Writing

Novelette

/ Greg Schaffer

I’ve never written a novelette before but read somewhere that creating one for a book is a great way to market a book and your brand. I’m working on building my email list, something honestly I should have done several years ago when I wrote my first book, Forgiveness. Live and learn.ben-white-197668-unsplash

I’m working on a new novel tentatively titled Fatherhood and will share more about that book as it develops. Childhood is the novelette I’m developing as a prequel to Fatherhood. Fatherhood is told from the father’s point of view (POV), while childhood from the mothers. Childhood, as the title implies, presents how the couple met as children and the development of their relationship through college.

My main purpose for writing Childhood is to have a freebie to give away in exchange for a mailing address to build my mailing list. I understand that agents and publishers look closely at that as part of the author’s platform (a term I did not know of until my first writer’s conference a week ago, the Mid South Christian Writers Conference). Therefore, my plan is to create this 10,000 word or so novelette (complete with professional editing of course), add a nice cover, and self-publish through Ingram Spark as I have done with several other works. It may even generate some revenue, but it’s email addresses I’m interested in.

As I’ve written the first draft the past few days (5000 words, so about half done) I’ve realized another important benefit. I’ve progressed significantly with the development of the characters and the world building. I see this as such an important offshoot of the novelette exercise that I will probably continue to do this for all of my future novels. When I began five days ago (my goal is 1,000 words on average per day, so I’m right on track) I didn’t even have names for the two main characters. Now I have that, their background, some personality traits, and a great foundation for the conflict that Fatherhood will create.

I’ll announce here when the novelette is available. I don’t have a timeline, as I need to ensure its quality and therefore don’t plan to rush its release. But the process of creating Childhood has certainly been positive and exciting.

Interested in a freebie now? Receive a free copy of Forgiveness at https://dl.bookfunnel.com/kc5ix83t35

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash 

Time to Write

/ Greg Schaffer

What is your best time to write? Without doubt, I find the early morning to be when my creative juices flow best. I’m not sure why that is, but I’m sure it’s in part due to being a morning person. I routinely wake up before 5 AM and am often in the office before seven. Incidentally, this is a complete flip from my college years. I joke that now I wake up around the time I used to go to sleep.federico-respini-314377-unsplash

I have daily writing goals measured in words, as with most authors, when I’m working on a novel. For me, since I have a full-time job (I own a small virtual CISO firm), I don’t have the luxury of time to have lofty goals of 5,000 words or more. No, for me if I can reach 1,000, on average, for weekday mornings that’s fine. Weekends I relax my goals somewhat; if family time permits, I’ll get in some time to lay down words, but if not, that’s fine. Balance is key.

Sometimes people assume that my job is highly technical but that’s not the case. Yes, there are technical elements for sure, but more so I focus on strategy and my clients’ business goals, not the minutia of what most people think about with regard to information security (firewalls, antivirus, and so on). At times I’m called on to invoke my writing skills as well, mostly when crafting policies and assessment reports. However, I  don’t get a chance to exercise my creative side, at least not in the creating fiction sense.

I think that’s a prime reason why I am a morning writer. By the time I’m thinking about, say,  how the GDPR may affect a client’s operation, my brain has shifted its creativity to security and privacy strategic mode. It’s more difficult for me to shift to creative writing in the middle of the day than to start at it fresh in the morning. Plus, and I have no proof to back this up, just a feeling, creative writing to start the day seems to fuel my mind for the other security and privacy tasks at hand.

Therefore, I try to block the first hour I arrive at my office for creative writing. It’s quiet as I’m usually one of the first to arrive at my office suite. I don’t have the distractions of writing at the home office. So long as I can resist the urge to check work email, if I can give myself an hour of uninterrupted time before tackling the day’s duties, I usually meet (or often exceed) the 1,000 word goal.

I wonder if a study has been performed to see when fiction writers prefer to practice their craft, and why – anyone know?

