John A. Heldt's Blog, page 8

A first draft for a last book

The first draft, I wrote a year ago, is the easy one. It's the "rough, unpolished blob a writer pushes out in a manic frenzy."

My thinking has changed. In some cases, the first draft is the harder one. It's the foundation that must be properly set in order to support and accommodate all that follows. Whether done quickly or not, it's the one that requires a little extra care and attention.

This is especially true with a series finale. As I learned in writing Crown City, the fifth book in the Time Box set, the first draft can be as consuming and aggravating as the last. It can be a chore.

Fortunately for me, I managed to complete that chore successfully. I produced a draft I can easily improve. I pushed out a 107,000-word manuscript nearly four weeks ahead of schedule.

Like Camp Lake , Crown City will bring a long family saga to a close. It will tie loose ends and answer questions that have lingered since The Lane Betrayal , the first book in the series.

It will also showcase the Lane ladies. Though Ashley, a high school freshman, takes center stage in the novel, set mostly in Coronado, California, in 1963, her mother and sisters play strong supporting roles. All provide depth and meaning to the story.

I intend to revise the first draft, with the help of my editor and several beta readers, in the next ten weeks and choose a cover in the next four. Crown City is still scheduled for a Christmas release.

A salute to the couples

As characters go, they are easy to spot. Though they vary in age, vocation, temperament, and even role within a series, they all have one thing in common. They have been married for a long time.

Joel and Grace Smith started it off in The Mine . From the moment they met as college students to the moment they welcomed their first grandchild, they anchored the Northwest Passage series.

Geoffrey and Jeanette Bell did much the same in the American Journey set. They managed a series of time travelers in their Los Angeles home before taking a bow in Hannah's Moon .

Then came the patriarchs and matriarchs, the foundations of my family sagas. Tim and Caroline Carson presided over a large clan in the Carson Chronicles.

Mark and Mary Lane have done the same in the Time Box collection. Both couples were the glue that held a disparate collection of characters together.

Other couples, like the Carters in The Mine , the Greens in The Show , the Scotts in The Memory Tree , the Watanabes in Indian Paintbrush, and the Prices in Sea Spray , enhanced stories in other ways. They added color and contrast and (sometimes) comic relief.

In creating these couples, stalwarts of my series, I drew inspiration from books, movies, and real people, including two very real people who will celebrate their 70th anniversary next Thursday.

If that number looks like a typo, it's not. My parents, Jim and Mary Heldt, have been married longer than many people live. In that time, they have served as splendid role models for their six children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

They have also provided much inspiration for characters they will only know through literature. For that and a hundred other things, I will always be grateful. Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Upgrading the (cover) stock

I don't upgrade covers often. In fact, since publishing my first book in 2012, I have replaced an original image with something significantly different only three times. This summer, I did so again.

Thanks to Melissa Williams Design, The Memory Tree has a new wrap. The graphics outfit produced a cover that will soon be displayed in BookLife. A few times a year, the web site, Publishers Weekly's gift to the self-published community, features cover makeovers that showcase the skills of graphic artists. Both authors and illustrators benefit from the high-profile promotion.

The Memory Tree makeover follows two earlier overhauls. Podium Publishing, now Podium Audio, produced a new cover for The Mine in 2013. Laura Wright LaRoche did the same for The Mirror in 2014. She also modified the text elements on the covers of The Journey, The Show, and The Fire. Needless to say, I am pleased with all of the updates.

I hope to decide on a Kindle cover for Crown City, my latest work in progress, by the middle of October. The fifth and final book of the Time Box series is still scheduled for a December 2021 release.

Two audiobooks and more

For the first time in more than a year, I've added an audiobook to my growing library. Thanks to talented narrator Todd Menesses, The Lane Betrayal is now available in audio on Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books. I hope to add the remaining titles in the Time Box series by the end of next year.

Camp Lake is also on its way to listeners. Lu Banks, a veteran voice actor from Indiana, has agreed to narrate the final book in the Carson Chronicles series. I look forward to working with Lu in the coming months and completing that set.

