by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I started the process of writing a novel several years ago. I had a general idea that I wanted to write a scifi novel. Things went well until my natural creative ambition and huge ego got the best of me: that attempt at a novel collapsed when I realized what I wanted to do was going to take me a decade and would encompass six or seven books — at least.
Flashforward a few years and I, again, realize I have not one book I’m working on, but four. But there is a big difference between what happened a few years ago and now. One, the universe I’m working on is pretty much a very gauzy, garbled autobiography. My writing and storytelling ability has gotten significantly better, as well, so when I took a hard right turn and decided to add two books to what had been a two books one story situation, it’s not like I was going beyond my ability.
In fact, things are going pretty well with these two books set some time before the events of the modern thriller I’ve been working on for years. But I have extremely high expectations for myself and so if I’m going to every finish any of this, I’m going to have to throw myself into a lot of reading.
I also need to recalibrate things. As I understand it, the late Stieg Larsson sold three books at one time — then promptly died of a heart attack — so I just need to accept that I have a lot — A LOT — more work ahead of me than I ever imagined.
But I’ve managed to come up with a cogent four books set in the same place and I’m still really excited to lay them out to an audience. I just have to finish sometime sooner rather than later. I want to at least be close to being a publish author by the time I hit 50 and that birthday is a lot closer than I day think about.
I’m doing all of this alone and in a vacuum, but I’ve made great strides in my storytelling ability, to the point where I can actually pull this rabbit out of my hat.
I just have to believe.
