Writing a book

A Beautiful Moment

/ Justin Turpen / 1 Comment

A little over a week ago my wife and I welcomed our new son to the world. The experience could not have been better and we are grateful for all the help and support from our family and friends. It’s been an adjustment for us, we have an almost 2-year-old daughter whose routine has been wrecked. The brave girl went to bed with us and woke up with her grandparents. It’s hard to imagine how it probably felt. Despite our best effort, she had no understanding of what was going on, just that mom and dad had left for a few days.

Our fears were that she might be angry or jealous of her brother. He’d be taking a lot of the attention she used to get from us. What ended up happening was beautiful. Her first reaction continues to be her attitude toward the little dude. She hugs, kisses, and tries to soothe him when he’s fussing. It’s been amazing to watch my daughter show love and care for our new son.

It has been quite some time since I’ve posted anything. My last post was way back in March of last year. Here is a brief description of what I’ve been up to.

We sold our house

We bought a house

We moved

And now we have a 2nd kid.

It’s been a whirlwind, but I’ve not given up writing. I’ve continued to meet regularly with my writing group, and while progress has been rather slow, it hasn’t stopped. I’ve outlined and am about 10k words into the first draft of my novel.

Additionally, you may have wondered how submitting Adrift went. I didn’t place, but hey, I finished the story and submitted it! Which is an achievement in and of itself.

Flash Fiction Completed; Initiate Summer Novel Outline

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While I am still working on editing and revising Adrift with the feedback from my writing group, I didn’t want to stop creating something new so I decided to write a piece of flash fiction. 500 words later I have a completed my first piece of flash fiction – working title Death of a Wizard (I’m not in love with this title).

I think one of the greatest benefits of writing shorter pieces of writing is the sense of accomplishment. I’ve spent years trying to write one novel and then the next, never really getting to that finish line with any of them. Now that I’ve got two short stories and a flash fiction under my belt I feel like less of an imposter – something I’ve heard many writers struggle with.

Additionally I think there are many lessons to be learned from writing shorter fiction that can be applied to longer forms. Characterization, fore-shadowing, descriptions, and etc. all need to be so precise to keep the word count low. You’ve got to milk every sentence for what it’s worth.

Moving forward I’ve got two projects that I’m going to juggle. In addition to editing and revising Adrift I’ve started the outline for a novel I plan to start writing some time in the summer. I want to give myself plenty of time to plan out and consider the story before I start writing. Which leads me to a few questions for you writers out there.

What works for you in your planning for a novel? What has helped you finish?

Thanks for reading!

Adrift 2nd Draft Completed! What’s next?

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Wordcount: 15k

Man it feels good to finish off a draft! I am far more pleased with this ending and am excited for my writing group to get their hands on it. I’ll do one round of edits before they see it – I mostly look for grammar, clarity, and word choice.

Assessing the manuscript as it is now, I don’t think I’ll need to write another draft. I can uplift it through a round of revision based on the feedback I get from my writing group. After, I’m going to send it off to some beta readers. I’ve not had many people outside my writing group weigh in on my recent projects so it’ll be good to get impressions from readers who aren’t writers and who have fresh eyes.

A note on receiving feedback. My approach is always to let the reviewer have an open mic. Let them tell me their impressions, their issues, and their suggestions before weighing in. It can be difficult not to interject, explain, or defend what I’ve written – and I’m not perfect at it – but I think it is vital to get an uninfluenced take from the reader as is possible.

What am I going to do while my alpha (my writing group) and beta readers are reading my story? Well starting my next project of course! I’m hoping to produce a short story, I’ve settled on a structure I want to use and have some ideas on what I want to do with it. No working name, no details yet, but definitely more to come on the short story in the future.

A huge thank you to all of you who’ve been keeping up with me on these projects. It helps keep me motivated knowing that you’re interested in the work I’m doing. Writing is a solitary pursuit but the product is to be shared, to be enjoyed and discussed by a community. Thank you all for being a part of it.

Are you a writer? How do you approach feedback on your works?

Thanks for reading!

Adrift Update #3

/ Justin Turpen / 4 Comments

Word Count: 11818

Writing slowed down for me this week. Work was stressful and I let it get to me. God bless my wife for being so supportive as I spiraled. I know many published authors are full-time employed and also manage to write, I aspire to be like them. This week missed the mark.

