Alex Lyttle's Blog

The Irony That I Wrote A Book

When I was little my mother suspected I had a learning disability when it came to the english language.

Which makes it ironic that I have just published my first book, From Ant To Eagle.

Why was my mother worried? Not to mention every teacher I ever had…

Because I was (and still am) an atrocious speller.

Here’s a sample of my journal when I was 8 years old.

What is written: “Tues Dec 3rd. my neus. ie lick hockee bckus it is fun to plaee.

Translation: “Tues Dec 3rd. My news. I like hockey because it is fun to play.”

Yep, I spelled almost every single word wrong… including the word “I” (which is impressively bad).

As you can see, it was basically unintelligible. Which was a source of a lot of stress for me and my mother. I remember trying to spell the same word multiple different ways during school assignments in hopes that teachers might think, “Oh, he knows how to spell this word, look over here… he got it right over here… this other one must have been an accident.”

The tactic didn’t work.

I basically failed every spelling test I ever took. For one year of my elementary schooling I attended a school that had spelling tests where the teacher would stand at the front of class and read a paragraph. We would transcribe this onto our paper for marking and if you spelled a word wrong, you got a mark off. I consistently got less than zero. NEGATIVE SCORES! This raised two red flags – 1. My spelling. 2. The testing method. What kind of school has tests where you can get less than zero!?!? I was quickly transferred back to Montessori where they were much more accommodating but the damage was done. My confidence with spelling and writing was shot.

My mother tried to overcome this using the most tried and true method to improve spelling: READING!

The problem was… my brother and I refused to read. We’d rather play sports or watch movies. That is until we discovered Goosebumps books (thank you R.L. Stine – you saved my life). Suddenly I was spending hours a day reading. My brother and I read even when we could have been playing video games (shocking!).

Slowly my spelling improved. At least enough to pass and feel slightly more confident. I continued to read and somewhere in medical school I decided to try my hand at writing. I wrote From Ant To Eagle over the course of seven years and it was published this April.

I still can’t spell. Even simple words. I think a certain part of my brain is missing. But now I’m a doctor and can scribble when I don’t know how to spell a word. The perfect job. Good old “Doctor Hand Writing”.

So I leave everyone with a few words of advice:

PARENTS: If your child is struggling with spelling, get them reading. It doesn’t matter if it’s comics, Goosebumps or the phone book – reading is reading.

TEACHERS: Don’t have exams where students can get less than zero.

CHILDREN: If you can’t spell – READ! And if that doesn’t work – BECOME A DOCTOR!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment below.

The post The Irony That I Wrote A Book appeared first on Alex Lyttle.

How I (Didn’t) Designed My Book Cover

Here’s a slightly embellished conversation regarding my book cover:

Publisher: “Have you given any thought to what you’d like the cover of your book to look like?”

Me: “Yes, I would like it to have a big sticker in the top corner. One that says Newbery, or Man Booker, or Pulitzer.”

Publisher: “Those are awards. You have to win them first.”

Me: “So we can’t just stick one on? I mean, it doesn’t seem so hard to find a book that already has one and just -”

Publisher: ” – no.”

Me: “Darn. Okay, in that case, here are two designs I’ve come up with on my own – which do you like best?”

Publisher: “These are the covers of The Giver and Harry Potter. You’ve just duct taped over the titles and written From Ant to Eagle.”

Me: “That obvious, huh?”

Publisher: “Yes.”

Me: “But I REALLY like both of these books. And The Giver comes with its own stickers. I think we should go with one of them.”

Publisher: “You can’t just take someone else’s cover.”

Me: “Even if we keep all the text inside the same? We wouldn’t change anything except the title.”

Publisher: “That sounds suspiciously like plagiarism.”

Me: “Not if we have a bibliography!”

Publisher: “How about I just design the cover.”

Me: “Hmm… you know what… that sounds like a much better idea.”

And so it is that I owe a huge thanks to the amazingly talented Michelle Halket of Central Avenue Publishing for designing the cover of my book. It is – in my humble opinion – perfect. I owe another huge thanks to my daughter and Michelle’s daughter for doing the drawings that grace the cover. They are supposed to be the drawings of the eleven-year old protagonist and since I draw like a 5-year-old, we required their services.

I hope you like the cover as much as I do!

Look for it in bookstores April 1, 2017 or preorder online today at:

Chapters/Indigo Books
Amazon
Barnes and Nobles

— Alex

So You Want to Write a Book?

Sorry for my long hiatus. This last year has been very busy. Between writing my Pediatric board exam, finishing my first novel and having our third child I didn’t have much time to blog. But I’m back and ready to go!

I recently signed a book deal with Central Avenue Publishing for my first novel FROM ANT TO EAGLE and have been working with the amazing Michelle Halket towards a release date of April 2017. So I wanted to write about that process and hopefully encourage any of you who have ever wanted to write a novel to get started.

*looks scathingly at his mother-in-law*

Apparently 80% of people say that they want to write a book (I don’t know where this statistic comes from… I’m basing this completely on hearsay…). There are lots of excuses for not starting but probably the most common are:

1. “I have no talent”

2. “I don’t have enough time”

3. “I don’t have any great ideas for a book”

4. “I get painful arrhythmias and incontinence every time I look at a keyboard”

Hopefully by reading this post you will see that none of these are good excuses. Except maybe number 4. If that happens, you should probably see a doctor. And not me. A different doctor. Because that doesn’t sound like an allergy.

