Nathan Van Coops's Blog
March 19, 2015
Roadside Assistance for Writers
I recently had some questions from an enthusiastic reader who, like many, is also navigating the road to writing a novel. These were some questions that he had for me. I thought I would post the answers up for any interested parties since so many writers struggle with these same issues. If the path I took in navigating them is helpful to any of you, I am happy to share it. I certainly did not get to the end of the novels I’ve completed without a great deal of help. I’m always happy to be able to pass on what I’ve learned and give assistance to others on the road to success.
(Have a question of your own that you would like answered? You can ask it here on my Goodreads page, and I’ll answer it for you.)
How much experience did you have with writing prior to completing your book?
Hardly any. While I had done my share of papers in college and scribbled in journals as a young man, I had limited experience writing fiction. I had written some narrative nonfiction short stories about my own life and had a couple published in literary journals and one newspaper, but that was it. Starting a fiction novel was all new territory for me and that is one reason my first novel took a while to complete. What I did have, however, was a great idea, and a background in reading. I cannot overstate the need to be reading a lot in order to get better as a writer. Reading gives you the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. You may not be consciously learning it, but you are absorbing it anyway. The more critically you read, the more it helps. (I highly recommend getting into the habit of reviewing everything you read so that you can think about it critically) Of course, in order to read critically, you need tools in your writer’s toolbox. If you paid attention in school, you should have most of the basics of grammar and punctuation down, but even those fundamentals need more help. That leads us to our next question.
What books did you read regarding the mechanics of writing, if any? Did you take any writing classes?
The first great book I read about craft was Stephen King’s On Writing. I still pick it up and reread it on occasion to refresh myself with the sound advice it contains. Part memoir, part craft lecture, it gives a great overview of King’s journey, not omitting his many failures, an aspect to the story relevant to all of us. It’s easy reading and inspiring.
Prompted by King, I invested in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and later, The Chicago Manual of Style. These are your rulebooks for writing. Not something you read cover to cover, but they function as your rules and regulations of sentence structure. You may not need them right away, but you will eventually if you want to know all the obscure publishing rules even your English teacher hadn’t heard of. (Trust me. You need to learn them if you want to be taken seriously.) CMS is the industry standard and solid info.
I next read 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never be Published and 14 Reasons Why it Just Might by Pat Walsh, Editor at McAdam/Cage. It’s no B.S discussion about how your book might be total crap. If you recognize your book anywhere in the 78 reasons, you know exactly where to get to work on fixing it. I won’t say the blunt approach Walsh takes is not a little bit daunting, but it’s all stuff that needs to be said. Writers need thick skin and editors who don’t pull punches. This business is not for the delicate. If you can be honest with yourself and your writing now, it will save lots of moaning over bad reviews later.
The best book I found for hunting down your rogue issues and fixing them, was Self Editing for Fiction Writers: How To Edit Yourself into Print by Renni Brown and Dave King. Solid, functional advice and tools for cleaning up your work. There are examples to help you hone your critiquing skills. Not the easiest book to digest, but I consider it essential reading.
When you get all that down and have a good first draft, while you are working on your rewrites, check out APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur- How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Walsh. If you are unsure as to whether you want to go the traditional publishing route or if you plan to self publish, this is your road map to how the indie book process works. With excellent insights to help you weigh your options, this is info on how to get your book into print and the various routes available to you.
There are a lot of great books out there on the craft and publishing so this list is by no means comprehensive, but these are the ones with the most dog ears on my shelves because they are worth revisiting time and again to keep yourself sharp.
.
Do you follow a three act structure? If not, how did you pace ITLT so well?
Pacing is a dish sampled by each individual reader. Like the porridge in the Goldilocks tale, readers will find it too this, too that, or just right based on their own reading style, how their day went, phase of the moon, etc. Some want a rocketing thrill ride; some want a leisurely stroll. While you will never make everyone happy, you can satisfy the bulk of your readers by keeping a couple of key things in mind.
A. Correct pacing is a direct byproduct of proper tension. Tension is what keeps us turning the pages. For our characters, this can mean danger, romance, any number of factors, but it requires changing the situation your characters are in, adding complexity, and engaging your reader’s curiosity. The hook that got your reader to pick up the book in the first place is not the same tool that keeps them in the middle and end. In that sense I do structure my stories with a climax of tension, but each chapter should be doing the same job on a smaller scale. Imagine that each chapter of your novel is the tooth on a ratchet. As the wheel turns, the catch slides up the angle of the tooth and then clicks into the next position. As the reader progresses, your ratchet clicks away. Each climb and drop draws them closer to the conclusion but gives them minor rests along the way. Click, click, click. There is no going back. By the climax, your readers are so firmly engaged that they must know what happens next. Hopefully they are reading well past their bedtimes and not even remembering to perform basic tasks because they are so engrossed in learning what is going to happen. Why? That is the next requirement.
B. The reader shouldn’t know the ending, but should be satisfied when they get there. This is a sticky one. As the writer, you are making the reader promises with each chapter. You have set up a conflict and then you’ve complicated it. You have (hopefully) given them a character they can root for that they can see emerge victoriously, or at the very least, meet whatever end they must inevitably face. This is a law of writing. You MUST deliver on your setup. I’m not saying that you have to wrap up every last loose end. You don’t. But we as your reader demand satisfaction. If we have made it to the end of your book, you need to show us why we took the journey with you, and the ending can’t wimp out. If there is one thing I learned from writing In Times Like These, it was the value of having a strong ending. While I had my share of readers who set the book down somewhere before the middle, the ones who finished felt satisfied because the end met their expectations without giving itself away too early. It also didn’t end in a cliffhanger. If you hope to make your novel into a series, you may be tempted to leave your reader hanging so that they have to buy your next book. Don’t do this. The reader should want to buy your next book because they were so enthralled with your characters and the world you’ve created that they they didn’t want the story to end. They shouldn’t have to buy the next book to get satisfaction because your book didn’t end. Big difference. You can absolutely set up the next adventure in the series, hook them on that first tooth of your next gear, but make sure you have resolved the main conflict in book one.