I’m into the last third of the book. This week brought me to some rising action and I’m taking a different ending than the first draft. I made promises in the early parts of this draft that need to pay off for the reader and I don’t think the first draft’s ending achieves that.

My writing group got their first taste of the new draft and seemed to enjoy it. I had some spatial consistency issues in what I sent them. Instead of writing a third draft to address problems, I plan to revise this draft a few times, perhaps even setting Adrift down for a month to come back with fresh eyes.

If you don’t know, I wake up at 5am to write every morning. Some mornings it is a productive time, others… not so much. I don’t have much other time in my day. I’ve found it difficult to focus on the craft in the evenings, though I hope to push through that and use it as another productive time.

If you are a writer, when do you write? What works best for you to be productive?

Thanks for reading!

Adrift Update #2

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Word Count: 8913

This second draft is starting to shape up. For context, my first draft was 5,814 words in total and was written in first person from the perspective of my main character. I’d never really tried to write a draft in first person and my lack of experience in it was apparent in review. I’ve now returned to a third-person limited viewpoint and am making ample progress toward finishing the draft.

I’m surprised how, even with a first draft, how much about the story has changed. Some conversations and scenes are not recognizable from the first to the second. A few parts of the first draft simply-put, did not work, and I’ve removed or replaced them since. Do this too many times and you’ve got a whole different story. Adding two new characters also contributes to this.

One of my hopes is that the reader will be able to get lost in the story – like I do when I write it. To me this is a usually a result of great characters, conflict, and beautiful prose. As I comb through what I’ve already written in the second draft, I’ve been editing sentence structure and word choice to uplift my writing. The end result, hopefully, being a polished and complete story. I’m projecting that the ending word count will hit somewhere between 15k and 17k words. This throws it up to the border between novelette and novella.

Once I am finished with edits and revisions with this draft I plan to submit it to the Writers of the Future writing contest. If I overshoot the max wordcount of the competition I may reevaluate my plan.

Thanks for reading!

Adrift Update #1

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Second Draft Word Count: 3199

My favorite part of writing this second draft is having the opportunity to expand and polish the world my characters live in. The simple way of putting it is that I get to retreat into my mind and try to describe the imaginary world I’ve made for myself. It’s so much fun.

I plan to include a few more characters. A father and a sister.

In the first draft I felt that the protagonist, Sara Emoc, needed a stronger reason for following through on her role in the plot. She had originally been motivated by “just wanting to do the right thing”. It didn’t match up with the stakes of the story. I plan to combine her motivation of wanting to do the right thing with also wanting to honor her Father.

I also felt that the first draft lacked conflict at certain times. The conflict that Sara faced in the first draft was mostly exterior and I wanted to give her more to chew on emotionally. Especially in the earlier part of the story – enter the Sister. The late parts of the story are a bit of whirlwind. I’m eager to rewrite them and expand on the climax and ending.

A crazy idea I’ve been playing with would also change the story drastically. I’m considering adding a second protagonist whose story would run parallel to Sara’s and intersect somewhere in the rising action. This would be a major change. I’ve gone back and forth on wanting to include it in this second draft. The main consequence would be doubling the word count. This would take me out of qualification for the competition I was planning to join. Choices.

That’s it for this first update. If you have any suggestions for what you’d like to know about, feel free to chime in on the comments.

Thanks for reading.

Writing Resources Roundup

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I’ve had a few people reach out to me wondering about the resources I’ve used. I have found these resources helpful in different ways.

Writing Excuses

Writing excuses is a group of Science Fiction and Fantasy authors who’ve spent years talking about the craft. Each episode is about 15 minutes and is a wealth of knowledge for any aspiring author. Some of my favorite recent(ish) episodes: Season 15 Episode 20 Mental Wellness and Writing and Season 15 Episode 5 Setting Goals for your Career.

Modern Manuscript Format

I ran into this website when I found it listed under Clarkeworld’s Submission guidelines. If you are wondering, yes I did submit Mother and Mist, more on that in a future post. One note: Make sure you actually read the text of body within the template. The first time I visited I just looked at the headings and general formatting of the document, turns out, the body of the document contains a bunch of important details. Luckily I caught it before I submitted.

