Biff Mitchell's Blog: Writing Hurts Like Hell - Posts Tagged "serializednovel"
The Weekly Man
I'm trying something new. I'm giving one of my novels away. It took my years to write it. It took over a year just to do the research. But I'll be honest...I'm hoping something good will come out of this.
The novel is called The Weekly Man and it's about seven people whose lives are intricately connected through a secret relationship that they're unaware of until after 30 years. And when they find out...all hell breaks loose.
I'm going to release it one episode at a time starting September 8 and running until the middle of November. There will be enough reading to fit into the morning coffee break.
In the process of overcoming some of many obstacles (pardon me...challenges) like problems with fonts and formatting, creating versions for various platforms, et al. I expected these things.
The novel will be serialized every day for two and a half months at www.theweeklyman.com.
The novel is called The Weekly Man and it's about seven people whose lives are intricately connected through a secret relationship that they're unaware of until after 30 years. And when they find out...all hell breaks loose.
I'm going to release it one episode at a time starting September 8 and running until the middle of November. There will be enough reading to fit into the morning coffee break.
In the process of overcoming some of many obstacles (pardon me...challenges) like problems with fonts and formatting, creating versions for various platforms, et al. I expected these things.
The novel will be serialized every day for two and a half months at www.theweeklyman.com.
The Weekly Man
I'm trying something new. I'm giving one of my novels away. It took my years to write it. It took over a year just to do the research. But I'll be honest...I'm hoping something good will come out of this.
The novel is called The Weekly Man and it's about seven people whose lives are intricately connected through a secret relationship that they're unaware of until after 30 years. And when they find out...all hell breaks loose.
I'm going to release it one episode at a time starting September 8 and running until the middle of November. There will be enough reading to fit into the morning coffee break.
In the process of overcoming some of many obstacles (pardon me...challenges) like problems with fonts and formatting, creating versions for various platforms, et al. I expected these things.
The novel will be serialized every day for two and a half months at The Weekly Man .
The novel is called The Weekly Man and it's about seven people whose lives are intricately connected through a secret relationship that they're unaware of until after 30 years. And when they find out...all hell breaks loose.
I'm going to release it one episode at a time starting September 8 and running until the middle of November. There will be enough reading to fit into the morning coffee break.
In the process of overcoming some of many obstacles (pardon me...challenges) like problems with fonts and formatting, creating versions for various platforms, et al. I expected these things.
The novel will be serialized every day for two and a half months at The Weekly Man .
Coffee Shops and the Single Writer
I’m a coffee shop writer. I’ve written five novels in coffee shops because they’re the only place I can write fiction. There’s something about the atmosphere and the availability of coffee that burrows deep into the headlands of my creativity and starts a stampede of words and ideas. I write for about an hour to an hour and a half each evening and get one to two pages (yep, I’m no Stephen King). Anywhere else and I might get a paragraph or two and on very rare occasions, a whole page. Surprisingly, it doesn’t matter what coffee shop or where it is…if it’s a coffee shop, the trail to the headlands is a six lane highway racing into story telling.
And yes, I’ve written about writing in coffee shops before; in fact, my last post (in my personal blog) covered some of the hurdles to overcome. But this post is about single writers who write in coffee shops and why they’re likely to remain single forever.
To begin with…being a writer is a powerful sentence to singleness in the courtroom of relationships. I mean it. Most of the writers I know are single…and not necessarily happy about it. Some have fond memories of those days when they had someone special in their lives, someone who understood them and stuck in there in spite of long hours alone while their writer mate disappeared into the jowls of a coffee shop (we’re talking just about coffee shop writers here) to do mysterious things with words. They put up with the roller coaster of moods and lifestyle that brand writers as persona non cool. They looked the other way when the writer, foaming at the mouth and crazy-eyed, tried to explain the world-shaking ramifications of not being able to find the right word to describe Sam’s blue shirt.
“Just say it’s blue,” she says.
“But how will they know the blue?” he responds.
“By the use of the word blue,” she says.
“But how will they feel the blue,” he says.
“You only feel blue when you’re sad,” she says.
“You don’t understand me,” he cries.
“You’re making a mountain out of…” she tries to say.
“You’re just like the rest of them,” he yells.
