Making
of an Indie Fantasy Author
There
is a video of Steven King floating around the internet. He says read - read
lots - One day you will be reading and you’ll stop and say to yourself ‘I can
do better than this.’ In that magical moment a writer is born... In my case it
took a little more than that one magic moment.
I
was always a reader. You know what I mean. If you’re a reader, you squirrel
books away like nuts against the coming winter. I have thousands of them,
stacked everywhere, almost enough to make me worry that I might be a hoarder.
These books are stuffed full of wonder, and portray worlds that are fascinating
and exciting, much more so than the mundane world of computers and programs
that I inhabit.
As
a kid, it was almost exclusively science fiction for me. Science seemed to be
the key to everything. Advances came at a mind boggling rate and everything was
getting better, faster, and smarter. Technology had it all, and science fiction
captured the imagination of everyone, regardless of his or her background. Bradbury,
Heinlein, Asimov, Clark, Herberts, Pohl, Niven, Pournell, I couldn’t get
enough. The Science Fiction book club could barely keep me supplied. It was
those authors who dominated my bookshelf for years.
As
many of the things science fiction only speculated about became real and common
place, the frontiers of science fiction seemed to draw closer. No more could we
dream about going to the moon or mars, and wondering what it would be like. We
knew. Science fiction had lost some of that sense of wonder for me. Not
completely, but now nothing seemed that farfetched anymore.
I
missed the sense of wonder that I’d found in the early science fiction novels, but
I found it back in Fantasy. No, not Tolkien - Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time. I read that book
long before I was introduced to the Hobbit. There was something captivating
about the worlds of Fantasy. Watching the author paint a picture of a world
that was not real, one that could never be. It was a wonder to me. I read and
re-read my favorite books until the covers fell off, and I had to tape the pages
back in. Each time I re-read a book, I saw more fine grain detail, more
complexity and richness to the world that I’d missed on the previous pass. It
satisfied my hunger for a sense of wonder.
It was about then that I started
writing fiction. It wasn’t really my choice. I always hated English in school
and avoided it at all costs. That’s probably why I put off the last required
English class until it was all that I needed to get my degree. I had to pass an
English class, or fail to graduate.
When the books arrived for “Chief
Modern Poets of Britain and America”, I ran for the counselor’s office, begging
for something else, anything else. I just knew I would never have survived that
poetry class. All of the horrors of every painful English class I had ever
endured came rushing back. I feared I might not graduate just because of one
class.
The only other option available was “Creative
Writing”. I figured it would be an easy credit, I could slap together a few papers
and pass the class, and that would be it. No longer would I have to worry about
grammar or proper paragraph construction. I might yet survive that final
English class.
The first day of class, the professor told
me that I was going to learn to write stories. I remember her showing me how a
story arc worked, how characters were developed, and how to create and control
tension. These were things that I recognized but couldn’t put into words. This
is what was in all of my favorite books, the ones I’d read and re-read until
they fell apart. I realized there was something magical to their writing,
something I could learn, and I was hooked. Somehow that idea got inside of me
and just never let me go.
I wrote short stories for years,
working with other writers on the Internet, back before most people knew what
the Internet was. We wrote and traded stories on a cycle. Write for a week,
critique for a week, and start again. We kept at it, six or seven of us honing
our skills, struggling to get a handle on the craft of writing. We read
everything published by the writer’s digest, devouring and applying all that we’d
learned, eager to share and grow, to polish our craft. Theme, plot,
characterization, dialogue and even manuscript formatting; nothing about the
craft of writing escaped our attention.
It was about then that traditional
publishing took its first big hit. If you want to know what happened, research
“Thor Power Tools and Publishing.” It looked like there was no longer a viable
career for any but the best writers in the business. Publishers were cutting
inventory and shrinking print runs. Many of my favorite authors slowed down, or
left the business, because they could no longer make a living at it. It was sad
to realize that any dream I might have harbored about becoming a writer might be
only that; a dream. There would be no market clamoring for anything I wrote. Publishers
were in trouble, and few writers were being accepted for those precious print
runs.
It didn’t matter; I was infected with
the author virus. I kept writing and kept honing. I tried several times to
write a complete novel, but I just couldn’t get a handle on all the details.
