A little bit about my path to writing and publishing - Part 1 of 5

I’m working on Sgt. Dunn Novel #19 today. I reflected on my path to writing and publishing eighteen novels and a non-fiction book and decided I would share it with you.

Very early stuff

I wrote my first short story in the 9th grade for a Literary Club contest. It was a horrible story about a teenager winning an auto drag race (which was some of the books I was reading at the time). It did NOT win anything. I might actually have a copy somewhere. Maybe I should frame it and entitle it "What not to do!"

I didn't write another one until I was 25. I submitted my first one at age 28 to a science fiction magazine - it was rejected.

The wrong genre

From 1991 to 2003, I had written about 30 science fiction short stories. I had submitted five and all were rejected. I had started a nice short story about a grandfather and his grandson, initially as a fun time travel story. Part way through I suddenly realized the story was really about their relationship. I stripped out the science fiction portions and retooled it. That story, “He Wasn't Always Old” was purchased for $250. At last, I had sold a story. I was age 51.

The disappointing, but honest, realization that I was not a science fiction writer finally hit me, and I moved on rather than trying squeeze the square peg into a round hole.

So how did I end up with 18 novels and one non-fiction book?

In the fall of 2003, just before HWAO sold, I had already decided to write a novel. I had no idea how to do that, so I bought The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing, written by Evan Marshall, and read both the book and the workbook.

I felt I was almost ready. I read Ken Follet's excellent WWII book, Hornet Flight. I wanted to see how Follet handled point of view, so I charted the entire book noting which character was the POV for each chapter. Then I counted how many and what percentage of the total each character had. This knowledge, combined with Marshall's nice plotting “plan,” gave me my personalized framework I used to plot (in Excel) my first novel, Operation Devil's Fire, which by the way had a terrible working title of The Threat Of Horten 18. Yikes!

I still use the same version of the plot plan I devised in 2003 because it works for me. I expanded the uses for that Excel file to include worksheets for:

• Writing schedule
• Plot
• Time-distance calculations
• A 32 point compass diagram
• Characters
• Home states used
• Ranks comparisons (American, British, German)

Part 2 coming soon: Why I decided on WWII novels, how I picked Sgt. Tom Dunn as my main character. Being an undisciplined writer.