And suddenly, he’s single. And not necessarily happy about it.
The same things happen to female coffee shop writers, proving there’s no gender inequality when it comes to losing at love, especially if you can sneak a bit of the loss into a story.
There’s something about creating worlds with words that takes you out of everybody else’s world and plops you into a place that only exists in your own mind, like when was talking to a group of co-workers while I was working on my first novel. I started talking about a man called Baxter. The others looked at me in a strange way, like my head had just fallen off. One of them said, “Who’s Baxter?”
It suddenly dawned on me that Baxter was one of the characters in my novel. That’s how real he’d become and how unreal the world of my co-workers had become. Sadly, this didn’t discourage me from writing; in fact, it probably spurred me on. Something along the lines of OK, I’ve lost it with these people, so what do I have left? Oh right…Baxter and friends.
Writing is a deep uncharted pit with a shallow slope that slants ever more precariously as you slide into it. It leads into a place where a blue shirt is deep sea or sky blue, not just blue. A place where nothing is whole until the last draft, or until an editor has a better idea for blue. It’s a place where you can get lost, where you can drift away from everything that’s known into a great unknown that you get to arrange and rearrange until you’re satisfied that it’s the right color of blue.
Sound crazy?
It is. And it’s not like those writers who write at home where the better half (at least, saner half) can pop in say, “Hi, how’s it going?”
“What’s another way of saying blue?”
“Just write blue. I think people will get it.”
“You don’t understand me.”
“Don’t stay up too late.” Door closes. Writer is alone to stew in blue. Until bed time.
But for some, the coffee shop calls out to us and off we go, single and bursting with words under the brilliant azure sky.
And yes, I’ve written about writing in coffee shops before; in fact, my last post (in my personal blog) covered some of the hurdles to overcome. But this post is about single writers who write in coffee shops and why they’re likely to remain single forever.
To begin with…being a writer is a powerful sentence to singleness in the courtroom of relationships. I mean it. Most of the writers I know are single…and not necessarily happy about it. Some have fond memories of those days when they had someone special in their lives, someone who understood them and stuck in there in spite of long hours alone while their writer mate disappeared into the jowls of a coffee shop (we’re talking just about coffee shop writers here) to do mysterious things with words. They put up with the roller coaster of moods and lifestyle that brand writers as persona non cool. They looked the other way when the writer, foaming at the mouth and crazy-eyed, tried to explain the world-shaking ramifications of not being able to find the right word to describe Sam’s blue shirt.
“Just say it’s blue,” she says.
“But how will they know the blue?” he responds.
“By the use of the word blue,” she says.
“But how will they feel the blue,” he says.
“You only feel blue when you’re sad,” she says.
“You don’t understand me,” he cries.
“You’re making a mountain out of…” she tries to say.
“You’re just like the rest of them,” he yells.
And suddenly, he’s single. And not necessarily happy about it.
The same things happen to female coffee shop writers, proving there’s no gender inequality when it comes to losing at love, especially if you can sneak a bit of the loss into a story.
There’s something about creating worlds with words that takes you out of everybody else’s world and plops you into a place that only exists in your own mind, like when was talking to a group of co-workers while I was working on my first novel. I started talking about a man called Baxter. The others looked at me in a strange way, like my head had just fallen off. One of them said, “Who’s Baxter?”
It suddenly dawned on me that Baxter was one of the characters in my novel. That’s how real he’d become and how unreal the world of my co-workers had become. Sadly, this didn’t discourage me from writing; in fact, it probably spurred me on. Something along the lines of OK, I’ve lost it with these people, so what do I have left? Oh right…Baxter and friends.
Writing is a deep uncharted pit with a shallow slope that slants ever more precariously as you slide into it. It leads into a place where a blue shirt is deep sea or sky blue, not just blue. A place where nothing is whole until the last draft, or until an editor has a better idea for blue. It’s a place where you can get lost, where you can drift away from everything that’s known into a great unknown that you get to arrange and rearrange until you’re satisfied that it’s the right color of blue.
Sound crazy?
It is. And it’s not like those writers who write at home where the better half (at least, saner half) can pop in say, “Hi, how’s it going?”
“What’s another way of saying blue?”
“Just write blue. I think people will get it.”
