, beaten, and triumphant human beings living on the fringes of society.

You might find your own life reflected here in some way. Strangely, the dog introduced in the first sentence, Lucky the three-legged pit bull, reminded me of one of my granddogs, who has a bum leg and usually doesn’t put any weight on it. The female protagonist in the final story is 59 years old, like me, and some of her reflections mirror some of mine at this time of life. Koerber has us pegged, it seems. Her stories are more than worth every penny.

I recently asked Laura Koerber a few questions about her writing:

What inspired you to write Echowake?

I was inspired to write the first story, “The Dog Thief” by a series of events involving the rescue of five dogs from a situation much like the one in the book: a backwoods neighborhood of eccentric, hardscrabble people, neglect and abuse of animals, and various efforts, legal and extralegal, to help the animals. That kind of opened a door and out poured more stories. I had not previously thought of myself as a writer. I have a degree in art, and I paint.

Had you published anything previously or since?

I have published three books under my real name and am working on a fourth.

I Once Was Lost, But Now I’m Found is a non-fiction account of the rescue of 124 dogs from a hoarder in Washington state, an amazing story that involves lawsuits, assaults, arrests, protests, and an attempt by the hoarder to run away with the dogs packed in a semi-truck.

I just published Limbo, which is a fantasy about life after death. Actually it’s about souls in Limbo who decide to have a neighborhood block party.

I also published The Listener’s Tale, which is a light, cheerful escapist story for people who want something relaxing to read.

What are you working on now?

I am working on a novel about a mother/daughter relationship.

Where can readers find you?

On my Amazon author pages (Jill Kearney and Laura Kroeber), Goodreads, and Facebook.

Columbia, Maryland: A Man, a Plan, and Detectives

One might say that the heart of modern-day Howard County is the city of Columbia. Before the late 1960’s, it wasn’t. Now it’s the second largest city in Maryland after Baltimore, but then it was wooded country and farmland dotted with a few small crossroad communities. Then came Jim Rouse and his ideas for a planned city based not just on economic factors but on human values.

An unincorporated city and home to my characters Detective Sergeants Corina Montufar and Eric Dumas, Columbia consists of ten “villages” intended to provide a small-town atmosphere. Each village in turn consists of several neighborhoods built around a shopping center (the “village center”). Recreational facilities, a community center, and hiking and biking trails are also found in each.  Many street and place names are taken from art and literature, so when you run across the moniker “Hobbit’s Glen,” yes, that is indeed a tip of the hat to J. R. R. Tolkien.

The central village is the Town Center area, which includes the Columbia Mall and significant business presence. Next door to the mall, the Merriweather Post Pavilion amphitheater plays host to a wide variety of concerts by big-name performers. Three manmade lakes and a variety of parks offer recreational opportunities. The Columbia Association, a citywide homeowners’ association, manages common-use facilities. It also dictates certain details of construction and the overall look and feel of the place. As a former colleagues who lived there once told me, “Yeah, it’s the taste police.”

A curious aspect of Columbia is how hidden many commercial venues are. The idea was to avoid the unsightly clutter of businesses that so often overtakes main thoroughfares in other cities. You can sometimes pass right by a store or restaurant without knowing it’s there. The Chinese restaurant frequented by Montufar and Dumas in my Howard County mysteries is loosely based on a real Chinese restaurant I once visited with some coworkers. The real place was larger and more elegant than the fictional one, which is basically a little storefront eatery, but they were both tucked away out of view.

Columbia is not a cheap place to live. The closer you get to Washington, D.C., the higher the prices rise. That’s why, when we moved to the area in 1995, we didn’t buy a house there. We had five school-age children at the time and needed a house big enough to corral them all. Nevertheless, from the get-go the idea behind Columbia was to provide a community where people of all socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic stripes could live and work and play in close proximity. To some degree, it did achieve that. You’ll find areas of larger and smaller homes, townhouses, and apartments in close proximity to each other, and people of all backgrounds rubbing elbows in the same shopping areas.

I don’t think of Columbia as a city, though. It has the suburban feel of the areas in which I grew up and have lived all my life. Rouse may have wanted to reinvent the city, but in many ways I think he more reinvented the suburbs, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in more questionable ways. I suspect most of the people who live there like it. I’ve only encountered one person who didn’t. Shortly before I moved there someone told me in an online conversation that he hated the place. Its development, he said, destroyed some of the best hunting lands in central Maryland.

But given its proximity to both Baltimore and Washington, development was probably the area’s fate anyway.

