Child Lost, Writer Found

When I was eight, I got lost in the Fiery Furnace while hunting lizards. Caught in the maze of fins, spires, hoodoos, and other weird sandstone formations in Arches National Park, I realized I’d taken a wrong turn and backtracked, only to come upon a gorge scoured in the slickrock that I hadn’t crossed. I followed a set of footprints in the sand, which vanished, and then scrambled up a sandstone fin, hoping to catch a glimpse of the edge of the maze. It didn’t work. Everything I tried seemed to take me deeper into the labyrinth. The search party found me three hours later, thirsty and dehydrated. I don’t remember being particularly frightened.

That incident in the Fiery Furnace lingered in my memory and emerged twenty-five years later when I started to write The Righteous, the first book in my series set in the polygamist enclave of Blister Creek, Utah. There is a sandstone labyrinth called Witch’s Warts in Blister Creek that serves as a secret entry in and out of the valley, as well as a focal point of violence and other weirdness. It is a strange, otherworldly landscape, and I’ve had readers write to ask me if such a place could be real.

The wilderness of southern Utah may be an alien place to most of my readers, but to me, it sends me to my childhood and makes me think about my father. He would take me into the desert armed with a guidebook of roadside geology to dig up trilobites and fossilized shark teeth or to look for geodes—hollow, spherical stones packed with crystals. We went to a ghost town in a dry canyon once and returned with 19^th century medicine bottles turned lavender in the sun. On another occasion, we camped on the desolate edge of a sand dune wasteland and listened to a murder mystery that came in and out of focus from a distant AM station. The stars were so bright under the thin desert atmosphere that it felt like I was clinging to the skin of the earth as it hurtled through the universe.

The desert was a cornucopia of cool stuff to discover: arrowheads and potsherds, topaz and other valuable crystals, and of course snakes and lizards. My brother and I once cornered a Gila monster that hissed and lunged as we tried to figure out how to get the venomous lizard into a can. It disappeared when we ran back to camp to get our father. Mom was relieved; we already kept a rattlesnake in a locked cage in the shed.

I’ve seen zillions of rattlesnakes and scorpions—have you ever watched a death match between a scorpion and a dozen angry soldier ants?—and that stuff doesn’t frighten me. Sandstone cliffs with thousand foot drops like Angel’s Landing or Dead Horse Point? Yes, that’s scary stuff. Of course, I don’t take foolish risks like I did as a boy, but whenever I’m back in the desert I find myself thinking about how I’d get food, water, and shelter if I were lost.

The same thoughts come to my mind whenever I revisit the polygamist community of Blister Creek. The desert wilderness is a good place to drag characters if you want their struggles to play out against a beautiful, deadly canvas, where civilization remains distant and weak. And it’s a good place to dig up memories of my own childhood, stir them up with pure imagination, and set them loose on the world.

Michael is the author of the top five Wall Street Journal bestseller The Righteous. The latest installment, Destroying Angel, will be released by Thomas & Mercer in March, 2013.

note: this essay originally appeared on Martha's Bookshelf book blog.

Blood of Vipers

Back during my years of struggle, when I kept writing with the dream of getting published some day, I sometimes wondered if the struggle was the only thing keeping me going. That is, was I simply too stubborn to give up? And if I ever found success, would I keep writing with as much passion, or would it become simply another job? Or worse, would I get bored and give it up?

That worry seems silly in retrospect. Now that I’m on the other side, I find that I’m more devoted to writing than ever. My head is bursting with ideas, and I’m writing as fast as I can, barely able to keep on top of all the stories I want to tell.

I finished a new historical novel called Wolf Hook in late summer*, and had about a month off before I was scheduled to start work on the next book in The Righteous series. It wasn’t enough time to write an entire book, but I didn’t want to sit around watching TV or goofing off on video games. When reading about the final, chaotic days of WWII it had occurred to me that while the war ended for most Americans in 1945, the massive population upheavals, food shortages, and changing military occupations kept the war fresh and raw in Europe for years after. Not to mention the last days of active combat, and how awful it would be to realize the war was won (or lost) and still be in the middle of a life and death struggle.

I imagined an American fighter pilot downed behind enemy lines in early May of 1945, and instead of adding characters and subplots like I would when developing a full-length novel, decided to keep the scope of the story shorter, about 80-120 pages. With hard work it was something I could finish in about a month. It would also give me something to share with my readers during the time of the release of The Blessed and the Damned in early October and Destroying Angel in March.

I was pleased with how this story turned out and am happy that early readers seem to be enjoying it too.

