Welcome to my blog! Over the coming months, I’ll share with you my journey as a first-time novelist. I’ll also dive more deeply into some of the themes of and “tech” behind my first novel, The Lightning in the Collied Night. (I’ll even explain how the heck I came up with that title for a science-fiction novel.) And I’ll dig deeper into some of the characters and share with you some of the back stories for which there wasn’t room in the novel, unless I wanted to write a 1,000-page book. Which I didn’t—after all, my name isn’t Tolstoy!
This first blog post is about why I decided to start writing fiction after retiring from a 44 year IT career last summer, and why I chose this story for my first novel. But before I get into that, I thought I’d tell you about the last work of fiction I wrote.
In 1972, I wrote a short story for 11th grade English class. Even back then I loved sci-fi, so of course it was a sci-fi story. And being a fan of stories about space travel, it was naturally about exploring deep space. The title was Last Hope. I hoped at the time that it was an original title—and maybe it was. But now… Google books with “last hope” in the title, and see what you find—tons of books! Probably all written after 1972. I should sue! More on the challenges of choosing an appropriate and unique title for a book in my next blog post.
I recently found my old short story buried in a box, and I re-read it. A few things struck me. One was the thought that it was obviously the first fiction I’d ever written. I mean, it wasn’t horrible—I did get an “A+” on it. But it was definitely in need of some, uh, polishing. The other thing that struck me was how the premise for the story still seems pertinent today, 52 years later. And that’s not a good thing.
My story was about the Space Ship Endeavor, which was one of 10 starships sent into deep space to find a habitable planet for colonization. The Endeavor was the “last hope” because of ecological disaster back home and the failure of the other 9 starships to find a suitable planet. To make a short story shorter, the intrepid crew of the Endeavor did find what looked at first to be a perfect planet to colonize. But when they took a shuttle to the surface, these visitors from the planet “Eorthe” (Middle English word for Earth) stepped out in the nuclear wasteland that had been Philadelphia—The City of Brotherly Love. Not a very hopeful ending, was it?
And that was the last idea I had for a story until a couple of years ago. (Hey, I was busy!) I don’t recall how I came up with the new story idea; I think it just popped into my head one day. I remember thinking, “Hmm… that’s kind of a neat story.” It was a story that was personally meaningful to me. Although it involved common sci-fi devices like space travel and wormholes, I’d never heard of a story quite like it. And it wasn’t only a sci-fi story. (Spoiler Alert… NOT. Sorry, you’ll need to read the book to see how it’s not only a sci-fi story.) But then, a lot of sci-fi stories go outside the realm of sci-fi. I ran it by a few family members and friends. They said they liked it. But then I had an “Aha!” moment: a plot twist—actually multiple twists and turns—that I thought would make the story much more interesting. My “test audience” liked these twists also.
I kept developing the story in my mind for a few months, then I put it aside. I was working a more-than-full-time job that involved a lot of travel (before and after the pandemic, that is). Then I had three job changes within a 10-month period. I knew there was no way I’d have time to work on the story… until that wonderful day last July when I retired. Then I thought, “I have some time on my hands now… maybe I should write a novel!”
And thus I embarked on a Great Adventure, not knowing if I’d be able to translate my story into a novel, but willing to give it a try. Since I had no idea how to go about writing a novel, the first thing I did was read three books on how to write fiction. Fortunately, there’s a lot of such books available for fledgling writers like me. The books I chose were Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders, Just Write by James Scott Bell, and the classic Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. I highly recommend all of them. Then I followed the advice from these experienced writers and started drafting scenes and character outlines, arranged the scenes into a book outline, and created an event timeline (a lifesaver for keeping track of 83 key events over 130+ years). And then late last year, I started writing chapters. Ten pages quickly grew to 50, then 100, then 200, then… well, a lot of pages! Then many rounds of revising and polishing (I’d learned something since high school).
I’ve read that a writer should strive to finish X pages or Y words per day. I ignored that advice. I write each day for as long as I feel like writing. Often that’s for five, six, seven hours or more. And the funny thing is, although it’s challenging for me to write fiction, as I’ve never really done it before (at least, not for 52 years), it never seems like work to me. I found out that what I’ve read about writers getting wrapped up in their stories, and their characters, is true. And when we care about our stories and our characters, as we see them come to life on the paper (or screen) in front of us, it’s easy to keep going because we can’t wait to find out what will happen next.
I read in the books on how to write fiction that a writer should write the book that only they could write… something personal, close to their heart. The story I concocted for The Lightning in the Collied Night is all of that. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I’m enjoying bringing it to life.