What personal writing goals do you set for yourself (words per day or pages per day, etc.), how long did it take to complete your books, what obstacles did you run into by using your chosen writing method of "not really outlining"?
I don’t write a set amount a day. In Times Like These was written over a period of four years because in the beginning I thought I needed to know what I was doing before I sat down to write. Once I stopped moaning about getting it perfect and concentrated on getting it done, a magical thing happened. It got better.
The biggest change for me came from forming a writers group with a couple of good friends. Writers groups come with pros and cons. Not all are created equal and I admit that I lucked out by landing with some really talented people on the first try. But regardless of how talented the other writers in your group are, they can provide you with one essential tool. Accountability. The number one thing that got me producing pages was the knowledge that if I showed up that week empty-handed, I was going to feel like a schmuck while everyone else shared their new material. To avoid schmuckdom, I wrote and wrote. I made it a priority. I carried my laptop everywhere and wrote in any available nook or cranny of my life. Much of ITLT was written on fifteen minutes breaks at my job. By the time I sat down, powered on my laptop, found where I left off in my manuscript and tapped a few keys, it was practically time to go back to work. I did the same thing on my lunch breaks. Some days I barely managed a few paragraphs. But you know what? It was a few more paragraphs than I had the day before. ITLT, which ended up around 149,000 words, took me four years to finish but 2 ½ years of that was spinning my wheels. When I finally got in the rhythm, I finished the last two-thirds of the novel in less than a year. The Chronothon, which was 50,000 words longer, took twenty months of writing and another six months of editing.
When you get in the habit and make writing a priority, good things happen. You find yourself writing into the night because the scene in your head just has to come out. You start spending more and more time in the world you are creating. You get to know your characters. Some people might be able to whip out a book in six months. There are supposedly people who do it in three. I’ll never be one. And those folks are not the norm.
I’ll be honest. If you are like me and have a regular job and social obligations, perhaps a family— you are busy. Something has to give. But if you are serious about getting a novel written, that something is not your book. Sacrifice something else. Find the thing that is stealing your time. That TV show you love? Quit it. If you can’t bring yourself to quit TV totally, relegate it to one night a week. Give yourself one day to catch up on whatever you can’t live without. But you will find that the more you write, the more you love it. You won’t miss those other things. Here’s the honest truth. Novel aren’t written by people with lots of free time on their hands and a fantasy lifestyle that lets them be creative in just the right environment. Novels get written by people who are busier than you but who have made less excuses for themselves. Writers write. Want to be one? Get to it.
What research on time travel theory did you do for your books, if any, and how did you manage to keep everything straight in the various time lines?
In Times Like These and The Chronothon were both a ton of fun to write because they were what I enjoyed thinking about. If you are going to devote years of your life to a project that is most likely going to net you only minor amounts of money and extremely rare moments of adulation, you had better at least love doing it. In order to accomplish that, you need a great idea.
Time travel fascinated me and the concept for ITLT stuck with me, even in those months and months of not writing. I had gotten the first eight chapters or so finished, then stalled out. I should have been writing but I let life get in the way. Fortunately, it didn’t get in the way of me thinking about the story. I may not have been writing the novel but I was still talking about it, annoying my friends with it, and doing research for it. (The sign of a good idea. If your main premise does not excite you enough to stay engaged, it won’t excite your reader either.) I researched history of St. Petersburg, I interviewed people, watched documentaries. I watched every movie involving time travel I could find. I explored all manner of things to help expand my knowledge of the world I wanted to create. I critiqued other stories and determined what I liked and didn’t like. How much of that research actually ended up in the book? Almost none of it.
The fact is, as the author, you are always going to know way more than your reader about the subject you are writing about. It will be tempting to let everyone know all the details you have gleaned in your enthusiastic nights of reading or film watching. Try to resist the temptation. While thorough research has its place, it is just one more tool you use in crafting your story. In fiction, the story is dictated by your character’s needs, not by what you want to educate your readers about.
Here I can tackle the question about outlining. It’s true that I didn’t outline for ITLT. I had a very basic outline for The Chronothon but it was based on locations I had to work with. The plots for both novels evolved organically from what the characters needed. I remember with vivid clarity when I figured out the ending for ITLT. I was about halfway through the first draft at the time. I jumped around in excitement because it was news to me. I only knew then because it was what made sense for the characters.
Non-writers don’t usually understand this concept (I certainly didn’t before I experienced it) but you are not fully in control of your story as the author. As you write, you learn about your characters and their motivations. As much as you may want them to behave a certain way, you will run into times when they refuse to do your bidding because to do so would violate their nature. Whatever rules you are making for your world, you are bound by them, too. There is no surer way of running off your readers than by being inconsistent. You should have a clear understanding of the laws of your world and you should keep your characters actions in sync with their motivations and needs. If you don’t, you lose the reader’s trust. Violate our trust and we won’t care to read till the end and, even if we do, you’ll have lost your credibility. We’ll walk away shaking our heads thinking, “If only the author hadn’t… it would have been a great book.”
I kept ITLT straight by being my own worst critic. I had punched holes in all manner of time travel film plots and novels and the time came when I had to use that ability on my own book. I tried to find the glitches that I would be bothered by in other stories. I didn’t let myself cheat on the laws I set up. There was one very challenging day with ITLT when I came to a grinding halt as I realized that there was no way for the characters to carry anchors and then use them again for time travel. I had to put on the brakes and ponder my way out of the corner I had written myself into. Fortunately I was able to navigate around that hurdle by creating the “degravitizer.” It was a solution that worked within the confines of the world and introduced a more functional method of travel for my characters. There are plenty of readers who would have glossed over the issue but I knew I wouldn’t have been one, and I wasn’t willing to sweep that sort of thing under the rug. You have the power to create and destroy as the author but you have to play by the rules. If you do, the readers will applaud you for it. Violate a reader’s trust and you will reap their scornful reviews.
If outlining works for you, by all means use that tool. It’s not one I particularly enjoy because I feel hemmed in and that I am just writing from point A to point Z. I like to give my characters the option to go off the path and see where they end up. You will have to find your own method of navigation, just be sure that the story you start us on with page one is the same journey we are finishing on the final page. We shouldn’t be able to predict the route you’ll take us, but we should be satisfied with our destination.
