Stepping into the Literary Thunderdome as a New Writer
Setting out as a new writer feels a lot like pissing the ink soddened sea monkey farm in your brain right out into the wind. It’s liberating, terrifying, and messy as hell. I easily spent sixty percent of the first novel process spewing prose, plotting, and character development all over the place while hoping that ma nature wouldn’t decide to make a direction change with the air current while I was midstream. Backsplash can be a briny bitch, but I did learn a few things for which my life is generally easier and I am deeply grateful for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still learning. We do this as we go, I’m told.
The first thing I learned was that there is a spectacular amount of advice available about writing. There is also an opposing camp giving an equal amount of advice warning of the grave perils of taking advice on writing in the first place. A fledgling writer can spend an inordinate amount of time talking about writing. I’m talking about stupefying quantities of time. The seconds turn into hours, slipping away in big bludgeoning chunks leaving a cotton mouthed daze and a great big uncomfortable glory hole of a word count. Note to self: scribble words first, talk later. Whatever advice you do or do not choose to take is a moot point unless there is an actual story, poem, biography, or whatever to apply it to.
Second, it took months of work before I had a good idea of what I was doing from day to day. I started out writing in the first person and it just didn’t work for me. It didn’t work for my story. Ash to Embers wasn’t meant to be told within the parameters of a single perspective. The world is too big and complex to be told cleanly that way. I didn’t know that in the beginning so I wrote at least five chapters from first person POV. A whole lot of the books in my genres are written in the first person. It seemed a logical place to start, but I struggled with world building and separating myself from my characters. At some point I had to let go of the “formula”, pull up my big girl pants, and really push at the cracks and the characters that made it breathe.
Third, there are almost as many ways to publish as there are to write these days. I wasted plenty of time hemming and hawing over options. Sometimes you just have to pick a direction, do your best to avoid the backsplash if the wind changes, and get on with it. Ultimately the truth is, as new writers we are unknown quantities. If you’re self published or published by one of the big five houses you’ll still have to do a massive amount of work to get your name out there. One book helps, but a body of published work is better. Strong pervasive marketing makes the difference between a best seller and a just for fun attempt. That too takes time. Which, lets face it, is frustrating because when you shove that gremlin in the microwave you want that sucker to explode immediately before it figures out a way to get the door back open.
The Thunderdome is not a place for the faint of heart, it’s windy as shit so you’ve gotta keep moving; gotta keep putting yourself out there, but there is more than enough room for all types. Here is a place of infinite scope; so much bigger than I had ever anticipated. Along the way I want to create a new world worth living in for a while, write characters with permanence and soul, learn my craft well enough to be playful with it, and leave everything and everyone I come in contact with a little bit richer than I found them. The Thunderdome indeed. By now I’m already covered in ink, I might as well put it to good use.
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