Tag: The Art of Writing

I’ve Got to Get This Book Re-Started!

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The Wind from Heaven (Bell Mountain, 13) - Kindle edition by ...

Behold! isn’t the end of the Bell Mountain series; but COVID screwed things up, and there are another two books waiting to be published–and half a book waiting to be finished.

Oceans of Time–Kirk DouPonce is busy with the cover art, editors are busy with the text, and I hope and pray it comes out this year in time for Christmas.

Ozias, Prince in Peril–Now we’re going back 2,000 years in Obann’s history to tell the story of King Ozias, King Ryons’ ancestor, who wrote many of the Sacred Songs and was Obann’s last anointed king until Ryons came along. The book has been written, but I have no idea when it’ll be published.

The weather around here, this spring, has been cranky–and there sits Ozias, Prince Enthroned, only half-written, waiting to be finished. So what I have is a bunch of notebook pages outlining the rest of the story. Weather permitting, I would very much like to start writing it tomorrow!

What’s with all this stuff about the weather? Well, I write my books outdoors. It helps me visualize what I’m writing about. And the physical therapy sessions chew up a lot of my writing time. Obstacles! I had to write a Newswithviews column today, and go to the supermarket–so no Ozias today, and only four blog posts. As my mother used to say, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

I hope I can find the bakery tomorrow.

‘My Books Have a Mission’ (2012)

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Bell Mountain Series

Gee, there’s a lot of them…

I admit this post sounds a little pompous, twelve years after it was written. But that’s something that can happen to you when you’re serious about your work.

My Books Have a Mission

I have half a book to write–Ozias, Prince Enthroned–and another lined up after that. And it’s nerve-racking to watch what happens to our culture while I feel like I’m only treading water.

Onward, anyway. Work and pray, and leave the outcome up to God.

‘How One of My Characters Grew: Old Uduqu’ (2016)

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You know you’re on a roll as a storyteller if you introduce a minor character who grows into a major character before you can say boo.

How One of My Characters Grew: Old Uduqu

The thing is, all your characters have to seem real–especially to you, the writer. The most common failing that makes bad literature bad is the writer using the central character as a larger-than-life wannabe of himself or herself, and all the other characters just scuttle around like roaches: they’re not important.

Nor does it hurt to have strong feelings about your fictional characters… as long as it doesn’t get out of hand, of course.

Epistle to ‘Somebody’, Part 2

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Beautiful Child Typewriter Stock Photo 219763774 | Shutterstock

Somewhere in my family album is a picture of me, eight years old, sitting at my aunts’ typewriter. I think what it says is that writers are born to tell stories.

Our friend Amalia would like to know what kind of training you need to have, to become a writer. I’m here to tell you this: Mostly you have to train yourself.

I know, I know, there are all sorts of writing courses out there. I’ve never taken one. But if I were to teach one (I have some experience, teaching “writing” in an adult night school), I would say there are only two things the aspiring writer really needs to do and will get nowhere, fast, if he or she doesn’t do them:

Read, read, and read some more!

Write, write, and keep on writing.

Again, we now have self-publishing, which we didn’t have when I finally sold my first novel in 1986, and that takes away a lot of the frustration and the heartache. Even so, I can’t help feeling my work is nothing, really, unless someone out there is willing to pay to publish it. Not so many years ago, you would hardly believe how difficult that was to achieve!

I have known wannabe novelists who hardly ever read novels. They have no idea what a story looks like, let alone how to create one and tell it. They create characters who are thinly-veiled wishful-thinking avatars of themselves, and it’s a rare reader who won’t see through it.

Anyhow, it’s really pretty simple. If you want to be a writer, you have to read and write a lot. An awful lot.

You won’t be able to help getting better at it.

Epistle to ‘Someone’ (How to Become a Writer)

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Bell Mountain by Lee Duigon - Picture 1 of 1

[Part I of II–I don’t want to be long-winded]

I have received an e-letter from “Someone” (WordPress didn’t give me his name) asking me how to become a writer who writes Christian novels (you can read it in yesterday’s comments). I don’t know about other writers, but I always want to hear from readers. So I’ll do the best I can to answer Someone’s questions.

*There is no college course that I ever heard of in how to write a novel. There are college courses which you may find illuminating and make them part of your worldview. I’ll probably never forget my Persian Empire course, taught by Prof. Maksoudian. No one wanted to miss his lectures! It never put a penny in my pocket, though.

**By far the most important, useful, and valuable thing a writer-in-training can do is… read! Find authors you like and devour their work. We learn by imitation–we grow out of it–in fact, it’s very necessary to outgrow it–but all the same, it’s a door through which any aspiring author must pass. Funny: the most telling lesson I learned from C.S. Lewis was to stop trying to imitate C.S. Lewis. But in the meantime I had added to my understanding of how to tell a fantasy story.