Want more tips on how to navigate the road to writing success? Check back for more blog updates, and don’t forget to join the subscriber list to be informed of new releases and other goodies. I promise not to spam your inbox. Thanks for reading!
-NVC
(Have a question of your own that you would like answered? You can ask it here on my Goodreads page, and I’ll answer it for you.)
How much experience did you have with writing prior to completing your book?
Hardly any. While I had done my share of papers in college and scribbled in journals as a young man, I had limited experience writing fiction. I had written some narrative nonfiction short stories about my own life and had a couple published in literary journals and one newspaper, but that was it. Starting a fiction novel was all new territory for me and that is one reason my first novel took a while to complete. What I did have, however, was a great idea, and a background in reading. I cannot overstate the need to be reading a lot in order to get better as a writer. Reading gives you the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. You may not be consciously learning it, but you are absorbing it anyway. The more critically you read, the more it helps. (I highly recommend getting into the habit of reviewing everything you read so that you can think about it critically) Of course, in order to read critically, you need tools in your writer’s toolbox. If you paid attention in school, you should have most of the basics of grammar and punctuation down, but even those fundamentals need more help. That leads us to our next question.
What books did you read regarding the mechanics of writing, if any? Did you take any writing classes?
The first great book I read about craft was Stephen King’s On Writing. I still pick it up and reread it on occasion to refresh myself with the sound advice it contains. Part memoir, part craft lecture, it gives a great overview of King’s journey, not omitting his many failures, an aspect to the story relevant to all of us. It’s easy reading and inspiring.
Prompted by King, I invested in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and later, The Chicago Manual of Style. These are your rulebooks for writing. Not something you read cover to cover, but they function as your rules and regulations of sentence structure. You may not need them right away, but you will eventually if you want to know all the obscure publishing rules even your English teacher hadn’t heard of. (Trust me. You need to learn them if you want to be taken seriously.) CMS is the industry standard and solid info.
I next read 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never be Published and 14 Reasons Why it Just Might by Pat Walsh, Editor at McAdam/Cage. It’s no B.S discussion about how your book might be total crap. If you recognize your book anywhere in the 78 reasons, you know exactly where to get to work on fixing it. I won’t say the blunt approach Walsh takes is not a little bit daunting, but it’s all stuff that needs to be said. Writers need thick skin and editors who don’t pull punches. This business is not for the delicate. If you can be honest with yourself and your writing now, it will save lots of moaning over bad reviews later.
The best book I found for hunting down your rogue issues and fixing them, was Self Editing for Fiction Writers: How To Edit Yourself into Print by Renni Brown and Dave King. Solid, functional advice and tools for cleaning up your work. There are examples to help you hone your critiquing skills. Not the easiest book to digest, but I consider it essential reading.
When you get all that down and have a good first draft, while you are working on your rewrites, check out APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur- How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Walsh. If you are unsure as to whether you want to go the traditional publishing route or if you plan to self publish, this is your road map to how the indie book process works. With excellent insights to help you weigh your options, this is info on how to get your book into print and the various routes available to you.
There are a lot of great books out there on the craft and publishing so this list is by no means comprehensive, but these are the ones with the most dog ears on my shelves because they are worth revisiting time and again to keep yourself sharp.
.
Do you follow a three act structure? If not, how did you pace ITLT so well?
Pacing is a dish sampled by each individual reader. Like the porridge in the Goldilocks tale, readers will find it too this, too that, or just right based on their own reading style, how their day went, phase of the moon, etc. Some want a rocketing thrill ride; some want a leisurely stroll. While you will never make everyone happy, you can satisfy the bulk of your readers by keeping a couple of key things in mind.
A. Correct pacing is a direct byproduct of proper tension. Tension is what keeps us turning the pages. For our characters, this can mean danger, romance, any number of factors, but it requires changing the situation your characters are in, adding complexity, and engaging your reader’s curiosity. The hook that got your reader to pick up the book in the first place is not the same tool that keeps them in the middle and end. In that sense I do structure my stories with a climax of tension, but each chapter should be doing the same job on a smaller scale. Imagine that each chapter of your novel is the tooth on a ratchet. As the wheel turns, the catch slides up the angle of the tooth and then clicks into the next position. As the reader progresses, your ratchet clicks away. Each climb and drop draws them closer to the conclusion but gives them minor rests along the way. Click, click, click. There is no going back. By the climax, your readers are so firmly engaged that they must know what happens next. Hopefully they are reading well past their bedtimes and not even remembering to perform basic tasks because they are so engrossed in learning what is going to happen. Why? That is the next requirement.
B. The reader shouldn’t know the ending, but should be satisfied when they get there. This is a sticky one. As the writer, you are making the reader promises with each chapter. You have set up a conflict and then you’ve complicated it. You have (hopefully) given them a character they can root for that they can see emerge victoriously, or at the very least, meet whatever end they must inevitably face. This is a law of writing. You MUST deliver on your setup. I’m not saying that you have to wrap up every last loose end. You don’t. But we as your reader demand satisfaction. If we have made it to the end of your book, you need to show us why we took the journey with you, and the ending can’t wimp out. If there is one thing I learned from writing In Times Like These, it was the value of having a strong ending. While I had my share of readers who set the book down somewhere before the middle, the ones who finished felt satisfied because the end met their expectations without giving itself away too early. It also didn’t end in a cliffhanger. If you hope to make your novel into a series, you may be tempted to leave your reader hanging so that they have to buy your next book. Don’t do this. The reader should want to buy your next book because they were so enthralled with your characters and the world you’ve created that they they didn’t want the story to end. They shouldn’t have to buy the next book to get satisfaction because your book didn’t end. Big difference. You can absolutely set up the next adventure in the series, hook them on that first tooth of your next gear, but make sure you have resolved the main conflict in book one.
What personal writing goals do you set for yourself (words per day or pages per day, etc.), how long did it take to complete your books, what obstacles did you run into by using your chosen writing method of "not really outlining"?