Work continues in planning the fifth novel in the Time Box series. I will begin writing the book later this month. The work, set mostly in Coronado, California, in the summer and fall of 1963, is the last in the Lane family saga. It is scheduled for a December release.

Looking ahead to Baja

As one who often writes about the things I've done and places I've visited, I rarely let an experience go to waste. Even when I can't tie an adventure to a current project, I file it away for future use.

Last week, I did just that. While visiting Cabo San Lucas, I let my mind wander not to my next book but to my next series. Set mostly in the United States, like my first four series, it will begin in earnest in the tourist towns and rugged mountains of Baja California.

I will work out the details later, of course. My efforts now are focused on planning and writing the fifth book of the Time Box series, set mostly in Coronado, California, in the summer and fall of 1963.

Even so, I found it difficult not to look to the future. When writers walk through towns like Cabo, they find inspiration galore. They find buildings, streets, natural features, and people that all but demand to be incorporated into future works. They find ideas.

I know I did. During my time in Mexico, I found one potential setting after another. My wife and I spent a week in the kind of resort that draws tourists from around the world. I did not have to try hard to imagine conversations on high-rise balconies or lush courtyards or poolside tables. I could picture characters in future books interacting.

I could also picture them striking out on their own and taking the road less traveled. As I learned this month, Baja is more than hotels, beaches, and tourist traps. It is colorful neighborhoods, hidden treasures, and natural wonders. It is a setting, indeed a theme, waiting to be explored and described and appreciated.

At the moment, I have only sketched the broad outlines of the fifth series. Though most of the particulars will not be be determined until next year, I can say the series will initially revolve around three aging siblings -- two brothers and a younger sister -- who get a second shot at life by making use of a fountain of youth. Like many of the characters in my previous works, they will find satisfaction and redemption in the not-so-distant past. Unlike most, they will begin their journey in Mexico.

In the meantime, I will strive to give the Lane family, the focus of my current five-part family saga, a proper send-off. I hope to finish the last novel in the Time Box series by December or January.

Finding a familiar Refuge

To many novelists, World War II is like catnip. With endless themes, storylines, and possibilities, it is a subject they can’t resist.

I know I can’t. Since I jumped into this business in 2012, I have written several novels set before or during the war, including The Mine , Mercer Street , Hannah's Moon , and Indian Paintbrush .

Today, I add one more. In The Refuge , time travelers, assassins, soldiers, scientists, and spies lock horns in the months preceding the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. They elevate the Time Box series to new heights.

In book four, the Lanes, a family from 2021, pursue two objectives on Oahu. While son Jordan, a former intelligence officer, hunts Silas Bain, a ruthless family foe, in the streets of Honolulu, his parents, younger siblings, and pregnant wife settle in the village of Laie, where love, friendship, and opportunity await. Most seek refuge from the perils of time travel.

Bain, a mercenary from the 2020s, has his own agenda. He intends to delay America’s entry into the war and indirectly save a brilliant German physicist, his employer's grandfather, from certain death. He has prepared for every contingency in Hawaii, except meddling by his old adversaries and the charms of a beautiful heiress.

In The Refuge , readers see the Lanes spread their wings. They see Laura and Jessie manage pregnancies, Ashley evolve as a teenager, and Jeremy fall for a beautiful coed with a common interest in a nineteenth-century socialite. They see a familiar family grow.

They also see the war. From the first chapter on, they experience history's greatest conflict from the perspective of time travelers who know that trouble -- big trouble -- is coming to paradise.

Filled with suspense, romance, history, and thrills, The Refuge follows a modern family through a perilous moment in time. The novel, my nineteenth overall, goes on sale today at Amazon.com.

Review: At Dawn We Slept

The book has aged well. Even four decades after its initial release, it remains the definitive work on a defining American moment.

That was enough for me. When I needed background on Pearl Harbor, I turned to a source I could trust. I opened Gordon Prange's At Dawn We Slept and reacquainted myself with December 7, 1941.

A comprehensive, absorbing account of the time before, during, and after the day that lived in infamy, Prange's non-fiction masterpiece reads like a suspense novel. I consulted it often when I needed the kind of detail only a dedicated scholar of a subject can provide.

