The common trope for fiction writers is that we are locked away in a log cabin, typing away on clickety-clack keys, spinning yarns for our own amusement and for occasional pay. A deer might even be nibbling on grass nearby. Alcohol is certainly involved. We rarely speak, stockpiling lofty words like opine and insouciant to spice our books. We are an antisocial bunch, venturing out only occasionally, blinking like moles and fingers twitching to return to our hovel.

According to this legend, we are a quiet crowd, drinking too many spirits, feeling too much, but providing a needed element to the earth’s periodic table. Readers buy our books and stories, thankful that we sit separate from the world to write their entertainment and tell them the truth.

Is writing for introverts anymore?

But there is a new paradigm. The solitary cabin is no longer our reclusive home. It has Wi-fi, trilling cell phones, and social media tickers. We are expected to write our daily word sacrifice on computer, which has the potential to distract us from our goal.

But worse is that we are no longer allowed to sit alone, weaving our words independently. We must also build a platform. We must cultivate our own audience like summer tomatoes. We are expected to converse on Twitter, befriending potential agents, prospective readers, and esteemed book reviewers. We must gather likes and follows and retweets like produce. We are forced to balance polite interaction with low-key marketing.

What are we to say? We are skilled at creating worlds which illuminate truth. This does not always mean we are good conversationalists. Fantastical personas, ingenious gimmicks, and lightning rod personalities rule the ‘verse. The bland need not reply.

The Fight for Words

I can only speak for myself. I fight for every minute that is needed to craft a story. Each line of text requires several minutes, if not hours. I spill out the first draft, often in a great flurry of excess. These words are almost never kept. They are placeholders.

Somewhere among the faux text, I find the dots which define the story and I go about connecting them. Again, these are connections are made with words which won’t make the final cut.

Finally, in fits and starts real, bonafide sentences begin to arrive. They arrive individually, slowly and alone. A polished draft is glacial in its arrival.

And then I must submit the words I have birthed over many months to people who are exceptionally cruel, killing hordes in great bloody swathes. They bruise and batter my poor draft, exterminating plot points, clever passages, and my very favorite parts. I am indebted to these vicious masters, for they are writers too. Every word of mine that they read and find lacking, is time away from their own words.

In the end, a manuscript is completed, imperfect but loved. And yet no audience awaits my words. I have spent too much time writing my words that I have forgotten to court my audience.

My Gamble

It’s an impossible balance. And one I fear I will never master. I have put my faith in craft, rather than marketing. I can only hope that someday I will write words which will be read, not because I cleverly marketed my stories or because I am a sparkling conversationalist but because my stories created such fans that they felt compelled to speak out, passing along my words and saying, You must read this.

After all, this is why I read my heroes. For the story, for the truth they coaxed out of dictionary words. For the words which stick with me, nourishment for my soul. For the time they spent locked in the cabin, writing stories instead of tweets. And for this, I honor them, trudging along in their footsteps.

I was tagged by Masako Moonshade for The Next Big Thing blog series. She asked (and answered) the following questions:

1.)     What is the working title of your book? It is titled Zone Trippers.

2.)    Where did the idea come from for the book?   Have you ever looked in the mirror and been caught off-guard by the person looking back at you? It is like saying a word so many times, it becomes mush in your mouth and meaningless. I think we see ourselves so often that we forget who we really are. Then I wondered what it would be like to see yourself, from inside yourself, but with new eyes. And the idea of soul swapping was born.

I shared the idea on a whim with a writing friend and she was enthralled. Once I realized all the rules which would change if souls were transient, the stories just wrote themselves.

3.)     What genre does your book fall under?   There is some debate on that. I have always seen it as an epic family drama with a slight sci-fi twist. But the sci-fi assignation creates certain expectations. It has been classified as a thriller, a mystery, a medical drama, paranormal, magical realism, and my favorite, new weird.

4.)    Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?   I have images saved on my computer for many of the characters. If it were ever to become a movie, I can only say that I would want Joss Whedon to direct (might as well dream big.)

I envision Nathan Fillon or Brendan Fraser as the father figure, Owen. Eve would require an actress who could bring to life the many, many souls who inhabit her body. Perhaps Chloe Grace Moretz or Ellen Page?

5.)    What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Owen loses his daughter, Eve, to the worldwide epidemic of zone tripping (or soul swapping) and he risks everything to bring her soul back home.

6.)    Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?   I am currently searching for an agent and would like to be traditionally published. I have editor envy and I want to work within the industry to make my book(s) the best they can be. I admire the people who can self-publish but it is not an avenue I am currently pursuing.

7.)    How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?   I plotted for two months, wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2010, and edited for a full year. I’m still tinkering with it.

8.)    What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?    I’ve always pitched it as Taken meets Contagion (both movies).   Stylistically, it is similar to The Time Traveler’s Wife and World War Z. How odd is that?

9.)    What inspired you to write this book?    The world is far bigger than you think it is. Much of your world view is based on geography, including your political leanings, your religion choice, your likes/dislikes, your expectations, your status quo, etc. If geography lines were erased, the world would change. But would it change for the better?

10.)  What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?    There is a reality show which abuses the pretty zone trippers they have procured for the show. And there is a serial killer who believes he is called to kill zone trippers and release their souls. He marks them with an infinity sign on their wrist, therefore, he becomes the Infinity Killer. Ironically, he is a zone tripper too so he has a permanent “get out of jail free” card as he kills.

I’ve tagged my fellow writerly friends to answer the same questions on their blog next week. Please plan to visit their sites (and subscribe.)

The unique Laura VanArendonk Baugh

The amazing Rick Flynn

The up-and-coming Sharon Short