I don’t write a set amount a day. In Times Like These was written over a period of four years because in the beginning I thought I needed to know what I was doing before I sat down to write. Once I stopped moaning about getting it perfect and concentrated on getting it done, a magical thing happened. It got better.
The biggest change for me came from forming a writers group with a couple of good friends. Writers groups come with pros and cons. Not all are created equal and I admit that I lucked out by landing with some really talented people on the first try. But regardless of how talented the other writers in your group are, they can provide you with one essential tool. Accountability. The number one thing that got me producing pages was the knowledge that if I showed up that week empty-handed, I was going to feel like a schmuck while everyone else shared their new material. To avoid schmuckdom, I wrote and wrote. I made it a priority. I carried my laptop everywhere and wrote in any available nook or cranny of my life. Much of ITLT was written on fifteen minutes breaks at my job. By the time I sat down, powered on my laptop, found where I left off in my manuscript and tapped a few keys, it was practically time to go back to work. I did the same thing on my lunch breaks. Some days I barely managed a few paragraphs. But you know what? It was a few more paragraphs than I had the day before. ITLT, which ended up around 149,000 words, took me four years to finish but 2 ½ years of that was spinning my wheels. When I finally got in the rhythm, I finished the last two-thirds of the novel in less than a year. The Chronothon, which was 50,000 words longer, took twenty months of writing and another six months of editing.
When you get in the habit and make writing a priority, good things happen. You find yourself writing into the night because the scene in your head just has to come out. You start spending more and more time in the world you are creating. You get to know your characters. Some people might be able to whip out a book in six months. There are supposedly people who do it in three. I’ll never be one. And those folks are not the norm.
I’ll be honest. If you are like me and have a regular job and social obligations, perhaps a family— you are busy. Something has to give. But if you are serious about getting a novel written, that something is not your book. Sacrifice something else. Find the thing that is stealing your time. That TV show you love? Quit it. If you can’t bring yourself to quit TV totally, relegate it to one night a week. Give yourself one day to catch up on whatever you can’t live without. But you will find that the more you write, the more you love it. You won’t miss those other things. Here’s the honest truth. Novel aren’t written by people with lots of free time on their hands and a fantasy lifestyle that lets them be creative in just the right environment. Novels get written by people who are busier than you but who have made less excuses for themselves. Writers write. Want to be one? Get to it.
What research on time travel theory did you do for your books, if any, and how did you manage to keep everything straight in the various time lines?
In Times Like These and The Chronothon were both a ton of fun to write because they were what I enjoyed thinking about. If you are going to devote years of your life to a project that is most likely going to net you only minor amounts of money and extremely rare moments of adulation, you had better at least love doing it. In order to accomplish that, you need a great idea.
Time travel fascinated me and the concept for ITLT stuck with me, even in those months and months of not writing. I had gotten the first eight chapters or so finished, then stalled out. I should have been writing but I let life get in the way. Fortunately, it didn’t get in the way of me thinking about the story. I may not have been writing the novel but I was still talking about it, annoying my friends with it, and doing research for it. (The sign of a good idea. If your main premise does not excite you enough to stay engaged, it won’t excite your reader either.) I researched history of St. Petersburg, I interviewed people, watched documentaries. I watched every movie involving time travel I could find. I explored all manner of things to help expand my knowledge of the world I wanted to create. I critiqued other stories and determined what I liked and didn’t like. How much of that research actually ended up in the book? Almost none of it.
The fact is, as the author, you are always going to know way more than your reader about the subject you are writing about. It will be tempting to let everyone know all the details you have gleaned in your enthusiastic nights of reading or film watching. Try to resist the temptation. While thorough research has its place, it is just one more tool you use in crafting your story. In fiction, the story is dictated by your character’s needs, not by what you want to educate your readers about.
Here I can tackle the question about outlining. It’s true that I didn’t outline for ITLT. I had a very basic outline for The Chronothon but it was based on locations I had to work with. The plots for both novels evolved organically from what the characters needed. I remember with vivid clarity when I figured out the ending for ITLT. I was about halfway through the first draft at the time. I jumped around in excitement because it was news to me. I only knew then because it was what made sense for the characters.
Non-writers don’t usually understand this concept (I certainly didn’t before I experienced it) but you are not fully in control of your story as the author. As you write, you learn about your characters and their motivations. As much as you may want them to behave a certain way, you will run into times when they refuse to do your bidding because to do so would violate their nature. Whatever rules you are making for your world, you are bound by them, too. There is no surer way of running off your readers than by being inconsistent. You should have a clear understanding of the laws of your world and you should keep your characters actions in sync with their motivations and needs. If you don’t, you lose the reader’s trust. Violate our trust and we won’t care to read till the end and, even if we do, you’ll have lost your credibility. We’ll walk away shaking our heads thinking, “If only the author hadn’t… it would have been a great book.”
I kept ITLT straight by being my own worst critic. I had punched holes in all manner of time travel film plots and novels and the time came when I had to use that ability on my own book. I tried to find the glitches that I would be bothered by in other stories. I didn’t let myself cheat on the laws I set up. There was one very challenging day with ITLT when I came to a grinding halt as I realized that there was no way for the characters to carry anchors and then use them again for time travel. I had to put on the brakes and ponder my way out of the corner I had written myself into. Fortunately I was able to navigate around that hurdle by creating the “degravitizer.” It was a solution that worked within the confines of the world and introduced a more functional method of travel for my characters. There are plenty of readers who would have glossed over the issue but I knew I wouldn’t have been one, and I wasn’t willing to sweep that sort of thing under the rug. You have the power to create and destroy as the author but you have to play by the rules. If you do, the readers will applaud you for it. Violate a reader’s trust and you will reap their scornful reviews.
If outlining works for you, by all means use that tool. It’s not one I particularly enjoy because I feel hemmed in and that I am just writing from point A to point Z. I like to give my characters the option to go off the path and see where they end up. You will have to find your own method of navigation, just be sure that the story you start us on with page one is the same journey we are finishing on the final page. We shouldn’t be able to predict the route you’ll take us, but we should be satisfied with our destination.