 

Introducing John G. Stevens

Recently I’ve been reading novels by newer, largely unknown indie writers. By way of helping them along, I’ll be introducing some of them here. These authors are up-and-coming, at varying stages in their development as writers. They may not all have the polish of traditionally published authors, but I think they all have potential and deserve encouragement.

John G. Stevens’ Echowake is the first book in a truly unique triology. Combining post-apocalyptic SF with fantasy and a touch of steampunk, goggles included, this tale pulls you in and keeps you reading right up to the cliff-hanger conclusion. In terms of story, this is a five-star effort. Bravo!

Plagued by horrific nightmares that come true, the young courier Trede spends his life moving from place to place in hopes of outrunning his inexplicable curse. He carries a unique weapon that attracts the attention of the Cytech guild, who are convinced Trede must be a gifted inventor, not to mention a pair of rival Mystics, one of whom who wants to destroy Trede and the other of whom wants to use him as a tool for conquest. Along the way he runs afoul of a marshal who’s sure he’s up to no good, meets a strange creature who wants to be his friend, and faces down a barrage of swords and magic assaulting him from all sides for reasons he cannot fathom. Echowake has all the makings of an epic adventure.

But I have to downgrade it because as with so many indie first novels, the writing needs work. I’d probably score the book three stars at best in that category. The dialogue and the narrative passages just don’t show the polish we expect of a practiced writer.

Yet–and here’s the surprising part–the story was so amazingly good that I was willing to forgive the writing issues and eagerly read through to the end. I hope that Stevens will grow as a writer and that the sequel(s) will be more polished. I certainly want to read them!

I recently asked John G. Stevens a few questions about his writing:

What inspired you to write Echowake?

I’ve been working on little bits and pieces of the world that became Echowake since the sixth grade. I had a large sketch pad with scrabbly drawings of maps and story ideas. I loved imagining a new world that no one had ever seen before. I guess I’ve always loved to create in general. The thing that has stuck with me the most over the years is stories. I dabbled in writing shorter fiction but I always had this “big idea” of a trilogy of stories. One day it dawned on me to novelize the whole story that I’d been playing with in different forms for years. The further I went into that world the more I never wanted to leave!

Had you published anything previously or since?

Echowake is my first officially published work. It was a huge learning process but well worth the effort. I have done some unprofessional blogging at times, though. (But who hasn’t?)

What are you working on now?

I’ve fully thrown myself into the first draft of a direct sequel titled Echowake: The Coming Storm. I’ve learned so much during the first book I feel like I’m flying through this time. It’s already feeling like it will be a faster paced and more action-packed book. I can’t wait to share it.

I’m also outlining and gathering ideas for two in-world spin-off novellas. More info on my website (https://echowake.com/upcoming-books/). Every answer I find in this world poses another set of questions. I can see myself happily spending years here. Maybe you’ll come visit?

Where can readers find you?

On my author website, Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook.

Ellicott City: Home of Rick Peller

Ellicott City, Maryland is the seat of Howard County, the location of the HCPD’s Northern District Headquarters, where my detectives are based, and the home of Detective Lieutenant Rick Peller.

In all honesty, Peller’s neighborhood is entirely fictional. If it existed, it would have been built in the 1940’s, a neighborhood of moderately large two-story homes abutting commercial areas reminiscent of small-town main streets, featuring mom-and-pop stores and restaurants. In fact, Main Street in Ellicott City’s historic district could almost be next door to Peller’s house, except for a little problem with the geography, which we’ll get to in a moment. But first, some history.

Ellicott City grew up on the banks of the Patapsco River. It was born April 24, 1771 as Ellicott’s Mills, established by the Quaker brothers John, Andrew, and Joseph Ellicott. The Ellicotts chose the location in the wilderness a few miles upstream from Elk Ridge Landing (now Elkridge, Maryland) as the site for a flour mill. Over time, the brothers expanded their operations to sawmills, grain mills, an oil mill, smithies, stables, and a grain distillery. They also transformed agriculture in the area by encouraging local farmers to plant wheat instead of tobacco–after all, they couldn’t mill tobacco–and introducing Plaster of Paris fertilizer to rejuvenate the soil.

In 1830, Ellicott’s Mills was chosen as the first terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad outside the city. (Want to talk like a local? Folks around here often call it “Baltimore City” or just “the city” to distinguish it from Baltimore County, which is an entirely separate entity.) Today, the Ellicott City Station together with the gray granite Oliver Viaduct has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It’s the oldest surviving railroad station in America.