Prange devotes roughly half the book to the months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He introduces readers to the issues, the players, and events that led up to the strike. He provides a well-rounded treatment of one of history's most iconic events.

Those familiar with Prange know Pearl Harbor was his passion. As the chief historian on Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff, he interviewed many Japanese military men and turned his research into several notable works, including Tora! Tora! Tora! Colleagues published Dawn a year after the University of Maryland professor died in 1980.

In Dawn , Prange does not refrain from asking tough questions or assigning blame for the stunning attack, which drew the United States into World War II. He addresses the matters head on from the thoughtful and even-handed perspective of a serious historian.

I found Prange's scholarship useful in preparing my current work in progress, which is set on Oahu, Hawaii, in the summer and fall of 1941. That novel, The Refuge , is still set for a June 1 release.

I would recommend Dawn to students of history and anyone fascinated with an event that changed America forever. Rating: 5/5.

When character(s) matters

The question is as old as fiction itself. In a novel and other works of literature, which is more important? Writing or story?

Depending on who you ask, the answer is clear. Some readers value writing more than the story. Others do just the opposite.

Most novelists value both. They try to write a great story in prose that shines. I know I do. Even when I fail, I attempt to do both.

Then there is the third element. Often shoved to the side, it is as vital to the success of a novel as the writing and the story.

That element is the characters. Without compelling characters, even a well-written story can founder. It can fail to hold a reader.

I did not pick this up right away. I wrote several books, in fact, before readers reminded me, sometimes not so gently, that characters matter. I learned that flawed, sympathetic protagonists and nuanced villains are as essential to a work as a solid plot.

In my next book, The Refuge , readers will see flaws and nuance galore. They will see good guys (and gals) show their harsher sides, confident souls struggle with major life decisions, and ruthless killers find love. They will see people at their best and their worst.

They will also see old friends in a new light, colorful secondary characters, and historical figures in familiar roles. They will see the human mosaic that was Oahu, Hawaii, in the months leading up to the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Refuge , the fourth book in the Time Box series, is in the second stage of the editing process. It is set for a June 1 release.

The charm of Coronado

As book venues go, Coronado, California, is one that never gets old. Brimming with beaches, boats, shops, charming houses, funky trees, and regal hotels, it is a small town worthy of a story, if not two.

For that reason and more, I visited the town again, this time with an eye on the last book of the Time Box series. Set mostly in Coronado in 1963, the book will apply the final touches to the Lane family saga.

Unlike in The Memory Tree , where it got a passing mention, and in Caitlin's Song , where it played second fiddle to Boulder, Colorado, Coronado will get star treatment. It will get the attention it deserved in the Carson Chronicles books.

So in preparation for the Time Box finale, I scoured Coronado's library, walked its streets, and visited dozens of its businesses, including a 1950s diner that will be the setting for at least one chapter.

I got reacquainted with a town I now know as well as Wallace, Idaho, and Virginia City, Nevada, small towns portrayed in The Fire and The Fair . I hope to begin writing Time Box 5 in the fall.

In the meantime, I will complete Time Box 4. I plan to finish the first draft of The Refuge, set in Hawaii in 1941, sometime in the next three weeks and publish it by July 15.

Keeping an active pace

The slogan, popular on motivational posters, tee shirts, and coffee mugs, has been at the forefront of my mind for weeks.

"Three months from now you will thank yourself."

While the saying is intended for dieters, it could easily apply to authors attempting to write a novel within Stephen King's recommended 90-day limit. I know I've taken it to heart.

Since February 1, I have written at least a chapter a day, with the goal of completing 94 chapters by May 1. As a result, I expect to finish the first draft of The Refuge on schedule.

Set mostly on Oahu, Hawaii, The Refuge will cover the Lane family's adventures in the summer and fall of 1941. The fourth book of the Time Box series is now set for a July 15 release.

This winter, I also welcomed two new book collaborators.

The first, L.J. Anderson, put together the cover for the Time Box boxed set, released February 9. The illustrator represents Mayhem Cover Creations.

The second, Todd Menesses, began work on The Lane Betrayal audiobook this week. The veteran voice artist from Louisiana has narrated more than three dozen books.