Blood of Vipers:

When fighter pilot Cal Jameson is shot down in enemy territory at the end of the war, his only desire is to find his way back to American lines. But as Cal hides from a Waffen-SS death squad, he stumbles into a family of German refugees fleeing Soviet shock troops. Soon, he finds himself in an uncertain role as the family’s protector. Together, they must stay alive while under attack from partisans, Russian soldiers, and the last, dying struggles of the Nazi regime, which is determined to throw back the enemy, even if it means the final destruction of the German people.
  

*It might be a while before you can read Wolf Hook. There is some interest from Thomas & Mercer to publish some of my other books, but if they don’t make a firm offer my agent is talking about shopping it to some other publishers. If that doesn’t pan out, I’ll hire my own editor and cover artist and bring it out myself, but right now everything is up in the air.

The Blessed and the Damned Release

I'm excited to see that October 2 has finally rolled around, the official release date of The Blessed and the Damned. This is my favorite book of the series, and perhaps my favorite book that I've written, period, with the possible exception of The Red Rooster, which I still love and think about. It's so difficult to juggle all the pieces that make an effective book, but I really felt the suspense, the character, and the great desert setting all coming together.

Of course, an author's favorite book might not be a readers favorite, but I have a good feeling that this will be well received. Time will tell.
 
Also, The Wicked has been picked up for mention in the Kindle 100, which has lowered the price to $1.99 for the month of October, so if you don't have a copy of book #3, this might be the time to grab it.


 

An Indie Writer's Journey

This blog post appeared last year as a guest post I wrote for R.E. McDermott's blog. I've updated it slightly.

My success as an indie writer has not been in the realm of the John Locke, J. Carson Black, or Amanda Hocking. Nevertheless, I've sold over 100,000 ebooks since January, and my series of polygamist thrillers, The Righteous, was picked up by Amazon's new thriller line, Thomas & Mercer, where I have had additional success. I've had enough success as an indie and enjoy the total control of going it solo that I intend to keep publishing some of my own work, no matter what happens with on the traditional publishing side.

Here are four pieces of advice I'd give to the aspiring indie writer.

* Work on your opening.

* Don't be sloppy with editing.

* Pay attention to your cover.

* Polish your blurb.

Readers are no more forgiving than editors or agents. They'll sample your book and if it doesn't grab them in a hurry, they'll drop it and move on to the next story without a twinge of guilt. The biggest cost for a reader is not the price, it's the hours spent when the reader could be reading something else. Just like you can step up to a display case of pastries and make a decision in a minute or less, so a reader can glance at your cover, blurb, reviews, and sample and decide if this looks worthy of time and money in a moment. You'll notice that editing, cover, blurb, and opening have something in common. They speak to your desire to be professional.

I made some mistakes with releasing imperfectly edited versions in the early days. Don't do this. Readers will mention this oversight in reviews, especially if you are an indie. Those reviews will stick there forever, long after you've fixed the formatting or the editing mistakes. Look at a couple of the poor early reviews of my books, if you don't believe me. All the glowing reviews by other readers won't erase those comments, and that was a totally self-inflicted wound, very unlike the kind of bad review that simply comes from not connecting with a reader.

Your cover and your blurb also give an important impression to the potential buyer. The cover can intrigue in the best of circumstances, but if amateurish or off in some way, tells the reader you're unlikely to care about the internal packaging of your book, either. Similarly, learn how to write a great hook for your product description. I know that this is a different skill than being able to write a compelling book--if you could tell the story in two paragraphs, why would you have bothered writing the book?--but you're a writer. Figure out how to make your blurb sound as enticing as possible.

Now, your opening. Don't give away too much, too soon. Remember, it's mystery that drives reader interest, not explanation. I think of the opening as a three legged stool: character, situation, and problem. If any one of these is out of balance, the stool will collapse. This is why an opening showing your character clinging to the edge of the cliff doesn't work any better than having a character wake up in her bed. The situation and problem are either too big or too small for our interest in the character at such an early stage. I like to start with a compelling character in an intriguing situation, trying to resolve some problem that is relatively small in scope. I don't immediately explain what this problem is, but if the reader sees intent on part of the main character, this is enough. When the time comes to explain this first little mystery, you should also have a bigger mystery waiting in the wings to ramp up reader interest.

Once you've got all the ingredients there, what should you try? A little bit of everything that is ethical, inexpensive, and doesn't take away from your goal of continuing to produce new work. Try giveaways, well-targeted ads like Pixel of Ink or eReader Review. Do guest blogs, visit boards and participate in such a way that doesn't come across as always talking about your book. Don't waste your money on advertising that is not carefully targeted.

The good news is that you don't need to panic if things don't take off right away. Unlike the limited shelf life of traditional books, your virtual library of offerings will always be there. Any time you've got men on base, the next batter has the opportunity to advance all your runners, not just the guy at the plate.