I’m inherently disorganized, and it just overwhelmed me. That is until I found
a great software package that did all that organization for me. That, and a
fabulous online class in How to Write a Novel. Now I could keep track of the
timelines, characters, locations, themes, character arcs, and all those things
that made up my imaginary world. A world that I did not at first know fully,
but one I was creating as I wrote.
My wife went to visit her family
overseas for two months and I had the house to myself. A married man left alone
and unsupervised can get himself in a lot of trouble. I disconnected the cable TV
and started writing. I wrote the kind of story that I’d been reading for years.
Fantasy. I wanted to write a great big epic fantasy novel, set in a large world
full of strange and wonderful places. I was consumed with it. Now I could keep
track of all those details until I had them committed to memory, until my
imaginary world was as real to me as my own. I could see it all as it came
together and it was no longer an insurmountable task.
As the book took shape, I researched
the current state of the publishing industry, and found that it had changed yet
again. With the advent of print on demand and eBooks, the inventory valuation
problem had vanished. Now a backlist could live forever, but it looked like the
traditional publishers were under assault again. Not by the IRS, but by eBooks.
The kindle and nook were challenging the demand for print books. It looked like
the market for new authors at the traditional publishers was even tighter than
it had been before, and getting worse every day.
I spent months polishing my fledgling
book. I found a writing group that met in person and joined it. I work-shopped
my chapters, recruited beta readers and hired an editor. I revised and re-wrote
anything and everything that didn’t make sense, or come across the way I
intended it to.
Months crawled by as I polished and
refined the manuscript until one day it was ready. In the mean time I had had learned
how to format files for Create Space and the Amazon Kindle. I built my web
site, created my twitter and FaceBook accounts and got active in the community
of writers. I had done everything I could to prepare.
It was time.
Time to push that publish button.
With great trepidation, early one
morning, I pushed that button. I was no longer a reader. That one simple click transformed
me into an indie author, and there was no turning back. There are more worlds
in my head, constantly screaming to be written about. There is a host of characters
that clamor for attention, demanding that I write their story. How can I
disappoint them? I’m an author. I have to keep writing.
Author Bio:
James
Eggebeen is a serial masochist repeatedly taking high tech companies through
the growing pains of converting from a garage shop into a sustainable and
profitable mature business.
He
learned the value of hard work by being raised on a farm in Wisconsin where he
learned auto mechanics from his saintly grandfather who patiently tolerated him
and his siblings always under foot. His most frequent comment growing up was
"Why did you people settle here when there are much warmer places to live?"
He
confounded his teachers and most grownups at a young age writing incredibly
powerful algorithms for phenomenally underpowered computers at the dawn of the
computer age. This is a skill he has employed throughout his professional
career and still take great pride in (the confounding part mostly).
At
17 years of age he made a deal with the US Navy "Teach me about airplanes
and computers. Take me anywhere it doesn't snow and I'm all yours." They
kept the bargain and started him on a world traveling adventure that has
continued far beyond his six-year enlistment.
He
continued his world traveling adventures as a businessman frequently logging
one fourth of his time out of the country. He feels as comfortable abroad as he
does at home and has developed an appreciation for a wide range of cultures and
cuisines.
He
settled in Southern California after his service was complete and studied
Engineering, Business and Finance at night while working at a series of
start-up firms by day. He claims that growing up on the farm and the Navy has
ruined his ability to sleep late and habitually gets up well before the sane
portion of population starts their day.
Author Website:
Books by James Eggebeen:
Foundling Wizard
For over a hundred years the priests
of Ran have been killing young wizards to take their power. When Lorit learns that
he has the Wizard’s Power he becomes targeted for special attention by the
Temple.
Lorit must learn magic in time to save the sister he infused with his own power to save her life. He must find a way to overcome their stolen magic without resorting to their tactics.
Together he and the Sorceress Chihon battle to make the land safe for magicians everywhere. Can they defeat the Temple or will they succumb to the plot that would turn them into the most powerful of their enemies?
Lorit must learn magic in time to save the sister he infused with his own power to save her life. He must find a way to overcome their stolen magic without resorting to their tactics.
Together he and the Sorceress Chihon battle to make the land safe for magicians everywhere. Can they defeat the Temple or will they succumb to the plot that would turn them into the most powerful of their enemies?
