A little bit about my path to writing and publishing - Part 3 of 5

Why Operation Devil's Fire was NOT the first novel I finished writing and becoming a disciplined writer

My wife came up with an idea for a modern day thriller (about a serial killer), which I really liked and fleshed out by early June, 2005, a month later. This was why I had stopped working on ODF. I finished the first draft of that book, called Border Gap, on February 3, 2006, just under 8 months later. The difference? I made myself stick to a daily word count of 600 (about 2 book pages) that I had to hit. If I missed it, I had to make it sometime before the writing week (Sunday – Saturday) was over. My average daily word count was 676 over that period. I had learned writing discipline! By the way, at the time, I was working 50 hours a week and traveling back and forth to Chicago for another 9 hours a week.

The pain (not kidding) of trying to find an agent

From late April, 2006 through March, 2007 I sent 70 query letters to agents for Border Gap. A query letter is one page and briefly introduces you and the book for which you’re asking representation. You specifically ask the agent if you may send them a partial manuscript (about 50 pages). I received exactly one request for the partial. The rest were either rejections or I received no answer whatsoever from the agent. Grr.

I sent the partial on and hoped. The agency in question was a husband-wife team. My hopes were eventually dashed when they wrote back declining further interest. However, they had both read it and they finished their rejection email to me with:

“We agree that you have good, strong talent. Keep writing. Keep polishing your work. Best of luck.”

Well, okay, cool. Something’s not quite right with my writing, but it shows promise.

Ah, man, really?

I knew I had a choice: I could be angry with them for rejecting my masterpiece, or I could take to heart what they’d said. So I re-read the opening pages of my manuscript. It had been perhaps a month since I last did that. I finished the first page, which introduced the victim, a young woman. It was great! Then I got to the exciting part of the opening where the killer strikes for the first time. My eyeballs practically popped out of my head. In the paragraph describing the killing, I had started 6 (six!) consecutive sentences with the word “He.” Palm plant. Ah, man, really? How did I miss that? Now I saw what they saw. Raw, but unpolished, talent.

Back to Operation Devil’s Fire

While working on all the damn query letters, I started writing on ODF again. From May 29, 2006 through October 7, 2006 (132 days, 4 ½ months) I wrote an average of 675 words a day, almost identical to my work on Border Gap! By the way, both books were in the 100,000 word range. My discipline was holding up. I had written 2/3 of the book in 25% of the time it had taken for the first 1/3.

From January 2, 2007 to October 19, 2007, I sent out 50 query letters and, again, received exactly one request for the partial manuscript. I heard back from the agent the very next day. “I'm afraid this didn't come across as something that would work for us commercially.”

Well, hell. Now what?

Three years.

Two novels.

And nothing to show for it.

Then comes another idea from my brilliant wife. Which led us directly to the Sgt. Dunn novels.

Coming next: A little bit about my path to writing and publishing – Part 4, Chess as the trigger. Published! Operation Devil’s Fire Published! Charged up!

A little bit about my path to writing and publishing - Part 2 of 5

Why I decided on WWII novels

I grew up watching all the WWII movies I could find on TV on our old black and white, we never had a color TV. The TV shows Combat (1962 – 67), 12 O’clock High (1964 – 67), and The Rat Patrol (1966 – 68) were a weekly staple. Some of my relatives served during WWII. My mom had a box of various brass, patches, and coast guard stripes that I examined endlessly. I memorized the navy’s ranks, both enlisted and officers. She had been in the Coast Guard from 1944-46. She gave me a copy of the navy’s nearly 600 page training manual published in 1944, The Bluejackets’ Manual – 1944, Twelfth Edition. I actually read the entire thing! I still have it in my book collection. The inside of the front cover is inscribed by mom in her beautiful cursive:

Oct. 20, 1944

Billet 614 Co. 272

U.S.C.G. Training

Palm Beach, Florida

U.S.S. Biltmore

(The Biltmore Hotel was used by the Coast Guard for SPARS training in 1943 & 44)

Below her inscription, I printed in my 8th grade hand:

Ronald Munsterman

JE-1-4810

1215 E. 36th Street

K.C. Missouri

In the 5th grade, through the Scholastic Books program at school, I bought Robb White’s excellent Up Periscope, which was later made into a movie starring James Garner. A couple of years ago, I bought another copy of it and read it all over again. Great story.

I once saved my weekly allowance (35 cents!) long enough to buy a toy kit that included an army helmet and a Thompson .45 submachine gun (caps) complete with a charging handle. I think I shot up every car in the neighborhood (Armour Blvd. and Forest Ave., Kansas City, MO.)

So, yes, I was fascinated by everything to do with WWII.

How I picked Sgt. Tom Dunn as my main character

In the fall of 2003, when I was working on coming up with an idea for a novel, I already knew it would be set in WWII. That was never a question. At first, I considered making the main character a member of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), who would, after the war, become a member of the newly formed CIA. I discarded that idea pretty fast because I wasn’t that interested in writing a “spy” book. The very next idea took roots and stuck. A soldier. Not an officer – there are lots of books on officers. A sergeant. Hm, a Ranger! A Ranger who went on secret missions! A whole squad of them. As for the sergeant, he became our beloved Tom Dunn.

I began searching for a plot. I watched an episode on the History channel that introduced me to the Horten Brothers, the brilliant German aeronautical engineers. They had developed a jet plane and were working on a bomber that would have the range to reach the United States. In the span of about ten seconds I had the plot for Operation Devil’s Fire: the Nazis had a jet bomber and an atomic bomb.

Being an undisciplined writer

I started writing the book in January, 2004. However, because I was an undisciplined writer I made sporadic progress. I wrote exactly 2,569 words in 6 days. Yay me! Then I went 2 months without writing at all. This became my pattern. I stopped writing the book on May 8, 2005, a year and 2 months later and was only 38% done. Not very earth shattering.

Part 2 coming soon: Why Operation Devil's Fire was NOT the first novel I finished writing. Becoming a disciplined writer. The pain of trying to find an agent.

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.