Photo by Federico Respini on Unsplash

Situational Awareness

/ Greg Schaffer / 7 Comments

Last night I did something dumb. I left the gas on one of our stove’s burners. No flame, just a low leak of natural gas. Fortunately my wife realized it a bit later, and after airing out the house just to be sure we resumed our normal lives.vidar-nordli-mathisen-544139-unsplash

Except that I have a fear of dementia. I don’t have a family had the history of it but I wondered out loud to my wife if this is how it begins. We talked about it for awhile and eventually chalked it up to absent-mindedness.

I tend to be absent-minded those times when I’m distracted, either externally (such as with the case of the stove) or internally (if I’m thinking about a plot twist, for example). These are normal situations that we all live with and through. Yet I had another epiphany at the gym yesterday that makes me think more is involved.

I was near the end of my workout, sitting on the triceps machine, staring at my phone, reading some article on some news site I don’t recall. I spent the time between sets reading random stuff because I had forgotten my headphones. My usual distraction is to listen to a podcast, talk radio, music (80’s or Christian usually), or an audio Bible. I couldn’t do that, so I filled my head with random reading.

I  had a sudden desire to put the phone down and just soak in the atmosphere at my local YMCA. I was a bit surprised how crowded the workout area had become since I had started about 45 minutes earlier. Our veterinarian was on a rowing machine. Who else was there that I may know and ignored?

I think that in the age of having constant information on our hips we have lost some of our situational awareness ability. Like any muscle or skill, if you don’t use it you’ll lose it, to a point. Perhaps my situational awareness skills have atrophied to the point where minor distractions can prevent me from noticing things such as a stove top burner not shut off properly.

Perhaps this also affects writing. Is it possible that we can fill our brain with so much garbage information that we affect its other functions, such as creativity?

I don’t believe I’m experiencing early dementia, but rather the effects from letting my situational awareness skills weaken. I plan to reverse that, meaning less reading about subjects that I really cannot influence much and cause great stress (such as politics) and more just staying in the now, soaking in the environment I’m in at any and every given moment. Maybe, just maybe, that will help my writing as well.

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

A Change of Direction

/ Greg Schaffer

I just typed the title and already I realize it’s misleading. Perhaps “A Refinement of Direction” or “A Clarity of Direction” would make more sense, given what I plan to write about. But I’ll stick with what I’ve got, as unraveling uncertainty is part of today’s theme.IMG_7464

I attended my first writer’s conference today, the Mid South Christian Writers Conference (that’s me at my book table on the right). It at least met if not exceeded my expectations in every way except one (more on that in a moment). Without going into too much detail, I learned much about my trade, and perhaps more importantly that there is much more I don’t know, and even more I don’t know I don’t know.

I wrote “trade” because today I realized, or may be accepted, that writing is my trade (not my only one for sure; I need to pay the bills after all, and my writing trade experience just isn’t there yet). But I see the word “trade” as the migration from hobby to profession. With that comes greater responsibility, and greater goals.

I chose this conference as my inaugural one because 1) it was not too far a drive (about 4 hours) and 2) I had decided recently that my trade calling is not just writing fiction, but Christian fiction. And not just Christian fiction, but Christian fiction on dark, tough topics to show hope. That may not have been my first choice for my specialty, but sometimes when God calls you to write it isn’t what you expected.

Leaving Darkness (about healing from depression) began that path for me. As I’ve written about here before, writing that novel (and now marketing it) was and continues to be a direct response to God’s call. It’s a good idea to respond positively when called, in addition to being an honor. Well, I’ve become fairly certain this past week what my next novel will be about. For now, I’ll just say it’s another heavy topic with a Christian message and lesson.

I decided this directional change, or refinement, or clarity before the conference, but what I received today was validation through conversations with those much further along in their direction. Therefore, some aspects of my public-facing writing persona, including this blog, will change, I hope for the better. To that end, let me emphasize I love feedback, good and bad.

As for the one expectation not met? I didn’t sell any books today. It’s tough to sell to an audience of writers, but what I didn’t get in sales I received more in encouragement, advice, and directional coaching. That’s worth much more, “in my book”.