Want more tips on how to navigate the road to writing success? Check back for more blog updates, and don’t forget to join the subscriber list to be informed of new releases and other goodies. I promise not to spam your inbox. Thanks for reading!
-NVC
February 2, 2015
Launch Day!
Today is the big day!
My new novel, The Chronothon is live on Amazon! Today, February 2nd, we are attempting to launch it up the Amazon charts. The goal is to try to take the #1 spot in Science fiction>Time Travel. We can achieve this goal by outselling the other books in the genre on a single day. If you would like to help me reach this goal, pick up a print or eBook copy anytime today!
Here’s the link.
http://www.amazon.com/Chronothon-Nath...
The book is a time travel adventure that plunges you into a race through history and into the distant future. Expect action, romance, and thrills as this marathon for time travelers takes you on an exhilarating sprint through time.
You can check out what you’re getting into by reading the reviews on Goodreads.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
You can also come celebrate with us at the online Facebook party tonight! We’ll be doing book giveaways from a variety of authors and even giving away some Amazon gift cards and other prizes. We also have Time Travel Trivia! You can join the fun online from 5pm to 10:30pm EST.
https://www.facebook.com/events/15545...
Thanks for all of your support! Excited to have you as part of this event. I can’t do it without you!
Happy Groundhog Day,
Sincerely,
Nathan Van Coops
My new novel, The Chronothon is live on Amazon! Today, February 2nd, we are attempting to launch it up the Amazon charts. The goal is to try to take the #1 spot in Science fiction>Time Travel. We can achieve this goal by outselling the other books in the genre on a single day. If you would like to help me reach this goal, pick up a print or eBook copy anytime today!
Here’s the link.
http://www.amazon.com/Chronothon-Nath...
The book is a time travel adventure that plunges you into a race through history and into the distant future. Expect action, romance, and thrills as this marathon for time travelers takes you on an exhilarating sprint through time.
You can check out what you’re getting into by reading the reviews on Goodreads.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
You can also come celebrate with us at the online Facebook party tonight! We’ll be doing book giveaways from a variety of authors and even giving away some Amazon gift cards and other prizes. We also have Time Travel Trivia! You can join the fun online from 5pm to 10:30pm EST.
https://www.facebook.com/events/15545...
Thanks for all of your support! Excited to have you as part of this event. I can’t do it without you!
Happy Groundhog Day,
Sincerely,
Nathan Van Coops
December 3, 2014
The Chronothon is available for preorder!
Who has two thumbs and a Kindle book out for preorder?
http://www.amazon.com/Chronothon-Nath...
You can enjoy the discounted preorder price until release.
Fancy new Goodreads page, too!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Excited for the official release date, February 2nd, 2015.
http://www.amazon.com/Chronothon-Nath...
You can enjoy the discounted preorder price until release.
Fancy new Goodreads page, too!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Excited for the official release date, February 2nd, 2015.
July 25, 2014
The Problem With Being Happy
Sometimes life sucks. It can kick you right in the gonads, usually on a Wednesday when you are still just a little too far from the weekend to drown the pain with a night with the local brew slinger. You just have to suck it up and muddle through till the worst is over or a new difficulty pops up to stress about. Typically that shows up sometime Thursday morning, or if you’re having a really bad week, it’s Friday at 4:30 when you were just getting ready to bail. We’ve all been there. We can sympathize.
But then sometimes life doesn’t suck at all. Not even a little bit. How do you fix that?
I’ve been having a really good run recently. Great job, loving and beautiful girlfriend, relaxing sunny Florida lifestyle. Life is pretty darn awesome, and let’s face it, that’s exactly the sort of shit that annoys the hell out of people.
I can be irritatingly happy. I’m effusive about topics that excite me and gesture a lot. I ramble on about books or writing or the flavor of my gelato. “Isn’t this just the best pistachio you’ve ever had? You need to taste it again.”
It’s super annoying. I even irritate my own awesome girlfriend. We recently had a conversation that basically boiled down to, “Nathan, I realize you’re having a great day (again) but can you tone it down a little?”
I have trouble toning it down.
It’s not a problem people necessarily think about often, but we deal with it all the time. When we listen to a happy couple saying their vows on the altar and hear, “For better or for worse,” we usually think about, “for worse.” Will she be the kind of wife who sticks by him when he loses his job? Will he be there for her when she’s sick in bed? We don’t necessarily dwell on the “for better.” Will she be there in the stands for him when his softball team wins the championship? Will he be happy for her when she gets promoted and starts earning more money than him?
Better can be challenging. It’s not just relationships. It’s also why Facebook is such hell. “Seriously, Sue? You went to Maui this week? What tropical island/mountain view/whitewater rafting trip will you be posting from next week? And Jenny, what is this, your third Pinterest perfect child? Of course they all had to come out with dimples. You couldn’t have had just one ugly kid? Frank, I don’t even want to see your updates anymore. If you post one more video of your dog using the toilet, you’re getting blocked. Make that deleted. #stoprubbingitin, jerk.
I think sympathy comes easier than empathy in that respect. It feels natural to want to pick someone up when they fall. We want to help each other climb back from failures. But how do you help someone who is already having a great life? And why do we sometimes get the urge to sweep the legs out from under them and bring them back down to our level?
Feeling a part of someone else’s happiness is a tough job. It takes some selflessness to not want to compare or to qualify the successes of others. “Yeah, He interviewed well for the job, but his dad has worked for the company for years . . .”
In a modern world that seems to equate happiness with current number of successes, does that make us less empathetic to others around us? Do we feel we are somehow diminished by their accomplishments? What are we so worried about? There is really no chance of us doing that proposal/music video/dance-off better than the one our buddy just got 3 million hits on.
I feel it is definitely a topic worth thinking about. It certainly takes sensitivity to know when others around you are having a rough day and that maybe now is not the best moment to bring up your latest: Hole in one/Annual bonus/Halo high score. But I think it’s equally important to recognize when someone could really use a heartfelt congratulations on their hard work without having it qualified. It’s okay to really mean it. We are actually allowed to enjoy the successes of others.