Feeding the Muse

I'm writing this from a beach house in Hawaii. It's peaceful and relaxing. There is good food, good weather, the sound of the surf, the smell of brine and plumaveria. Better yet, a very generous relative is paying for most of the trip.

There is only one problem. It does not feed the muse.

One day on one of my more challenging trips--Morocco, say, or Thailand--would be worth more to my writing brain than any number of weeks in Hawaii. Imagine shopping for spices an ancient souk or riding an elephant into a tiger preserve and the story material you'll find there. Even the challenging parts--a strange gastrointestinal ailment in Peru, spiders the size of small kittens in the Amazon, an aggressive tout in Tangier--spin off a dozen story ideas.

Sipping a drink with a little umbrella in it? Not so much.

I hope to take a more challenging, exotic trip some time soon, but meanwhile I'm always on the lookout for unusual experiences that don't punish the bank account as much as travel. I signed up for a Dengue fever vaccine study recently after a medical facility tracked me down because of an old yellow fever vaccination. Not only can I help fight a nasty disease that hits 100,000,000 people every year, but I can pick up details that lend authenticity to any medical-related fiction I write, as well as learn more about tropical diseases.

I might go back on stage this fall with a local company that is doing a production of Cabaret. You know how I love the historical settings.

In the past, I have studied foreign languages, taken up skiing and diving, and a host of other things to broaden my experience base. The risk for a writer is to sit in his or her writing room and live entirely inside one's own head. Do that and you may as well double up on the umbrella drinks, because you've sent your mind on a permanent Hawaiian vacation.

Write Like Hyde, Revise Like Jekyll

The two sides of the creative process can behave like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Jekyll is nervous, cowed by bad reviews and mediocre sales. He is convinced the work stinks, that it should probably be deleted or put away, in fact. Hyde, on the other hand, is a creative beast who tears through the streets, trumpeting obnoxiously about his abilities and willing to knock into the mud anyone who dares contradict him.

Neither of these men should escape the confines of your own head. If Jekyll is pathetic, Hyde is a jerk. But working in the subconscious, what Stephen King calls "the boys in the basement," they come together to produce one's best work.

For me, this comes when I alternate between two contradictory opinions:

1. My stories are so interesting that the whole world should read them.

2. My writing is dull, uninspired, and lazy, and needs a good flogging simply to struggle to its feet and drag my plot cart around the block.

The self-doubt and fear sounds self-defeating, but is quite useful in two stages of the creative process. First, when I'm brainstorming, trying to figure out how to make this book better than the work I've written in the past. I need to be critical, to toss aside dull ideas and to find something unusual in the pile, something that won't be the same, tired story. This is how I came up with the original premise for The Righteous. In fact, I was so deep in critical mode at the time that I almost tossed it to the rubbish heap. The polygamy angle was close enough to my own childhood that it felt mundane and not fresh, at least until I discussed it with a couple of writing friends, who grew excited by the idea.

The second time when a critical eye is useful is during revisions. I give everything a hard look. Are my characters as strong as I can make them? Is my villain a real person and not a caricature? Do I fall into lazy scene setting, with characters chatting in diners, living rooms, or city parks instead of somewhere active and engaging? How are my hooks at the beginnings of chapters and my read-on prompts when they end? Finally, I pick apart individual sentences, to make them active and not passive, to eliminate weasel words and reinforce with strong verbs and well-chosen details.

But as useful as the critical eye can be, there is a time when it needs to cower in a corner so that Mr. Hyde can come out and tell his story. This is during the rough draft stage. Don't think, just write. Let the first draft emerge in a flurry of words, one sentence piled on top of the next. Of course I use skills earned during the Jekyll stage of other projects, but any craft emerges subconsciously. As soon as I start to fiddle with individual sentences, Dr. Jekyll starts whining from his cage and the project bogs down.

And I have to write every day or the story goes cold. Heaven forbid three or four days go by without producing anything new. The book starts to feel like someone else wrote the darn thing and suddenly I can see all the flaws.

And that's the easiest way to kill a promising story.

Over the Top

I've scaled the heights this week and finally have a view of the valley below. Yes, I have firmly passed the midway point of my new historical thriller, Wolf Hook, and finishing the darn thing no longer sounds like hiking a mountain, barefoot, with a fifty pound pack of research books strapped to my back.

Still a long way to go, and I've got some distractions to deal with over the next few weeks: a visit from the in-laws, a trip to Utah for my niece's wedding, and contract negotiations with my publisher for some more books in the Righteous series. Good distractions, but still the sort of thing that can puncture the tire of my writing progress if I'm not careful.