Last week I talked about my writing process, but I have a confession to make. I omitted a significant aspect of said process. I know, I know, I’m a monster. The sordid truth, however, is I did not omit something that actually helps me. What I decided to ignore was one of the most powerful forces affecting my writing: imposter syndrome.

For those who haven’t heard of it, imposter syndrome is a constant, persistent feeling that you are a fraud. That you don’t belong or that you don’t deserve your successes. That you either got through due to sheer, dumb, luck, or even a subconsciously malicious, nigh-paranormal skill at deceiving people.

It’s not rational. I know that. That doesn’t stop it from living rent-free in my head, however. For me, it basically presents as an unshakeable feeling that people are just being nice to me due to some strange feeling of obligation. Combined with my avoidant personality this means it is really, really hard for me to believe that what I do is any good. And even harder for me to express that fear to people.

For as long as I can recall, this has been my entire life. I’d work on world-building, stories, comics, and more without showing them to people. Some of them I did share; I had a rant-filled blog back in high school and a fairly terrible sprite comic that I like to think were at least slightly amusing to my friends. As I got older, those fears and worries grew and grew, to the point where I stopped sharing anything I was really working on.

I’d put on a game face and post snippets here and there, but that was difficult and tiring. Most of the time I didn’t bother. I figured people were too busy with their own stuff to care about mine. This is true of any Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other post I’ve ever made as well.  Anything of mine that you have read has been difficult.

Pallas Lost represents what I hope is a paradigm shift in sharing. I’ve been sitting on the idea for the Fifteen Systems universe for over a decade. The rational part of me is agog at how long it really has been in the works. Getting down to brass tacks, I’ve had a sci-fi novel percolating in my brain for almost 30 years. I used to draw detailed diagrams of ships and laser guns, even theorizing how to make a “blaster” or “lightsaber” work in real life.

You can definitely see that I’ve wanted to be a writer for a while. And, dare I say, to become an author. The difference to me being an author is a published writer. That’s why I clung to traditional publishing as a long as I did; I was seeking external validation that a “professional” thought my work was good enough to release into the world. I low-key had the feeling that it was the most “valid” way forward.

During my year in the querying trenches suffering the endless onslaught of rejections, I had a lot of time to think. I also had a lot of discussion with my writing group, and Nikki, about what to do. At my one year anniversary of querying, I made the decision to switch tracks and self-publish. I knew that the longer it took to get anything other than a form letter rejection, the more that self-loathing imposter syndrome would grow.

So Pallas Lost is in many ways a figurative middle finger to all the unease and frustration borne from the unbearable weight of massive doubt. I still don’t know if it is good. But thanks to the encouragement of my wife and the dozen or so people who have read it, I am trying really hard to trust that it is.

It’s a struggle. Daily. I fought with myself on posting this blog. I’ll fight myself next week too. I’ll be posting blogs and short stories and world-building essentially while under duress. The key though, is that is okay. I need to challenge this feeling in order to find a way through it.

Hello friends!

Today I’m going to talk about my writing process. In NaNoWriMo parlance I am known as a plantser. A hybrid of a planner (one who plans everything) and a pantser (Fuck it, we’re doing it live!). That is to say, I start with a vaguely detailed plan, and I then just write what comes to mind.

The first step for me is coming up with the idea for a novel. I let it germinate in the back of my mind, adding bits and bobbins of ideas and improvements until I feel like I have a solid handle on things. This can take anywhere from days to years. At some point, I realize that I am human and need to secure some of these ideas from the perils and pitfalls of memory. I start writing down the worldbuilding information; the history, geography, commerce, and more.

Historically at this point, I wait until NaNoWriMo to do anything else. For me, the solid goal of 50,000 words gives me something to shoot for. The gamification of recording my written words at the end of the day and seeing my progress is a nice carrot. The first thing I write is a very rough outline. I am talking extra coarse. Sixty grit sandpaper rough. I literally write down a list of chapters, and then think through the story in pieces.

Pallas Lost, for example, my initial planning looked like this:

Chapter 1: Scout finds mystery ship.
Chapter 2: Scholar has trouble.
Chapter 3: Scoundrel has trouble.
Chapter 4: Scholar looks up information, decides to travel.

And so on. Pretty rough, right? That really is the actual words I used. Once I have scratched out the outline, I write the entire story. Starting at chapter one, I just write the words as they come to me. I never really know where the story is going to go, but I keep things pretty close to the rough outline. I try to keep each chapter to a certain viewpoint or story beat, no matter how long and short that may be.

I’m trying a different tack for Pallas Found. This time, I wrote a synopsis of sorts, where I wrote a sentence or two for each chapter in a massive paragraph.  It worked fairly well, until about three-quarters of the way through the book. At that point, the story was telling me to go a different direction, and I listened, invalidating a lot of the synopsis and chapter outlines. It’s also a lot longer with more chapters than Pallas Lost.

Once the story is finished, I let it languish for a while as imposter syndrome kicks in. At some point, weeks or years later, I let my wife read it. As she reads, I start reading it with fresh eyes, editing and changing as I go. By the time I’ve finished that, she’s finished doing the same, and I incorporate the changes as I see fit.

Then comes the real nerve-wracking part: Alpha readers. I put a call out to my friends for anyone who has the time and bandwidth, and I send them a copy of the novel with a list of questions to answer. Some of them answered the questions, some ghosted me, and some went through and did their own editing!

When I get all of the copies back, I go through the novel once again with those comments and edits in mind. When that’s done, I get Beta readers involved. This is the same as the Alphas really, I just label them according to which wave they are in. I’ll do a wave of Gamma readers too. By the time that’s done, I’ll have at least 10-12 takes on my novel in addition to my wife’s and mine.

For Pallas Lost, this is when I wrote a query letter and started querying. I likely won’t be doing that with Pallas Found. That’s a story for another day though.

To change course, finally, I am trying to suss out what to blog. I plan to post weekly, but I wonder what you, the audience, would like to hear about. Do you want me to post snippets of stories, tales of my time in the querying trenches, writing widgets and advice, or something else? Please comment on this post and let me know what content you crave.

Thank you!