“You don’t understand me.”
“Don’t stay up too late.” Door closes. Writer is alone to stew in blue. Until bed time.
But for some, the coffee shop calls out to us and off we go, single and bursting with words under the brilliant azure sky.
What Is the Coffee Break Novel?
Everyone needs a coffee break. It’s that period of time during the workday when you say to yourself, “If I don’t have a coffee right now, this minute, I’m going to kill somebody.” Not that you particularly want to harm anyone (unless, of course, telemarketers have your work number) but, you know, it might be Monday. It might even be Monday morning. On the other hand, it might not be a weekday. It might be Saturday or Sunday and you’re sitting on the beach under a beautiful blue sky thinking, “Damn, I’m missing my coffee break. Why don’t beaches have coffee?” I do this all the time and I’m sure you do as well.
So, now that we’re thoroughly covered the topic of coffee breaks and their contribution to a healthy (and alive) workforce and their absence from beaches, let’s talk about coffee break activities. Some people read newspapers because they hate trees and want to see every tree in the world turned into a newspaper with stories about the shocking conspiracy to deforest the planet by sending the rain forests off to the printers. Some people like to talk to their co-workers about what they watched on TV the night before. This used to be Game of Thrones episodes. Now, it’s arguments about what happened on old Game of Thrones episodes, especially the finale. Some people like to just sit and stare. I’m seeing this more often and it kind of scares me. But we won’t get into that. Some people like to transport themselves out of the workplace and into another world (not the ones staring…they’ll be doing that all day) through the medium of story.
And that brings us to the coffee break novel. I scoured the internet for over a minute and the only mention I could find was a Kijiji ad posted by me. So…I guess that leaves it up to me to make up…I mean, define the coffee break novel.
Let’s start by listing some characteristics. First, it’s intended to be read during the reader’s coffee break. This can be problematic given that some people might be missing two coffee breaks each week because their employers refuse to let them work seven days a week, forcing them to take weekend coffee breaks at home so that they don’t miss any of the story. This could actually lead to dysfunctional activities like sneaking into work on weekend mornings but I’m sure that most people will opt to create a reproduction of their workplace in their basement or spare room so as not to miss a single episode. Others might do some speed reading Monday morning.
And speaking of episodes…that’s another characteristic of the coffee break novel: It’s parceled out in episodes…each with just enough reading to get you through your morning java fix. The Weekly Man is just right for this. It’s naturally broken into episodes following the lives of seven characters, each with their own day of the week to tell their story. There is one spot where this runs awry and may require a three to four day break before plummeting head first into the dazzling conclusion but that’s a few months away and, by the time it comes, I think all two of my readers will need a short break.
The coffee break novel should be mostly light-hearted as in humorous. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be serious, heart-breaking, soul-blistering, tear-prodding, existential moments, of which there are a few in the novel, but these are introduced for the sole purpose of pacing the story like a roller-coaster. There will be no flat lining in any of my stories. I mean, even Mary Poppins had her down moments. But for the most part, it’s going to be humor and lightness of being because it’s your coffee break and you don’t need to be crying and borrowing tissues from your co-workers on your coffee break. (WARNING: The first episode of The Weekly Man is not humorous. But it has a sort of happy ending.)
There has to be a strong element of weirdness so that the novel is able to compete against the news of the day, which keeps getting weirder by the day. And besides, I’m weird and it’s my invention, so I’m calling for weirdness.
All coffee break novels should have more than one character. This makes it much easier to create things like conversations, conflict, plot, human interaction and all those other elements that might cause a story to become interesting. Plus, there has to be both male and female characters because that’s more like real life and we’re all big fans of real life, aren’t we?
Words. The coffee break novel draws on a list of easily recognizable and commonly used words with careful attention paid to correct spelling and usage. I’m seeing less and less of this in most of the world’s published content, either online or in print and I think this is something we all need to enthusiastically gossip about in all the right places…because we all know that meeting a challenge with gossip is more effective than meeting it with thoughts and prayers. Hopefully, The Weekly Man will lead us out of this barbaric mire of editorial carelessness.
Well, actually, that probably won’t happen, but as long as there are coffee breaks, there will always be a need for something to do during the coffee break…and now the world has one more thing designed specifically for that. It’s called the coffee break novel and The Weekly Man (https://www.theweeklyman.com) is the world’s first free daily serialized coffee break novel.