When Fiction Becomes Reality

/ Greg Schaffer

“This isn’t for me. I don’t understand how my father could have enjoyed this. Something that tastes bad, makes me lose some of my God-given facilities for a while, is not productive of my time, costs money, and enables me to continue to wallow in self-pity seems pretty stupid, if you ask me.”

This quote is from one of the main characters in my second novel Temptations of the Innocent. The protagonist had bought her a drink at a bar. This was her first experience with alcohol and her reaction is after one or two sips of straight whiskey.

Alcohol is an acquired taste because of its perceived benefits.pexels-photo-606543 Coffee (of which I just finished my first cup of black in the pre-6 AM darkness) is another example (the benefit of increased alertness from the effects of the caffeine). She had not processed more than a couple of sips and therefore did not experience any benefit and the subsequent temptation to drink more. Hence her innocent reaction to alcohol, a point of view we seem to subdue after experiencing alcohol’s pleasing effects.

I wrote that quote probably sometime in late 2015 or early 2016, and quite possibly while enjoying a beer. I had long ago acquired the taste for beer, sometime in high school, and since then beer had become a regular companion – not daily, but certainly I’d enjoy a couple several days a week. I was a casual enjoyer of beer and wine, as years earlier the “perceived detriment” of a bad hangover became a strong enough deterrent to limit any imbibing to a few.

Maybe that snippet stuck with me in my subconscious. A few months ago, as I was standing in the shower feeling not hung over but drained after having consumed one more glass of wine than I should have the night before, I began to search for a reasonable response to the essence of my character’s stance on alcohol. I could find none, and since that day, I haven’t had a drink. I’m not opposed to moderate alcohol consumption nor have I quit, I just simply haven’t had a desire to drink. I may have lost the acquired taste for it, I don’t know.

Perhaps I didn’t write that scene just for the readers of novel, maybe it was subconsciously for me as well. That makes me wonder – when we write fiction, do we unknowingly embed messages to ourselves? If so, what hidden nuggets about our desires and goals are woven within our novels and short stories? Do we sometimes write fiction to unlock a desired reality?

As for me, I am thankful that I have never written a scene about the negative aspects of coffee. Yet.

Image: images.pexels.com/photos/606543/pexels-photo-606543.jpeg

Leaving Darkness Combines Ministry and Fiction to Provide Hope

/ Greg Schaffer

With the novel Leaving Darkness (WestBow Press), Franklin, Tennessee author Greg Schaffer hopes that, by blending fiction with ministry experiences, readers may be helped through the story of a young man on the brink of sLeaving Darkness by Greg Schafferuicide who, through participation in a small group ministry, finds a path out of the darkness of depression.

“I’ve seen firsthand the healing power of small group ministries,” explained Schaffer, a volunteer for several years with Nashville, Tennessee-based Restore Small Groups. “The key is reaching those who want to change but don’t know how or where to look for answers. My goal is that some struggling can possibly relate to Leaving Darkness and that the novel may trigger within them the motivation to reach out for help.”

Leaving Darkness follows Lowell Ferguson, a 28-year-old long-haul truck driver living in a world of isolation to numb himself from his past. His Chihuahua, Rufus, provides his only lifeline, but when he finds out Rufus may have cancer, he considers his own end is near, as without Rufus he believes his life is meaningless. While awaiting the diagnosis, he happens on a flier for a small group ministry promising the fullness and meaning of life he missed. Reluctantly attending his first group meeting opens a faith-based road to finding the life he is meant to live.

“I was in a place similar to Lowell many years ago,” Schaffer continued. “Well, not as drastic, but I was certainly down. I knew I wasn’t the ‘happy-go-lucky’ person I used to be. And, like Lowell, I stumbled upon a flier for a small group ministry that promised a path to change. Sure enough, that group experience changed my life forever. This process works for those willing to find a way to make a change. That’s why I was called to write about it.”

