Join me on my road to publication (part 3)

My new multipart series chronicles the ups and downs of an ordinary person striving to becoming a novelist in the real world. The series will span more than five decades.

If you’ve read parts 1-2, you can skip the intro (though it’s a fascinating intro 😀):

I’m the author of ten published novels, three novellas, and one nonfiction book. Seven of the novels, the three novellas, and the nonfiction book were traditionally published. I self-published the remaining three novels.

Though this might seem impressive to some, it goes without saying that I’m no Stephen King, especially when it comes to our respective bank accounts. Despite boasting over 50,000 purchases/downloads of my books, I’ve barely broken into five figures in cash royalties because (admittedly) most of the sales were free or inexpensive ebooks. Regardless, it’s likely there are authors who would trade places with me, which might be viewed as a depressing commentary on how extraordinarily difficult it is for a no-name to hit it big.

Though I’m not the only author on Substack chronicling something like this, my story has unique elements that I believe will be informative and relatable to writers and readers. Over the next several months, I’ll post a bimonthly account of my journey to publication—from the 1970s when I was a young man with big dreams to a recently retired dude who hasn’t given up on those dreams quite yet. Here is part 3.

Doing my research the old-fashioned way

Have you ever taken a few days off from work and sequestered yourself in a remote location in hopes of putting a big dent in a novel? I once did just that, renting a log cabin with a really nice hot tub. My goal was to spend ten hours a day doing extensive rewrites on a novel. But instead of ten hours a day, I was lucky to cobble together three. (I blamed the hot tub.) A typical day went like this: Coffee in the morning in the hot tub, then breakfast, then write one hour, then lunch, then write two hours, then enjoy late-afternoon beers in the hot tub, then dinner, then screw anymore writing after that. The rest of the evening was spent in the hot tub downing even more beers. I sat in the water for so long, I turned into a pale pickle. It went on like this for an entire week.

In part 2 of this series, I discussed my retirement from my job at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times and my subsequent move in 2004 to Upstate South Carolina, where I planned to take three years off from full-time work and write an epic fantasy series I would eventually title The Death Wizard Chronicles. I moved with my wife and three of my five daughters to a home on twenty forested acres in a sleepy Southern town called Walhalla, the perfect place to pen a world-class series. That was the good news. The not-so-good news was the pressure was suddenly on. I was about to find out if I could pull off this novelist thing. Or if I was only a wannabe.

I began this post with the story about the cabin (and infamous hot tub) to illustrate a point. I think most people, including me, harbor the illusion that if you leave your job, you’ll suddenly find yourself with all the time in the world to write. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case, especially when considering that young kids were involved. The first month of my three-year sabbatical was spent unpacking boxes, setting up our new home, and helping my wife shuttle the kids from place to place. I didn’t write a single word. In the blink of an eye, my thirty-six-month window of opportunity had shrunk to thirty-five. It made me feel a little uncomfortable, especially since I didn’t have a hot tub to blame this time.

When your back is against the wall, one of two things can happen:

1. You can crumble into obscurity and give up the dream once and for all.

2. You can rise to the occasion and make the dream come true.

I chose the latter. But I quickly learned that I needed to be smart about it. So, on Day 1 of Month 2, I gritted my teeth and got to work. Only, I didn’t write. Instead, I began an intense stretch of research intended to add authenticity to my magical tales.

(I need to pause here a moment to reflect on why I was able to write my first book at age 21 but then go twenty-five years before writing my second one. In previous episodes of this series, I blamed my disappointing lack of production on not being able to juggle a full-time job and busy family life while also writing novels. And this was true, to some extent. But I eventually came to the conclusion that the most significant reason was that I hadn’t been mentally prepared to write the kind of novels I had envisioned. Here’s where my second wife came in handy. She is a Western-convert Buddhist who introduced me to her spiritual practice. I took to it quite well, not so much the ritualistic aspects but rather the philosophical wisdom that makes Buddhism so profound. This treasure trove deepened my themes and added something special to my series. It was just what I needed to put me over the top.)

Anyway, I began my research in the summer of 2004 when ebooks weren’t as readily available as they are today. Amazon didn’t launch its own digital platform until 2007, but paperbacks and hardcovers had been around on Amazon since the mid-1990s. And though the Google search engine already existed, it wasn’t the platform where most writers turned to research their novels. Instead, writers either went to their local library, bought paperback or hardcover books in bookstores, or ordered them online. I chose the online route mainly because I wanted to keep the books and also because I wanted to scribble in them. I found some amazing online deals on used books, some costing only a dollar or two. I didn’t care about what condition they were in. I only cared that they were in decent enough shape to be readable. Very quickly, I ordered seventy-five books, most of which are still stored in dusty boxes in my basement a quarter of a century later. I bought everything from The Art of War to Medieval Architecture to Horses for Dummies. In six weeks, I read almost every page of all seventy-five books—averaging at least two books per day—and took extensive notes that I organized into categories such as architecture, clothing, food, weapons, armor, fighting tips, battle tactics, etc.

And I didn’t stop there. My research extended beyond books. I took an hours-long hike in the Appalachian Mountains with a well-known naturalist, peppering him with questions about everything from black bears to wildflowers. I did a slew of phone interviews that included a highly trained martial artist, another guy who was an expert on medieval weapons, and a woman who was one of the few people in the world able to translate English to Pali, an ancient Indian language that I chose to serve as my “ancient tongue.”

Partially because of Horses for Dummies but more so because the crucial strands of knowledge I had previously lacked were now in place, I felt like a horse itching to leap over the pasture fence and take a raucous run in the forest that lay beyond.

Up next: The words pour out of me as fast as I can type.

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Previous episodes

Part 1 | Part 2