Ellicott’s Mills became Ellicott City in 1867 with an incorporation charter, which was later lost in 1935. It remains unincorporated today, but is now the seat of the Howard County government. For more historical information, see this article.

Back to that geographical quirk I mentioned. The center of Ellicott City is its historic district, built in the Tiber River valley. The Tiber is a tributary of the Patapsco, which in turn is a key tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. The Tiber cuts through the piedmont, slashing a deep gash through the hills. It’s a picturesque area. The oldest buildings in the city are found here, but the valley is narrow, so most residential areas are above in the surrounding high ground. That’s one reason the Peller residence isn’t just around the corner.

Another, more serious reason: huge amounts of water can course through the Tiber valley into the Patapsco. Significant rainfalls can raise the level of both rivers, backing the water up into the historic district. In more recent times, development has paved over natural drainage and channeled water down into the center of the city.  Devastating floods occurred in 1817, 1837, 1868, 1901, 1917, 1923, 1938, 1942, 1952, 1956, 1972 (Hurricane Agnes), 1975 (Hurricane Eloise), 1989, 2011, and 2016. Peller’s imaginary neighborhood isn’t in the path of these floods, although in my fourth Howard County novel he gets to experience one up close and personal.

Main Street becomes Frederick Road as it travels west. It does indeed connect to the city of Frederick at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. But today westward movement is better facilitated by U.S. Route 40 (Baltimore National Pike), and Interstate 70, both of which run by to the north of Ellicott City. Route 40 is a main commercial drag, particularly to the west of Baltimore. Consequently, it shows up with some frequency in my novels. So does the north-south U.S. Route 29, which connects I70 to Ellicott City, Columbia, and the northern D.C. suburb of Silver Spring. In spite of these and other major traffic arteries, getting around Howard County can take time. The hills force roads to twist and turn, unlike the straight shots in the midwestern areas where I grew up.

In any case, if you’re ever in the area, drop by for a visit. And if you happen to bump into Rick Peller, tell him I said hello.

 

 

Introducing Shannon Heuston

Recently I’ve been reading novels by newer, largely unknown indie writers. By way of helping them along, I’ll be introducing some of them here. These authors are up-and-coming, at varying stages in their development as writers. They may not all have the polish of traditionally published authors, but I think they all have potential and deserve encouragement.

I encountered Shannon Heuston through her novel, Under God’s Big Sky. Based on the cover blurb, I half expected this book to be a post-apocalyptic SF/fantasy tale. It turned out to be something rather different.

Raised in near-isolation on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, Montana under the harsh leadership of the man she knows only as the Yeoman of God, Leah has been told all her life that the world beyond was destroyed and that she is destined to bear its new Savior. But when an apparition from beyond the ranch intrudes, everything she has ever believed begins to unravel. Not knowing what she will find, fearful of calling down God’s wrath upon her, she abandons the only family she has ever known. The truth she discovers could liberate her, or destroy her.

Shannon Heuston tells a good tale, and clearly knows something of the psychology of fear, control, and betrayal. The plot, while not complex, keeps one reading. Even when Leah seems to find a “happy place” menace lurks beneath the surface. The inevitable final confrontation between Leah and Yeoman ends on a satisfying note, and although one might not agree with the young woman’s resulting religious conclusions, they make sense given who she is and what she endures. Heuston musters a wonderful turn of phrase from time to time, too. For an early novel by an indie writer, this is an enjoyable read, although it could benefit from a bit of tightening. I would hazard that Heuston has strong potential to surprise and delight readers in future works.

I recently asked Shannon Heuston a few questions about her writing:

What inspired you to write Under God’s Big Sky?

Actually I thought of the premise for Under God’s Big Sky many years ago, when I was a teenager and visiting my cousin in North Andover, Massachusetts. Originally I envisioned Agape [the Montana ranch where Leah grows up] as being populated by all teenagers, the same age as Leah. I wrote a little bit of it, then set it aside. Then a year ago I needed an idea for NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month], so I revisited the story.

Had you published anything previously or since (books, articles, etc.)?

I published a semi-autobiographical novel, The Playground, prior to Under God’s Big Sky. This novel was about bullying and its long term aftermath. Many of the incidents related in The Playground actually happened to me; it’s more of a memoir than a novel but I made a lot of editorial changes, such as combining several characters into one, and some of my memories of the incidents were fuzzy so I filled in some blanks.