So let’s go through each of these excuses:

Number 1: “I have no talent”

When I started writing my novel it was terrible. And I mean TERRIBLE! I wrote with the cadence and sentence structure of a seven-year-old and ended up throwing away everything I wrote… multiple times. I had no formal training in writing (I took one english credit in university because it was mandatory) and would regularly fail spelling tests in elementary school. (Now I’m a doctor so I just scribble and hope no one can read it…)

I’ve heard that even some of the best writers in the world think that what they’re currently writing is terrible. Only after they stop and go back does it sound okay. And only after it has been edited and re-edited does it sound good. With practice comes less editing. And hopefully after many tries, you can get something down that people will want to read. It takes time, but unless you start, you’re never going to develop the skill. So forget talent – just start working – the skill will come.

Number 2: “I don’t have enough time”

Over the past seven years I finished medical school, a residency in pediatrics, a fellowship in allergy, got married, had three children, wrote my board exam and still found time to write 3 novels. (though two of them are only first drafts)

The simple truth about writing is that you won’t find time unless you want to. And you won’t want to unless you’ve tried. Writing is like going to the gym, initially it is very difficult to find the motivation but after you start it’s difficult to stop. Or at least, that’s how it was for me.

My life has been chaotic but I always try to find at least an hour or two a day to write. Whether it’s opening my laptop at 3 in the morning on a call shift, or hashing out a few hundred words after the kids go to sleep, or editing what I’ve already written while my wife delivers our third child (that’s only partially a joke) – I have always tried to make time.  And I’m only able to make time because I love it.

For me writing is an escape. It began as a cathartic release for the distressing things I saw at work and has evolved into a chance to put all my daydreaming on paper. You might start writing and find you hate it. In that case, you probably won’t finish the book. There is too much work involved to grind it out. But if you love it, you will continue, and you will make time for it.

Number 3: “I don’t have any great ideas for a book”

Simply not true. Everyone has ideas. Like Pokemon, you just need to evolve them. When I started writing my novel I only had very faint ideas for what it would be about. I knew I wanted to write a book about brothers. I knew I wanted to incorporate my medical training. But beyond that, I didn’t know anything.

I just started writing.

Many of my first ideas never made it to the final cut. But as I wrote, new ideas formed and those are the ones that eventually came together to form the novel. I’ve heard there are two ways to write a book – outline it all beforehand or just start writing and see where it goes. I did the latter. And if you don’t have any “great ideas” I suggest you start there too. In time, ideas will develop and you can sit down and form an outline if you so choose.

Number 4: “I get painful arrhythmias and incontinence every time I look at a keyboard”

Why are you still reading this?!? Get to a hospital!!!!

So there they are, my thoughts on writing. Obviously I’m no expert and there are way better resources available (I’d recommend ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King). Either way, the most important thing you can do is start. So stop reading this blog and get writing!

If you have any questions feel free to post in the comments section below or else I can be contacted through the various social media outlets:

Twitter: @alex_lyttle

Facebook: /AlexLyttleAuthor

Instagram: alex.lyttle

Cheers and good luck!

Alex

Oh, The Things Children Say!

As a pediatrician and father of three, I’ve heard some pretty funny things said by children. Here are my some of my favourites:

1. While my grandmother was very sick in the hospital and we were sitting around for a family dinner:

Wife: “This curried cauliflower is delicious. Where’d you get the recipe?”

Me: “My grandmother.”

Daughter: “Well I guess we won’t be having this anymore…”

2. Working at the hospital:

Young girl: “We’re going to vagina next week.”

Embarrassed looking mother: “You mean Regina sweetie.”

3. Walking in to find my daughter spraying her hamster with water:

Me: “What are you doing?”

Daughter: “Teaching my hamster to swim.”

Me: “That doesn’t really look like swimming.”

Daughter: Rolls her eyes. “First you have to teach them to like water.”

4. Walking through dog park with my daughter after she’d learned at school that big dogs don’t live as long as little dogs:

Man walks by with his Great Dane.

Daughter: “Wow mister, your dog sure isn’t going to live very long.”

Man continues to walk away looking very distraught.

5. When my daughter was 5 she was obsessed with getting a Pomeranian and spent countless hours trying to convince my wife and I to get one:

Daughter: “Dad, what’s your favourite kind of dog?”

Me: “Probably a Golden Retreiver.”

Daughter: “Okay, not including Golden Retrievers.”

Me: “Probably a lab.”

Daughter: “Okay, not including big dogs.”

Me: “Hmm… maybe a Westie.”

Daughter: “Okay, not including any dogs that you like.”

Me: “Probably a Pomeranian.”

Daughter: “YEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!”

6. Preparing for our garage sale:

Daughter: “Okay, I’ve figured out what I’m going to sell stuff for.”

Me: “You did?”

Daughter: “Yep. I’m going to sell something for $50, something for $150, something for $300, something for $500. Then I’ll have $1000 and can buy a Pomeranian. I did the math.”

Me: “Great. Do you know what you’re going to sell?”

Daughter: Skipping away. “Nope!”

7. After moving to Vancouver my daughter has her first earthquake drill at school:

Me: “How was school today?”

Daughter: “Great!”

Me: “How was the earthquake drill?”

Daughter: “Awesome! Our class can’t wait for ‘The Big One’ so we can see what kinds of snacks and blankets are in the red backpack.”

8. After I had done some dangerous and probably frowned upon parenting thing and gotten lectured by my wife:

Me: Melodramatically turn to my daughter and say, “I’m a terrible father.”

Daughter: “You’re not a terrible father. You’re a good father with terrible ideas.”

9. Removed

10. Removed

This list was originally going to have 10 quotes but my wife deemed two of them inappropriate. Please feel free to post your own quotes in the comments section below to complete the list… my wife will let you know if they’re acceptable…

Alex