Writing a Novel? That was the EASY part!

While I wrote my novel, and since, many folks asked me, “Isn’t it hard to write a book?”  Or “How do you do that?” or even, “I always wanted to do that, but I don’t know where to start.”

The quick answers to the questions are: writing is like breathing to me; it’s not hard, I just do it and starting is way less a problem for me than stopping.  I’ve often diagnosed myself with word-diarrhea (should I put one of those “disturbing image” warnings on this blog?).   I can, however, very much relate to the questions listed above, because although writing is something I feel pretty good about – the list of things I cannot do well, or can’t do at all is quite lengthy.  In fact, if you can find it under the “it takes the left brain to do this” heading, I probably stink at it–if I even know what it is.

Case in point; I wrote a big ol’ long novel in a matter of months.  If I had actually devoted more time and discipline to it and could have subtracted the time lost to a couple of family crises, my own double-broken shoulder (now there’s a story!) and a subsequent surgery, well it would have been weeks.  I can do stuff like that. But, give me something mathematical, scientific, or God forbid, technological, and all of a sudden I’m the one asking, “Isn’t it hard to do that?” or “How do you do that?”  Although the odds of my saying, “I always wanted to do that, but I don’t even know where to start,” are about as likely as my saying, “I was thinking of sawing my arm off this afternoon…but just don’t know where to start!”

You see, since I waited years and years during my military career to have the time to just write a darned book, all I envisioned was that book (and many more) completed and on the shelf.  I sort of left out the need to find a publisher, get known and all that stuff.  The world has changed since I first set my goal and is changing quickly.  There didn’t used to be Kindles and e-books, or ways to just do it yourself.  Going the traditional route takes lots of time and patience and alas, I am not getting any younger.  Thus, I chose the self-publishing route; I cut out the middle man, get my work out faster and it’s all up to me.  That, I thought, was a huge adjustment for my way of thinking, but I just nodded my head and began the journey. 

“I can do this,” I thought, “I wrote a whole book, for heaven’s sake!”

It was very soon that I discovered my right brain was flailing with the things necessary to electronically publish, and even more so, to market said book.  I needed my left brain, and no surprise, when I finally found it, it was so emaciated from non-use in the two short years since military retirement that I had to nurse it back.  Honestly, I thought I’d lost it completely at first…but there it was, all white and shriveled, kind of like E.T. when he got all sick.

Add to my woes, I am also fifty-two years old and not a frequent driver on the social media lane.  Yes, I have a personal Facebook account…I do electronic banking, although I’m still convinced I am the last person in my generation to have made the switch.  I was proud I could operate e-mail and navigate my one-year old smart phone (it’s still smarter than me). But then I opened the door to the necessities of a self-published author.

So…after the brain-equivalent of the P90X workout, I get my head and psyche up to snuff, at least enough to follow all the guidelines to reformat my document for e-publishing.  Yay!  I asked my graphic artist friend, Gerry Teano to please help me with the e-book cover design, using a single photo (that backstory will be another blog).  He did it beautifully.  Yay!  I’m cooking with gas, right?  But then I hit the social media requirements and the whole stove blew up.

Twitter?  Are you kidding me?  I thought I was a damn genius when I set up my extra Facebook page to market myself and my books.  I had sworn year ago that I would never have a Twitter account (no self-respecting G.I. would communicate via something called a “tweet,” right?).  But I do indeed have a Twitter account now.  I recovered from that.  I did.  I still need to figure out how to scare up more than eleven followers, but the account is there! (If that statement generated enough sympathy and you are a Twitter-er…feel free to follow me at @TSSeleyElliott!)

Yes, I recovered just in time to have to figure out how to link the Twitter to the Facebook.  I remember when links were in the dog’s chain or things to be undone with needle nose pliers when a necklace broke.  Now I was totally without tools as I manipulated electronic links.  All by myself.

I had started drinking, heavily, when I got the need for the mechanism by which you read this very entry.  A blog.  One more thing I swore, swore, swore I would not subscribe to (although I had one brief encounter while stationed in Iraq, but I wrote that off as a moment of weakness while far from home).  But I done did it (as Homer Reeder, in the Unlikely Savior would say).  Yes, I established my own blog and, without even having a brain aneurism, managed to link it to my Twitter and Facebook.  I did it and I didn’t need therapy or a twelve step program by the time I was done.  It might not be perfect…but it works.

Then the Website.  I was feeling pretty confident when I Googled up Yola…it was touted to be pretty idiot proof (one of my criteria for any technological service I subscribe to) and cheap…and has a great customer service reputation.  That last one is very important to me, because I am that customer.  Just ask my IT guys from back in early 2000 when I called them in complete frustration because my documents kept disappearing from my computer screen and I never knew where they went till I powered down the computer at the end of the day and I’d briefly see them ALL pop on the screen just before they went away forever.  That’s when I was introduced to that little button with the dash on it at the top of the screen; you know, the minimize button.  The one I apparently hit unwittingly and often, making my documents disappear.  Yes, I am that customer.

But you know?  Without opening a single bottle of wine, without swearing (much), and without calling the Yola customer support, I suddenly had a website and it weren’t bad at all (said as only Homer could say).

I will still write…and write and write. I will still probably cringe whenever something requires me to push and click virtual buttons on a screen, choosing terms I still don’t understand and will never understand how they end up doing what I want.  But by God, I set up a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, a blog, and a website…and I even know what a widget is (a month ago I would have probably thought it was a type of weird Munchkin), I can simultaneously Tweet, post on Facebook and chew gum.  I can even create an RSS feed, although I have absolutely no clue what that is.

To quote Helen Reddy, “I am woman” – or writer – “hear me roar!”