So, now that we’re thoroughly covered the topic of coffee breaks and their contribution to a healthy (and alive) workforce and their absence from beaches, let’s talk about coffee break activities. Some people read newspapers because they hate trees and want to see every tree in the world turned into a newspaper with stories about the shocking conspiracy to deforest the planet by sending the rain forests off to the printers. Some people like to talk to their co-workers about what they watched on TV the night before. This used to be Game of Thrones episodes. Now, it’s arguments about what happened on old Game of Thrones episodes, especially the finale. Some people like to just sit and stare. I’m seeing this more often and it kind of scares me. But we won’t get into that. Some people like to transport themselves out of the workplace and into another world (not the ones staring…they’ll be doing that all day) through the medium of story.
And that brings us to the coffee break novel. I scoured the internet for over a minute and the only mention I could find was a Kijiji ad posted by me. So…I guess that leaves it up to me to make up…I mean, define the coffee break novel.
Let’s start by listing some characteristics. First, it’s intended to be read during the reader’s coffee break. This can be problematic given that some people might be missing two coffee breaks each week because their employers refuse to let them work seven days a week, forcing them to take weekend coffee breaks at home so that they don’t miss any of the story. This could actually lead to dysfunctional activities like sneaking into work on weekend mornings but I’m sure that most people will opt to create a reproduction of their workplace in their basement or spare room so as not to miss a single episode. Others might do some speed reading Monday morning.
And speaking of episodes…that’s another characteristic of the coffee break novel: It’s parceled out in episodes…each with just enough reading to get you through your morning java fix. The Weekly Man is just right for this. It’s naturally broken into episodes following the lives of seven characters, each with their own day of the week to tell their story. There is one spot where this runs awry and may require a three to four day break before plummeting head first into the dazzling conclusion but that’s a few months away and, by the time it comes, I think all two of my readers will need a short break.
The coffee break novel should be mostly light-hearted as in humorous. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be serious, heart-breaking, soul-blistering, tear-prodding, existential moments, of which there are a few in the novel, but these are introduced for the sole purpose of pacing the story like a roller-coaster. There will be no flat lining in any of my stories. I mean, even Mary Poppins had her down moments. But for the most part, it’s going to be humor and lightness of being because it’s your coffee break and you don’t need to be crying and borrowing tissues from your co-workers on your coffee break. (WARNING: The first episode of The Weekly Man is not humorous. But it has a sort of happy ending.)
There has to be a strong element of weirdness so that the novel is able to compete against the news of the day, which keeps getting weirder by the day. And besides, I’m weird and it’s my invention, so I’m calling for weirdness.
All coffee break novels should have more than one character. This makes it much easier to create things like conversations, conflict, plot, human interaction and all those other elements that might cause a story to become interesting. Plus, there has to be both male and female characters because that’s more like real life and we’re all big fans of real life, aren’t we?
Words. The coffee break novel draws on a list of easily recognizable and commonly used words with careful attention paid to correct spelling and usage. I’m seeing less and less of this in most of the world’s published content, either online or in print and I think this is something we all need to enthusiastically gossip about in all the right places…because we all know that meeting a challenge with gossip is more effective than meeting it with thoughts and prayers. Hopefully, The Weekly Man will lead us out of this barbaric mire of editorial carelessness.
Well, actually, that probably won’t happen, but as long as there are coffee breaks, there will always be a need for something to do during the coffee break…and now the world has one more thing designed specifically for that. It’s called the coffee break novel and The Weekly Man (https://www.theweeklyman.com) is the world’s first free daily serialized coffee break novel.
When the Characters Take Over and You Miss Sunday Coffee Break
I’m not sure if I’ve written about how I create characters yet, but here goes for, hopefully, the first time…and maybe the tenth.
I started my first novel with three characters and no story. No plot. No idea where any of it was going because I had nothing that was going. I had two men and one woman. I had a rough idea of what they looked like, though their looks changed a little as their characters evolved.