When I was a kid, my grandparents would sit around the dinner table for hours with drinks in their hands, smoking the occasional cigarette and telling stories. You got the impression that some of those tales were well worn from retellings, but for me they were new and enchanting. Here were people who had such full lives. They had so many stories! I envied their adventures and the friends and relatives who flocked to the table to share them. It didn’t matter if the material was dated. Friends were there just to listen and occasionally jump in with their own highlights and additions.
In the modern world of instant access and blazing update speeds, we have the means to share just about anything. Why is it then that the stories are so short? We can’t be bothered to look through a whole photo album. You’d better put those vacation photos in a collage if you plan a get a click from my like button. Your status requires me to click on something to read all of it? Nah, I’ve got way too much on my newsfeed to be bothered with that. There’s a video of a cat on a trampoline just down a bit and it already started playing . . .
Maybe that’s why we have such a hard time experiencing the happiness of others. Maybe we just don’t want to give them enough of our time. Maybe we think we know the story already because we saw that collage.
It’s enough to make you awkward in public. If a status update from yesterday is old news, how much more stale will our retelling of it be when we get to see our friends in person. Will we have to worry about boring them with a story we already “told?” Do they already know what’s going on in our lives? How much did they read? They did hit that like button, right?
I miss being regaled. I want someone to tell me about their happiness and let me really get into it. I want a story that involves a lead-in story just so I have the context. It would be nice to have that be the new normal someday. I need a regale me button. If I had it I would want to use it to let my friends know that not only am I proud of them and their life accomplishments, I am looking forward to having them tell me about it in detail at the next available opportunity.
This week I had two friends call me on the phone to congratulate me because they saw a post about some progress I made with my writing. They actually called me on the phone. Blew me away. Totally made my week.
That’s going to be my new outlet for my excess energy. I’m going to gesture a little less and listen a little longer. I’m going to make some calls. Spread my current happiness around so I don’t accidentally drown my girlfriend in it. But first I’m going to tell people how excited I am for them doing all the stuff they’re doing, even if it’s a story they already told. I’m going to mean it. I’m going to try to compare less and honestly get excited that Frank has put an end to his days of picking up dog poop. Good for you, Frank. Good for you. You’ll have to tell me how you did it sometime. Sounds like it could have the makings of a good story . . .
But then sometimes life doesn’t suck at all. Not even a little bit. How do you fix that?
I’ve been having a really good run recently. Great job, loving and beautiful girlfriend, relaxing sunny Florida lifestyle. Life is pretty darn awesome, and let’s face it, that’s exactly the sort of shit that annoys the hell out of people.
I can be irritatingly happy. I’m effusive about topics that excite me and gesture a lot. I ramble on about books or writing or the flavor of my gelato. “Isn’t this just the best pistachio you’ve ever had? You need to taste it again.”
It’s super annoying. I even irritate my own awesome girlfriend. We recently had a conversation that basically boiled down to, “Nathan, I realize you’re having a great day (again) but can you tone it down a little?”
I have trouble toning it down.
It’s not a problem people necessarily think about often, but we deal with it all the time. When we listen to a happy couple saying their vows on the altar and hear, “For better or for worse,” we usually think about, “for worse.” Will she be the kind of wife who sticks by him when he loses his job? Will he be there for her when she’s sick in bed? We don’t necessarily dwell on the “for better.” Will she be there in the stands for him when his softball team wins the championship? Will he be happy for her when she gets promoted and starts earning more money than him?
Better can be challenging. It’s not just relationships. It’s also why Facebook is such hell. “Seriously, Sue? You went to Maui this week? What tropical island/mountain view/whitewater rafting trip will you be posting from next week? And Jenny, what is this, your third Pinterest perfect child? Of course they all had to come out with dimples. You couldn’t have had just one ugly kid? Frank, I don’t even want to see your updates anymore. If you post one more video of your dog using the toilet, you’re getting blocked. Make that deleted. #stoprubbingitin, jerk.
I think sympathy comes easier than empathy in that respect. It feels natural to want to pick someone up when they fall. We want to help each other climb back from failures. But how do you help someone who is already having a great life? And why do we sometimes get the urge to sweep the legs out from under them and bring them back down to our level?
Feeling a part of someone else’s happiness is a tough job. It takes some selflessness to not want to compare or to qualify the successes of others. “Yeah, He interviewed well for the job, but his dad has worked for the company for years . . .”
In a modern world that seems to equate happiness with current number of successes, does that make us less empathetic to others around us? Do we feel we are somehow diminished by their accomplishments? What are we so worried about? There is really no chance of us doing that proposal/music video/dance-off better than the one our buddy just got 3 million hits on.
I feel it is definitely a topic worth thinking about. It certainly takes sensitivity to know when others around you are having a rough day and that maybe now is not the best moment to bring up your latest: Hole in one/Annual bonus/Halo high score. But I think it’s equally important to recognize when someone could really use a heartfelt congratulations on their hard work without having it qualified. It’s okay to really mean it. We are actually allowed to enjoy the successes of others.
When I was a kid, my grandparents would sit around the dinner table for hours with drinks in their hands, smoking the occasional cigarette and telling stories. You got the impression that some of those tales were well worn from retellings, but for me they were new and enchanting. Here were people who had such full lives. They had so many stories! I envied their adventures and the friends and relatives who flocked to the table to share them. It didn’t matter if the material was dated. Friends were there just to listen and occasionally jump in with their own highlights and additions.
In the modern world of instant access and blazing update speeds, we have the means to share just about anything. Why is it then that the stories are so short? We can’t be bothered to look through a whole photo album. You’d better put those vacation photos in a collage if you plan a get a click from my like button. Your status requires me to click on something to read all of it? Nah, I’ve got way too much on my newsfeed to be bothered with that. There’s a video of a cat on a trampoline just down a bit and it already started playing . . .
Maybe that’s why we have such a hard time experiencing the happiness of others. Maybe we just don’t want to give them enough of our time. Maybe we think we know the story already because we saw that collage.
It’s enough to make you awkward in public. If a status update from yesterday is old news, how much more stale will our retelling of it be when we get to see our friends in person. Will we have to worry about boring them with a story we already “told?” Do they already know what’s going on in our lives? How much did they read? They did hit that like button, right?