Before that, I’ve written here and there, but nothing that was formally published. Prior to 2016, becoming an author was always one of my lifelong dreams, but I never really put in the work before writing The Playground. Then once I started writing, it started pouring out of me. I just couldn’t stop!

What are you working on now?

Well, my third novel, Woman Scorned, was just published today [October 31, 2017] as a matter of fact! All my novels are completely different from each other, and this one belongs to the thriller/suspense genre with sort of a true crime feel. Monica and Lexie are devoted sisters until Lexie commits an unspeakable act of revenge on a former lover. One of the themes I explore is that of unconditional love. How do you go on loving someone even after they commit evil?

The novel I am currently writing is about time travel. A team of scientists manage to discover the secret to time travel. To test it out, Diana, one of the scientists, travels back in time to the 19th century. Although instructed not to interfere with history, she falls in love with a prominent citizen she knows is doomed.

Anything else on your mind?

The only additional comment I might add is to assure aspiring authors that your dreams are within reach, as long as you’re willing to work hard and never give up.

And finally, where can readers find you?

Through my Facebook page, my Goodreads author page, and my blog (which is also at Goodreads).

 

Welcome to Howard County

Fun fact: with over 600 million residents, Baltimore is the largest independent city in the nation. Does that make you scratch your head? When I first moved into the area, it did me. Fortunately, the explanation is simple.

An “independent city” is one that doesn’t exist within the borders of any county. Baltimore County bends all around Baltimore City, enclosing it like a cocoon, except for at its southern tip, where the city abuts Anne Arundel County. The city of Baltimore is entirely independent of any county entanglements, although it’s police department is very much entangled with the state government due to an anti-corruption take-over of the BPD by the state in 1860. Those entanglements persist to this day.

Anyway. The Baltimore metropolitan area now hosts a population of 2.8 million, making it the 21st largest metro area in the United States. The metro area includes the city and six surrounding counties: Baltimore County (the cocoon around the city), Harford County (east), Carroll County (west), Anne Arundel County (south), Queen Anne’s County (east of Anne Arundel across the bay),  and Howard County (southwest). Howard County is, amazingly enough, the setting for my Howard County Mystery series.

Why did I pick that locale? For over 20 years, I’ve lived on the eastern side of Baltimore County. But I’ve worked in Howard County several times, and know the area reasonably well, probably better than I know Baltimore County. Howard County affords me a range of localized settings from the suburban to the rural.  It’s far more rural than Baltimore County, but with areas of reasonably concentrated population. Plus, unlike Baltimore County, it doesn’t wrap itself around a city, so Rick Peller and his associates can move pretty quickly from one area of the county to another as needed.

Then again, there’s rural and there’s rural. I don’t actually think of Maryland as incredibly rural. Although one of the smallest states in the U.S., it’s the fifth most densely populated. While most of that population is concentrated in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. corridor, even most of the state’s rural areas are more heavily populated than the rural areas from which my family hails.

Allow me to demonstrate. Here’s a population density map for Howard County and surrounding areas:

The thicker white lines are the county borders. Howard County is the large area stretching northwest to southeast, with Columbia and Ellicott City as its main population centers. The more rural areas of the county, the lighter orange, have a population density ranging from 101 to 1000 people per square mile.

Now let’s look at Rick Peller’s birthplace, Lockport, New York:

Peller would find the population levels in Howard County familiar, but notice the light pink areas to the east, particularly the location named Dysinger, which is about where Sandra Peller came from. Those areas have a population density of 100 people per square mile or less. That, to me, is what rural is all about. That’s because my grandparents hailed from northwest Ohio. My maternal grandparents lived in the “big city” of Van Wert, while my paternal grandparents had a farm near Scott:

Rural is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. I consider my Howard County novels to be suburban crime novels, not rural crime novels, even though farms and fields do pop up in them from time to time. The county has some nice open spaces. But you can’t throw a rock too terribly far without hitting someone.

(Maps clipped from the ArcGIS 2012 population map.)

The Indie Author Dilemma

Ah, technology. It makes possible so many wonderful things. And so many terrible things. And so many mediocre things. And so many books.

Today, anybody can write and publish a book, so everybody does. Far more published authors inhabit the world now than ever before, and most of them are independents–indie authors. They don’t need no stinking traditional publishers. By vanity press, print-on-demand publisher, or online tool, they fearlessly bring their creations to life. How great is that?