For months, I did character studies, wrote about their dreams, their likes and dislikes, how they dressed in the morning, what they ate and what would make them vomit. I put them in conversations with the other characters and with people I created just to have conversations with them. I got into showers with them. I had sex with them and became them having sex with others. I had conversations with them on the bus and over coffee. But mostly, I went into their minds and memories and created back stories for them.
Back stories are significant snippets from a person’s past, things the experienced that changed the course of their lives, kept them on course, or changed the lives of the people around them.
Backstories are almost always intense, interesting scenes in which important, character-shaping things happen. For instance, what does the skinny ten year old do when he sees the school bully heading toward him with a malicious smile draped on his jaw?
Does he run? Does he stay? Does he cry? Does he fight back? Does he give up and suffer a few minutes of humiliation?
Whatever he does, it’s going to travel with him. If he runs, he’ll likely run again and again. If he stays and fights, he’ll likely never take shit from others. Back story moments define our lives and make us who we are.
I spent months writing back stories for the three main characters and for the minor characters and, as I wrote them, the plot for the novel unfolded in their stories.
I’ve always respected what my characters have to say about their fates and the paths they take through the novel. I let them lead the way and I never question their decisions.
And this was a long, roundabout way to say that there will be no episode of The Weekly Man this Sunday because that’s not the way the characters told their story. However, Jack will be back on Monday (just as weird as ever) and the story as a whole will be taking a sprint into the world of crazy.
Maybe you could read one of the free short stories here: https://biffmitchell.com/the-weekly-man.
In any event, have a great weekend and may all your coffee breaks be magic.
I started my first novel with three characters and no story. No plot. No idea where any of it was going because I had nothing that was going. I had two men and one woman. I had a rough idea of what they looked like, though their looks changed a little as their characters evolved.
For months, I did character studies, wrote about their dreams, their likes and dislikes, how they dressed in the morning, what they ate and what would make them vomit. I put them in conversations with the other characters and with people I created just to have conversations with them. I got into showers with them. I had sex with them and became them having sex with others. I had conversations with them on the bus and over coffee. But mostly, I went into their minds and memories and created back stories for them.
Back stories are significant snippets from a person’s past, things the experienced that changed the course of their lives, kept them on course, or changed the lives of the people around them.
Backstories are almost always intense, interesting scenes in which important, character-shaping things happen. For instance, what does the skinny ten year old do when he sees the school bully heading toward him with a malicious smile draped on his jaw?
Does he run? Does he stay? Does he cry? Does he fight back? Does he give up and suffer a few minutes of humiliation?
Whatever he does, it’s going to travel with him. If he runs, he’ll likely run again and again. If he stays and fights, he’ll likely never take shit from others. Back story moments define our lives and make us who we are.
I spent months writing back stories for the three main characters and for the minor characters and, as I wrote them, the plot for the novel unfolded in their stories.
I’ve always respected what my characters have to say about their fates and the paths they take through the novel. I let them lead the way and I never question their decisions.
And this was a long, roundabout way to say that there will be no episode of The Weekly Man this Sunday because that’s not the way the characters told their story. However, Jack will be back on Monday (just as weird as ever) and the story as a whole will be taking a sprint into the world of crazy.
Maybe you could read one of the free short stories here: https://biffmitchell.com/the-weekly-man.
In any event, have a great weekend and may all your coffee breaks be magic.
Still Time to Read The Weekly Man Free
It’s been a week since I posted the last episode of The Weekly Man…seventy-two all together over a period of two and a half months. It was tough. It was sometimes a royal pain in the butt, especially when one of more of the technologies ran amok and I tried to tear hairs out of my bald scalp.
But it’s done and every episode was posted before midnight each day…ready for your next day coffee break.
: )
Isn’t it just so damn cool when something turns out the way you dreamed it would be? Even if it costs your social life and sanity…things that I’d already lost anyway.
: )
I’m going to leave both the blog (https://theweeklyman.com/) and smartphone (https://biffmitchell.com/welcome-to-t...) versions up for a while to give people a chance to finish reading them. If you have a lot of catching up to do, though, that might be a problem: opening 72 PDFs for the phone version and scrolling up and down the blog version and reading in such an unnatural manner as to cause irreversible brain damage.
On the other hand, you might want to wait until early to mid-2020 for the print version. It won’t be free, but it’ll be easier on your head. And it will include a massive re-write. Check back here for details as they unfold.