Leaving Darkness is available in paperback, hardcover, and eBook from major Internet outlets and directly from WestBow Press. For more information, visit leavingdarkness.info.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leaving-darkness-combines-ministry-and-fiction-to-provide-hope-300758607.html

Covered

/ Greg Schaffer

Leaving Darkness Cover 3 - SubmittedWhat goes into a good book cover? What does “good” actually mean? “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” but we, as indie writers, know better. We try to design a cover that speaks to the target audience, a whisper of “hello” or a shout of “read me.”

Leaving Darkness, my latest novel due to come out this fall (2018), is about the road out of the darkness of depression to the light of living a full life. The path can be difficult – wasn’t it Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own who said: “If it were easy, everyone would do it”?  His character was referring to baseball but isn’t that true in all aspects of life? I think that if leaving darkness was easy, everyone would do it.

The cover, then, had to reflect these and perhaps other elements: light, path, and challenge. I scoured the Internet for royalty-free photos to match these elements and came close a few times. But for one reason or another, I wasn’t satisfied with any I had found.

Such was on the back of my mind as I vacationed with family this past summer in the Grand Teton National Park. I (almost) never write while on vacation, preferring to reset in the relaxing experience unencumbered as best as possible with issues of life. Yet those issues are never far away in the writer’s mind. While walking with my wife in the park late one afternoon, I was moved to take a picture of a road leading towards mountains in the distance.

Several weeks later, I realized that was the photograph destined for the front cover of Leaving Darkness. All of the elements are in place – the road signifying the path to travel, mountains to conquer along the way, and an encouraging setting sun leading to the light.

I submitted this photograph to the publisher, with some enhancements, as the cover basis. I’m excited to see what their graphic designers do with it.

A Long Day and a Beer (Or Two)

/ Greg Schaffer

I’m sitting in a pizzeria located on the first floor of my office building, drinking a beer (Atom Bomb IPA or something like that), trying to unwind from a 12-hour workday. I’m exhausted not because I don’t like my job, but because I love it. It’s a blessing to be doing what you enjoy and getting paid for it.

Still, I have a hard time shutting down. I’m in this eatery with this IPA because I’m not done with work, but the shared office space I use is hosting a meeting of a political party. People mingling about my cube is not conducive to reviewing a SOC report (not that a pizzeria is much better, but at least I can order a beer here). For those uninitiated to the wonderful intricacies of information security, a Service and Organization Controls (SOC) report is a summary of an audit on controls of a business to protect information. It is also documented as an effective cure for insomnia.

About 14 pages into this 75 page SOC report (and about halfway into my IPA) I lose what final thread of interest I had in the SOC report. My report on the report to my client can wait a bit longer when I have fresher eyes and a reinvigorated spirit tomorrow. Besides, I have writing on my mind.

The manuscript for Leaving Darkness Leaving Darkness Cover Conceptis in the copy edit phase. That means that I am paying to fix errors caused by all of the times my attention wandered in seventh grade English. I’m fine with that because working with a competent editor helps to sharpen the writing skills I have and introduce others I missed along the line.

But a manuscript is a deeply personal creation, and the thought of someone else changing it in any way is unsettling as well. I have all the confidence in the word that the result will be fantastic, nearly ready for the publisher. Then I will feel relief. This project began over a year and a half ago, and I’m ready for it to be over.

I don’t mean that in a negative way, though I am a bit burned out from the process of countless revisions. Isn’t it amazing that you can read the same sentence dozens of times and miss a glaring error that you should have caught in seventh grade? Oh, yeah, those times of gazing out the window during Mrs. Klein’s English class coming back to haunt me 40 or so years later.

If you’re waiting for the point of this blog, there is none, really. I just needed to get away from the SOC report and everything else information security that I have been concentrating on for my clients over the past 12-plus hours and muster some measure of a creative outlet (whatever that means). I can’t work on Leaving Darkness while it’s in another’s hands, and I’m not going to start a new project until this one is completed. I do have an idea of the next project – the only hint I’ll give is the working title is Desert Death.

Well, my time writing this lasted long enough to necessitate ordering a second beer. Perhaps that was my true motivation after all.

Note – The cover illustration is a concept, hence the iStock watermark. We may end up using that image, or something else.