Step 1 – Day dream
Step 2 – Day dream
Step 3 – Day dream
I had three recurrent day dreams; one was of a farm boy being swept off to war in the middle of the night. The other was of a prince faced with an overwhelming invasion. The third was more science fiction; the technology singularity. I was conflicted as to which one to turn into a novel, then came the idea of combing them all.
Step 4 – Create a list of 20 hooks. I want the reader to be hooked into immersing themselves. I want the reader to be asking questions, and wanting to learn the answers. What woke Sam? Who are these riders approaching the farm? Will Sam abandon his family? Who are the council? Why is the icor changing its rules? What is the necklace? Why does the sickening exist? The hooks aren’t the point; the immersion is the point.
Step 5 – Write like a maniac
Step 6 – Proofread, and the send to a developmental editor
Step 7 – Receive constructive criticism and try not to take it personally, but take it as the opportunity it is. Rewrite rewrite rewrite
Step 8 – Send it for proofreading
Step 9 – Start marketing. This is torture.
Step 10 – Start the whole thing over for Book 2
Step 11 – PUBLISH Book 1 and shamelessly promote
PS – I have a belligerent recurring daydream and it always starts with a modern day student remarking about an old newspaper clipping where a professor claims that 150 Roman soldiers emerged from a wood in Scotland in 1936. This is definitely going to be a book one day.