I’ll also be starting a newsletter. I don’t want to start a newsletter, but some of my friends are insisting that I do, or they’ll unfriend me on Facebook. Others are sending death threats. At first, they wanted me to start a podcast. 🙂 Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I can barely use my phone.
But, I have a membership at Mailchimp and I hope to have the first edition of the newsletter out before Christmas.
And finally, I’ve started the story dump for the sequel to The Weekly Man. This one’s going to be really weird.
I promise.
But it’s done and every episode was posted before midnight each day…ready for your next day coffee break.
: )
Isn’t it just so damn cool when something turns out the way you dreamed it would be? Even if it costs your social life and sanity…things that I’d already lost anyway.
: )
I’m going to leave both the blog (https://theweeklyman.com/) and smartphone (https://biffmitchell.com/welcome-to-t...) versions up for a while to give people a chance to finish reading them. If you have a lot of catching up to do, though, that might be a problem: opening 72 PDFs for the phone version and scrolling up and down the blog version and reading in such an unnatural manner as to cause irreversible brain damage.
On the other hand, you might want to wait until early to mid-2020 for the print version. It won’t be free, but it’ll be easier on your head. And it will include a massive re-write. Check back here for details as they unfold.
I’ll also be starting a newsletter. I don’t want to start a newsletter, but some of my friends are insisting that I do, or they’ll unfriend me on Facebook. Others are sending death threats. At first, they wanted me to start a podcast. 🙂 Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I can barely use my phone.
But, I have a membership at Mailchimp and I hope to have the first edition of the newsletter out before Christmas.
And finally, I’ve started the story dump for the sequel to The Weekly Man. This one’s going to be really weird.
I promise.
The Weekly Man Presents
It’s been over two months since I completed serializing The Weekly Man: The World’s First Free Daily Serialized Coffee Break Novel and after spending 72 days, every day, including weekends, upwards of three hours posting and marketing the novel…being at the mercy of the daily technology hurdle and building my life around the serialization, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never do anything like this again.
At least not for 72 days. I think that was the biggest mistake: it went on for too long. It became a draining process after the first month. I’m sure that the daily announcements for new episodes started to look like spam in social media outlets. They started to feel like spam to me.
I’m working on a series of articles inspired by those 72 days of joy and hell and at the same time, I’m working on a print and ebook version of the novel. One thing I learned is that you can never finish re-writing a novel. But I’ll get into that in one of the articles. The print version is turning out to be almost a full re-write but it should be on sale sometime this summer or fall.
I’m going to leave the free one up, both the blog (https://theweeklyman.com) and smart phone (https://biffmitchell.com/the-weekly-man) versions, for those who don’t mind scrolling up and down a blog or opening 72 separate PDFs.
And to top it all off, I'm starting a newsletter to keep people informed, throw a few contests and give stuff away. That should be ready early to mid-spring.
In the meantime, get through winter as best you can and remember…somewhere on this planet, at this exact moment, a warm wind is caressing the fronds of a palm tree.
At least not for 72 days. I think that was the biggest mistake: it went on for too long. It became a draining process after the first month. I’m sure that the daily announcements for new episodes started to look like spam in social media outlets. They started to feel like spam to me.
I’m working on a series of articles inspired by those 72 days of joy and hell and at the same time, I’m working on a print and ebook version of the novel. One thing I learned is that you can never finish re-writing a novel. But I’ll get into that in one of the articles. The print version is turning out to be almost a full re-write but it should be on sale sometime this summer or fall.
I’m going to leave the free one up, both the blog (https://theweeklyman.com) and smart phone (https://biffmitchell.com/the-weekly-man) versions, for those who don’t mind scrolling up and down a blog or opening 72 separate PDFs.
And to top it all off, I'm starting a newsletter to keep people informed, throw a few contests and give stuff away. That should be ready early to mid-spring.
In the meantime, get through winter as best you can and remember…somewhere on this planet, at this exact moment, a warm wind is caressing the fronds of a palm tree.
Writing Hurts Like Hell
Writing Hurts Like Hell is a workshop taught by Biff Mitchell for a decade through the University of New Brunswick's College of Extended Learning. Held mostly off-campus in coffee shops, bars, studios
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