Brandon Sanderson’s Youtube Channel

If you don’t know who Brandon Sanderson is it is likely that you have an aversion to huge books. The man writes at an incredible speed and doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. My favorite book series of his is the Stormlight Archive – you should check it out.

Brandon’s channel has a plethora of writing tips and advice. He teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University and I found his videos both helpful and encouraging in my first attempt at a novel back in 2018. He has recently posted a more up-to-date and high-quality lecture series from his class.

EDIT: A reader reached out with a suggestion for an additional resource she felt was good for young writers. After reviewing I agree! I think it has useful information! Thanks Anna! Money Saving Guide for Authors and Writers

That’s all for now. If you are an aspiring author and found these useful feel free to reach out! I’d love to connect with you.

Thanks for reading!

Writing as a Hobby [Almost two years later]

/ Justin Turpen / 2 Comments

20,198 words. The attempt at a novel I referenced in my last post ended with a corner. I had written an outline for the story but a few chapters in I shifted into discovery writing and discovered myself a corner. I’ve heard many authors say that writer’s block can be your subconscious letting you know there is a problem with your story. This was me.

My story was a Hero’s quest. In my mind it was a mixture of the structures found in the Odyssey and The Children of Hurin. In each of the first three chapters the story jumped years forward until it brought us to the first big conflict I had outlined. The whole of the story spanned decades.

These first three chapters I really enjoyed. I had built a world and characters I was proud of and then wrecked their lives like authors enjoy doing. I brought about solid motivation for the protagonist to propel him through the story. I also had strong reasoning and rationality behind the antagonist. But in the end I lost track of why the story gripped me.

In a last ditch effort to save the story I spent months working on, I returned to my outlines and threw out two chapters I had written – confident that I could figure a path forward. I found a path, but it did not excite me like it did when I started. Perhaps I should have pushed through the slog. I didn’t. Instead, I took a five month Hiatus from writing.

I changed careers – from High School History teacher to an Instructional Designer.

My wife gave birth to my daughter.

A pandemic in other parts of the world came to my home.

My parents got Covid.

One of my friends passed away.

An itch in the back of my mind followed me through it all. Write. write. write. I watched Hamilton for the first time when it came to Disney+. I was inspired by “My Shot” and reached out to one of my friends who wrote for a living. He too was looking for a creative outlet and we started what has become my writing group.

I’ve since written a short story and submitted it for competition – an achievement I’m proud of even though I didn’t win.

I’m now working on a longer short story. For a different competition. I’ve completed its first draft and am now working on a polished second draft. Its working title is Adrift and you’ll likely hear about it from me.

That’s the update. I’ve not given up. If you are working toward a similar goal, I hope you won’t either. Every author proceeds the very same way. One word at a time.

Thanks for reading.

Writing as a Hobby

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One of the oldest goals I developed for myself goes all the way back to middle school. I had just found out that books were interesting and dove headlong into J.R.R Tolkein’s the Hobbit, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance series, and Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire series. My love of reading only grew in High school where I set a specific “bucket-list” goal for my life. I decided that I wanted to publish a book.

“… a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” 
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

This pursuit of writing has led to multiple forays into writing novels. At this point I have started at least seven different novels. Ranging from an auto-biography, a sci-fi novel, and multiple fantasy and fiction novels.

Currently, I’m working on a fantasy novel that is inspired by both the city-state system of ancient Greece and the latin language. I’m trying to root the basic plot in contemporary issues that readers may care about. In addition I hope to keep the book grounded in important fundamental human questions. I find that sometimes fantasy and sci-fi authors lean to heavily in the setting and world-building and I think the core of a reader’s experience is their ability to relate or identify with the underlying characters.

My biggest struggle seems to be keeping the discipline to write regularly. I go through fazes of intense focus on writing and then lose it all a few weeks later after I hit a wall in the text or hit a busy season at school. Now that I have finished my master’s degree I hope to pick my most recent novel back up and get the words rolling.

I don’t claim to be an expert at writing and will undoubtably make mistakes as I continue this journey of making this hobby into something more. I plan on documenting my progress and process to achieve this goal primarily to hold myself accountable, but also to see if others are looking to do the same.

Thanks for reading.