Writing from a New Perspective

From May to early August I started and completed writing a book. I am 80% sure I am going to title it Love's Autograph. The process of writing this book was somewhat of a turning-point for me.

When writing my first book the following was going on:

• I was not part of a writing community.
• I had read a lot of books on creativity and writing process, but not as much on technique.
• I was not thinking as much about conflict, flow of story, core of story, etc.
• I had the far off hope that some agent or publisher would stumble upon me and make me famous.
• I had no idea the different levels of editing that needed to happen.

Things have changed. One thing that has helped me is that I have already epublished. I have epublished three works (Trail Swap, Off-Trail, Tunnel W). There is something different about writing when you know that someone will read it. There is a lot of pressure when you have fans waiting outside your house asking you "how many more days until the new book?" Okay, that last part did not happen.

With Love's Autograph I also was aware of conflict. I have the habit of starting to write books thinking in the Beach Boys frame of mind, "Wouldn't it be nice . . ." I would make the main characters' dreams come true. Boring! I made a conscious shift from that to an evil villain's mentality, "How can I make their life more miserable?" This makes for a better read. If you have the Beach Boys problem, you can just imagine everything going well for the main character, and then write it the opposite way.

Another big change in my writing has been being aware of dialogue, showing not telling, point of view, and leaving out unnecessary details. All seems simple logic, but everyone has their quirks to work out.  I hope that I can send Love's Autograph to my editor in a few weeks.