Me? A question? Waaattttt? I recently received my first question on Goodreads, "What advice do you have for aspiring writers?". Frankly, I was floored by this because 1) I've been out here in the wilderness with my book for at most six-seven weeks and 2) I still see myself firmly in the camp of "aspiring writer". However, my new friend from Turkey views me as a full fledged author already! And you know what?
I am!
The weight that was lifted off of my shoulders when I put THE UNSEEN up on Kindle was immense. As I've said before, I feel a responsibility to both my characters and my family. My characters because I see them as real people and their stories deserve to be told. My family because they have been there, every step of the way, as I've tried to figure this whole thing out. They were there the first three times I said with absolute iron clad certainty, "I'm done!". They cheered me on, all the while thinking quietly to themselves, "No, you're not!"
The first eighty pages that I wrote in my initial draft were by far the most important for me. I began to get a sense of who Colman and Maeve were. They were funny, warm, unsure, wickedly smart and stood up for each other when they needed it the most. Of those first eighty pages, do you know how many I kept?
Zero.
I remember the day that my father and sister called me up to have something of an intervention. "Ben, we're proud of you and we love the kids. There's some really good stuff in here but, well, uh..."
Me-"What? What's wrong?"
My combined father and sister loving me but talking to me like Tina Belcher does when she's the babysitter on Bob's Burgers- "Ben, you need to get them the hell off the train."
Note, did you know that the original first eighty pages took place on a train? I'd done so much research on the Coast Starlight (Amtrak, runs from LA to Seattle, beautiful views) that I knew the specifications of the damn car they were sitting in during the day and how their room was set up in the sleeper car at night. I knew what stop they got on and what stop they got off. I knew what food was served on the way north to Washington State.
They thought that this would absolutely destroy me but after mourning the loss of the ridiculous things the kids did and the first bad guy, Keith, I realized they were right. "Get them the hell off the train!" has been my rallying cry since that moment. When I'm feeling too comfortable or when they've been in the same place for too long, I tell myself to "Get them the hell off the train!".
Looking back, I think that's the moment that I became a writer, when I had to let go of something that got me through some difficult times. When I told myself that even though those eighty pages (my first eighty pages, to be clear) were the most important thing in my life at the moment, I wasn't doing right by proto-Maeve and proto-Colman to keep them trapped in that one place. By creating my own world, not one that was confined by a real space, I was able to truly begin to let them be themselves.
It's amazing what a single question, from a single stranger, can clarify for you.
To proto-Colman and Tproto-Maeve. May your hilarious yet train bound story be told one day!
Have a good night friends.