I went through periods of imitating Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkien. What I learned from trying to write like they wrote was more about how I should write. I had to find my own voice. You do that by trying on other voices, one after another. All the time, whether you’re aware of it our not, you’re learning. And eventually you get there.

***Also critically important: Never give up! Never! This is a sore temptation.

When I was young there was no self-publishing, unless you were fabulously wealthy. You were in competition with thousands and thousands, if not millions, of other aspiring writers. And it was acutely depressing when you came across pure dreck that somehow got published when your work didn’t.

It might take you several decades to break into print. Meanwhile, never give up. Never, never, never. You will often feel demoralized. Fight your way through it.

Finally, you can indeed get help and encouragement from established writers who remember their own hard times and can easily sympathize with you. So thank you, T.E.D. Klein, Robert Jordan, Charles Grant, Gary Brandner, and Ramsay Campbell.

[Part II to come]

No, I Haven’t Forgotten My Book

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Behold! (Bell Mountain, 14)

Book No. 14 of the Bell Mountain series

These past few days I’ve been reading and editing that portion of Ozias, Prince Enthroned that I wrote before the cold weather set in–some 30,000 words of it. I guess this must be the acid test: Do I like it, so far?

I do! I wish I had more of it to read. Before very long, the weather will allow me to start writing the rest of it. Meanwhile, we have two finished books to publish: Oceans of Time and Ozias, Prince in Peril. Kirk DuoPonce is on board to create the covers. And of course there are the 14 that are already in print.

I pray I’ll be ready to take up the tale as soon as weather permits.

 

‘Yachting with No Pants On’ (2013)

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A self-inflicted wound (it happens to the best of us!)

Any author as prolific as John D. MacDonald was, is bound to brew up a clanker every now and then. Like this one:

Yachting With No Pants On

Editors are supposed to save writers from making fools of themselves. But more often than not, they dare not demand changes in anything written by someone who makes a lot of money for the publisher. Editors, after all, are just as replaceable as writers.

So there was John D. with his “all-girl nude yacht crew”… and there is the reader asking, again and again, “What ever possessed him to write this? What in the world could he have been thinking?”

[Note: Lisa, who tracked down the book’s title, was for years the keeper of “Lee’s Twitter.” Hats off to Lisa!]

‘Not-So-Minor Characters’ (2015)

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28,134 Kid King Stock Photos, High-Res Pictures, and Images ...

Gotta outgrow this!

You’d be insulted, wouldn’t you, if people dismissed you as “a minor character”? Well, fictional characters don’t like it any more than you do.

Not-So-Minor Characters

To this day I still cite Dick Francis and H.R.F. Keating as stellar examples of writers who brought their characters to life. You don’t need to load down the book with biographies that interest no one: but you do need a touch of color.

The biggest offense a fiction writer can commit is to write himself up as the larger-than-life hero of the story. Even publishers don’t like it! That sort of thing is very popular in high school among teens who think they’d someday like to be writers.

It’s a phase that must be passed through as quickly as possible.

Coping With the Cold

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Chair in Frost and Icicles Outdoors · Free Stock Photo

Yeah, I know: it looks like I’m doing nothing, just some dawdler sitting outside, smoking a cigar.

I’m supposed to be writing a book, Ozias, Prince Enthroned. It’s the story of Ozias’ first year or two as king of Obann. Cold weather stopped me halfway through. I can’t write fiction indoors, too many distractions; but outside, in January, it’s just too cold, the ink won’t come out of the pen.

So what I’ve been doing is telling the story to myself, conjuring up one episode after another. I now know how the story ends, and several of the more important steps toward getting there. I hope to be ready to start writing them down, once Spring is here. I haven’t worked this way before, but it seems to be bearing fruit.

Meanwhile, two books await publication: Oceans of Time, and Ozias, Prince in Peril. My editor, Susan, has recovered from her illness and is back to work (thank you all for your prayers!). Soon we’ll need a cover by artist Kirk DouPonce. And then another cover. Maybe by then the weather will ease up and I can write down what I’ve envisioned for Prince Enthroned.

I’m looking forward to it.

No, I Haven’t Stopped Writing

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Bell Mountain Series

It’s been weeks since I’ve written a word of Ozias, Prince Enthroned. It’s too cold to sit outside and write, the ink won’t come out of the pen; and we’ve had all sorts of tsuris around here lately. But I am still thinking about the book; the Lord has shown me two incidents that will have to be included in the story.

I’ll have to wait for more.

And while we’re at it, let me request some prayers for Susan, my editor at Chalcedon and my friend, who’s been sick for weeks now and needs some TLC from above. Please, Father, restore her health and strength and let her take up her work again: bless your servant with healing. In Jesus’ name, Amen.