Well…

Once upon a time, it took a lot of work to achieve publication. Self-publishing is nothing new, but the vast majority of books were brought forth by publishing companies. The occasional genius notwithstanding, most writers suffered under this system, spending years collecting rejection slips before making a sale. It hurt, and often the hurt never ended. Not every writer entered the paradise of publication. Most suffered in the hell of endless rejection.

But that wasn’t all bad. Because through those long years of failure, writers gained experience, honed their craft, grew from novice to expert. They didn’t get published. They became publishable.  And then they were rewarded.

Today’s indie writer may think she’s got it good, because she can skip all that, but actually she doesn’t. Because it’s horribly tempting to skip all that. It’s not uncommon to hear an indie ask, “I’ve just finished my first novel. How do I get it published?” The occasional genius aside, the answer ought to be: “Please don’t.”

Disclaimer time. I’m not trying to insult indie writers. Conceiving and writing a book is no small feat. Beyond that, it takes a lot of courage to send it out into the world for people to read. Anyone who gets that far deserves respect and encouragement, and they definitely have mine.

But let’s face it: nobody is born capable of writing great literature. Some people have greater aptitude for writing than others, but even they learn through years of reading and writing.  I’ve never heard of a four-year-old writing a deathless novel, and neither have you. Very few 20-year-olds have done so, for that matter. Writing is a skill that must be learned, practiced, improved. And that takes time.

Consider me. I spent years writing, principally science fiction short stories. I never sold one, although near the end of those years I got a few words of encouragement from editors, including one from Shawna McCarthy at Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. She rejected my story, but told me I had promise. Oh, that felt great! I’d never enjoyed a rejection so much. I wrote one mystery almost-novel after that. (Almost because it was too short for a novel.) I then wrote an SF novel, a fantasy novel, and two mystery novels. My SF novel almost found an agent, except she was going out of business. Rats!

By this time, I think I was very close to publishability. I hadn’t hit the big time yet, but my writing was starting to get the attention of at least a few editors and agents. And then disaster struck: I landed a contract with a con artist claiming to be an agent. I won’t go into details now. Suffice it to say that I stopped writing fiction for ten years.

Ten years later, I pulled myself out of the writing doldrums and wrote my first Howard County mystery, The Fibonacci Murders. By then, the indie revolution was in full swing, and my wife Kathleen and I had started our own publishing company. So we published it. It was a pretty easy sale, even though Kathleen didn’t let me off easy. She wields a mean editorial pen. Since that time, I’ve written two more novels in the series–True Death which we also published, and Ice on the Bay which we hope to have out by the end of the year. I’ve also written an SF/humor novel, Space Operatic, which is with some beta readers now, and started two more novels: Howard County mystery #4 and a crime/humor novel.

Now here’s the thing: In reviewing my recent work, I find that only HCM4 and my crime/humor novel are equal in quality to the last things I wrote before my ten year hiatus. Those dead years set me back, and I only got back up to speed by writing several more novels.

Think about that, all you indie writers. Scads of short stories and five novels to almost become publishable, then a decade without practice, then three more novels to regain my skill. And someone who  has just finished their first novel wants to publish it?

It’s been said that a writer must write a million words to become a good writer. That’s ten 100,000 word novels. The exact number isn’t important, though. The point is practice, practice, practice. The traditional publishing model forced most writers to practice. The indie model does not. Which means, fellow indies, we must force the practice on ourselves.

I can see a possible new paradigm emerging here. We publish book after book. Some of us pay attention to our writing, commit to learning, and over time get better and better. The trail of books we leave behind us is public testimony to our development as writers. Scholars might appreciate that someday, but meanwhile readers have to wade through piles of trash before they find one of us emerging from it with a gem.

The only question is, how many readers have the patience for that? Curious, isn’t it: before, the writers had to have patience, and the readers got instant gratification. Now it’s the other way ’round. Hmmm.

More Reading Material

Yeah, so I’m not very good at keeping up to date with this. Here are three more books that I’ve recently read and reviewed on Goodreads.com.

Weird Dinosaurs: The Strange New Fossils Challenging Everything We Thought We Knew by John Pickrell

Something dinosaur lovers might want to read, but to be honest I wasn’t overly impressed. Click on the title to read my review to see why.

Under God’s Big Sky by Shannon Heuston

I read this as part of an indie writers’ group. It’s a pretty good tale for a first novel by an indie writer. I want to say more on that general subject in my next blog post, but for now click the link above to see my review.

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

A classic collection of short stories by one of the masters of fiction. I reread this for the first time in many years and found it every bit as wonderful as I remembered it. Again, click the link to see my review, but more than that, read this book. You won’t regret it.