I miss being regaled. I want someone to tell me about their happiness and let me really get into it. I want a story that involves a lead-in story just so I have the context. It would be nice to have that be the new normal someday. I need a regale me button. If I had it I would want to use it to let my friends know that not only am I proud of them and their life accomplishments, I am looking forward to having them tell me about it in detail at the next available opportunity.
This week I had two friends call me on the phone to congratulate me because they saw a post about some progress I made with my writing. They actually called me on the phone. Blew me away. Totally made my week.
That’s going to be my new outlet for my excess energy. I’m going to gesture a little less and listen a little longer. I’m going to make some calls. Spread my current happiness around so I don’t accidentally drown my girlfriend in it. But first I’m going to tell people how excited I am for them doing all the stuff they’re doing, even if it’s a story they already told. I’m going to mean it. I’m going to try to compare less and honestly get excited that Frank has put an end to his days of picking up dog poop. Good for you, Frank. Good for you. You’ll have to tell me how you did it sometime. Sounds like it could have the makings of a good story . . .
January 24, 2014
Gifts of Our Fathers
The boy had already crossed the border of frustration and was well on his way to despondency. He was about fifteen if I had to guess, tall but still stretched out like his height had been a recent event, an adolescent growth spurt that sent his limbs racing ahead toward adulthood while leaving the rest of his body struggling to catch up. He was yanking the cord of a battered lawnmower with an expression more of rage than any expectation that he would get it to run.
The boy and I were neighbors, though we had never met. After an excessively violent pull, he lost his grip and the cord lashed out and struck him in the head. Unhurt but obviously upset, he gave a couple more angry tugs before laying his head across his arms on the back of the mower.
“Does it have a primer?” At the sound of my voice the boy straightened up and composed himself.
“No it’s really old,” he replied, looking over the machine with a gaze that spoke to me of their long relationship.
I stepped to the controls. The boy seemed relieved to have someone else involved in his plight and looked on as I adjusted the choke and pulled the cord. I had suspected he might have flooded it, and sure enough, with the choke adjusted, it sprang back to life. He thanked me, more relaxed now that an end to his misery was in sight.
I remembered those days. Fifteen and lawnmowers, learning the duties involved in becoming a man, my stepfather chiding me for wanting to mow circles and interesting shapes in the lawn.
Somewhere in the midst of your life you look around and realize that you’ve grown up. I blinked and now a couple years have gone by since that boy and the mower. I joked when I turned thirty that I am no longer a young man, but since I am by no means an old man, that leaves me only one other option: I am a man.
As a child you imagine manhood to be a time when you will be busy accomplishing your dreams, having adventures, perhaps capturing the heart of that beauty. You see it as the vindication of every injustice you’ve ever been subjected to. “Someday I’ll be my own man!” is the mantra of many a boy ruefully chewing down his Brussels sprouts under the watchful glare of his mother.
Much of my adulthood has been dealing with machines of some kind. That’s one thing my childhood self never would have guessed. When I was twenty and decided to leave the bitter frozen wasteland of wintertime Rhode Island once and for all and move somewhere warm for God’s sake, it was an aviation maintenance school in Florida that caught my eye. The exact words of my stepfather were, “Are you sure? You aren’t very mechanical.” He was right. I was not very mechanical. I had never taken apart a single thing as a kid that ever went successfully back together. I spent most of my childhood up trees reading adventure stories, and occasionally mowing circles in the lawn.
But I had a grandfather who was a master of mind control. I don’t recall a single phone conversation with Morgan Mathews that didn’t include the statement, “Nathan, you can do anything you set your mind to. You want to be a professional baseball player? Be a professional baseball player. You want to be a pilot? You can be a pilot.” I only knew my mom’s dad till I was fourteen and he passed away. He only knew those two aspirations of mine, but I know for a fact that he would have encouraged me into countless more. And wouldn’t you know it? I did become a pilot eventually. Over ten years later, I’m still an aircraft mechanic. Am I the best mechanic I know? No, not by a long shot, but I’ve had the wisdom and experience of lot of good men to teach me.
Recently I revisited La Purisima Mission, where my father worked as a state park ranger when I was a small child. It’s a wonderful place that smells like history and wildflowers and a little bit like goats. My dad died before any of my experiences with him could sink in to stay as memories, but my grandparents would take me around the mission after he was gone and point out the trails he named and the wildflowers he categorized. There is to this day an herb garden dedicated to him there. What’s more, there are memories of him lingering too, among the docents of the mission and a couple old rangers who knew him.
I love to listen to my family’s stories of my father when I visit them. Stories about how he’d stash a snake under his ranger hat as a surprise during his trail talks, or of his baseball exploits with his brothers. The lessons are not just the stories, but also the palpable fondness from the ones speaking of him. In thirty-three short years, my father left an impression that causes smiles to break out on faces over thirty years later. I don’t just hear the story of a loving son, or a fun elder brother, or a passionate ranger, I hear stories about a good man.
Standing at my father’s grave in Arroyo Grande, I never feel tears. I feel loss at never having gotten to know him as a man the way many get to know their fathers, but I also feel proud and encouraged. We don't get to choose our fathers, but I feel incredibly lucky to have had mine.
I hope that someday I will have children to teach about primers on lawn mowers and how to properly field a ground ball. I hope they get challenged in new directions and that I can be there to encourage them, but I hope their cars break down. Maybe not often, but enough that they have to fix a few things on their own.
We take so much from the ones who’ve come before us. They coach us and have patience with us when we fail, and encourage us to do better. We learn from them whether we’re trying to or not. Through years of effort and Brussels sprouts and love, we come out of the chaos of our youth and there we are: A man, or a woman.
I know what kind of man I want to be. Now is the time I get to find out.
The boy and I were neighbors, though we had never met. After an excessively violent pull, he lost his grip and the cord lashed out and struck him in the head. Unhurt but obviously upset, he gave a couple more angry tugs before laying his head across his arms on the back of the mower.
“Does it have a primer?” At the sound of my voice the boy straightened up and composed himself.
“No it’s really old,” he replied, looking over the machine with a gaze that spoke to me of their long relationship.
I stepped to the controls. The boy seemed relieved to have someone else involved in his plight and looked on as I adjusted the choke and pulled the cord. I had suspected he might have flooded it, and sure enough, with the choke adjusted, it sprang back to life. He thanked me, more relaxed now that an end to his misery was in sight.
I remembered those days. Fifteen and lawnmowers, learning the duties involved in becoming a man, my stepfather chiding me for wanting to mow circles and interesting shapes in the lawn.
Somewhere in the midst of your life you look around and realize that you’ve grown up. I blinked and now a couple years have gone by since that boy and the mower. I joked when I turned thirty that I am no longer a young man, but since I am by no means an old man, that leaves me only one other option: I am a man.
As a child you imagine manhood to be a time when you will be busy accomplishing your dreams, having adventures, perhaps capturing the heart of that beauty. You see it as the vindication of every injustice you’ve ever been subjected to. “Someday I’ll be my own man!” is the mantra of many a boy ruefully chewing down his Brussels sprouts under the watchful glare of his mother.
Much of my adulthood has been dealing with machines of some kind. That’s one thing my childhood self never would have guessed. When I was twenty and decided to leave the bitter frozen wasteland of wintertime Rhode Island once and for all and move somewhere warm for God’s sake, it was an aviation maintenance school in Florida that caught my eye. The exact words of my stepfather were, “Are you sure? You aren’t very mechanical.” He was right. I was not very mechanical. I had never taken apart a single thing as a kid that ever went successfully back together. I spent most of my childhood up trees reading adventure stories, and occasionally mowing circles in the lawn.
But I had a grandfather who was a master of mind control. I don’t recall a single phone conversation with Morgan Mathews that didn’t include the statement, “Nathan, you can do anything you set your mind to. You want to be a professional baseball player? Be a professional baseball player. You want to be a pilot? You can be a pilot.” I only knew my mom’s dad till I was fourteen and he passed away. He only knew those two aspirations of mine, but I know for a fact that he would have encouraged me into countless more. And wouldn’t you know it? I did become a pilot eventually. Over ten years later, I’m still an aircraft mechanic. Am I the best mechanic I know? No, not by a long shot, but I’ve had the wisdom and experience of lot of good men to teach me.
Recently I revisited La Purisima Mission, where my father worked as a state park ranger when I was a small child. It’s a wonderful place that smells like history and wildflowers and a little bit like goats. My dad died before any of my experiences with him could sink in to stay as memories, but my grandparents would take me around the mission after he was gone and point out the trails he named and the wildflowers he categorized. There is to this day an herb garden dedicated to him there. What’s more, there are memories of him lingering too, among the docents of the mission and a couple old rangers who knew him.
I love to listen to my family’s stories of my father when I visit them. Stories about how he’d stash a snake under his ranger hat as a surprise during his trail talks, or of his baseball exploits with his brothers. The lessons are not just the stories, but also the palpable fondness from the ones speaking of him. In thirty-three short years, my father left an impression that causes smiles to break out on faces over thirty years later. I don’t just hear the story of a loving son, or a fun elder brother, or a passionate ranger, I hear stories about a good man.
Standing at my father’s grave in Arroyo Grande, I never feel tears. I feel loss at never having gotten to know him as a man the way many get to know their fathers, but I also feel proud and encouraged. We don't get to choose our fathers, but I feel incredibly lucky to have had mine.
I hope that someday I will have children to teach about primers on lawn mowers and how to properly field a ground ball. I hope they get challenged in new directions and that I can be there to encourage them, but I hope their cars break down. Maybe not often, but enough that they have to fix a few things on their own.
We take so much from the ones who’ve come before us. They coach us and have patience with us when we fail, and encourage us to do better. We learn from them whether we’re trying to or not. Through years of effort and Brussels sprouts and love, we come out of the chaos of our youth and there we are: A man, or a woman.
I know what kind of man I want to be. Now is the time I get to find out.
January 13, 2014
Enjoying the reviews
In Times Like These Thank you to everyone who has posted reviews of the book. It's one of the best parts of being an author, reading that people have enjoyed your work. You spend how ever many years locked away with your characters in this other world and finally the day comes when you have to open the door and let other people in. It's a bit like hosting a party to celebrate some of your close friends and then letting random people off the street in to participate. It's nerve wracking at times, wondering how people will get along with your characters. You might bite your nails in the beginning and you want to flit around the party in order to eavesdrop on the conversations, but as the doorbell keeps ringing, you just have to invite folks in and hope for the best. You have to trust your characters to fend for themselves and hold their own.
Not everyone has the same experience. Some people track in a bit of mud, but overall it's been a great party. It's nice as the host to be able to sit back and watch. The prep work is done. You might take a few mental notes of things to improve on for the next gathering, but mostly you just get to enjoy watching new friends meet old friends and build connections of their own with your characters. The fact is, once the door is open, your characters are no longer just your own. They are free to touch the lives of anyone. They are part of so many lives now. I'm elated that so many of you have come to the party and enjoyed yourselves. There will be more to come, more opportunities to get to know one another and new characters to meet. Until then, I hope you are smiling and loving the company of these new literary companions.
Not everyone has the same experience. Some people track in a bit of mud, but overall it's been a great party. It's nice as the host to be able to sit back and watch. The prep work is done. You might take a few mental notes of things to improve on for the next gathering, but mostly you just get to enjoy watching new friends meet old friends and build connections of their own with your characters. The fact is, once the door is open, your characters are no longer just your own. They are free to touch the lives of anyone. They are part of so many lives now. I'm elated that so many of you have come to the party and enjoyed yourselves. There will be more to come, more opportunities to get to know one another and new characters to meet. Until then, I hope you are smiling and loving the company of these new literary companions.
December 4, 2013
Winners!
Congratulations to the winners of the In Times Like These November book giveaway!
Books hit the post office today. Winners should be receiving their copies in the next week. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and reading your reviews!
Books hit the post office today. Winners should be receiving their copies in the next week. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and reading your reviews!
October 27, 2013
Goodreads Giveaway!
More reasons to be excited for November!
