There will be some minor restructuring of The Lunatic Ltd, coming soon. They are not huge but the aim is to tighten my brand and better define who I am as a blogger and what this blog is all about. Been working on it…that’s why I haven’t posted lately…and it’ll be revamped soon so stay tuned.

Thanks!

I’ve spent the last several days creating the first round outline of my novel, The City of Black Gold. The process is simple, write out the key plot points and background of the novel in a loose outline form. It’s not the I., II., III. type outline but a rough this-happens-then-this-happens type of outline. My inspiration comes from the book Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman. He has an excellent chapter on outlining, using Ken Follett’s book, The Man from St. Petersburg, to guide readers through how to write and then expand on outlines. Since Follett is one of my favorite authors (I once emailed him about writing fiction and he actually responded with encouraging words!), this has helped me find my path to writing my outlines.

The process is a slow one, mainly because I’m trying to work out little plot points to make certain other plot points feasible. And I think I’m putting too much detail on my outline for this round. Oh, well. It’s a learning process and one that’ll evolve so I’m not too worried.

The upside is that I’m solving a number of issues…like how does my main character connect to the villain or how does the protagonist get on the cops’ radar and how does he hook up with the main love interest of the book? I’d had vague ideas on each of these questions but actually sitting down and hammering out the details helped spark the specifics of how I’m going to solve these issues.

I’m sure you noticed that I didn’t answer any of these questions here. That was on purpose. I don’t want to give away too much yet, not until I at least have the prelim draft outline complete. And on that note, it looks like my estimate for completing that outline was a bit aggressive. I seriously doubt I’ll get it completed by my deadline of Feb. 15! But I’m not worried. For one thing, that was an arbitrary date. I didn’t honestly know how long it would take to write this first round outline so I set a date and worked. The second thing…and really why I’m not worried about missing this deadline…is that I’ve been steadily working on the project. It’s one thing to miss a deadline because you simply failed to do the work. It’s another to miss it because it was larger/tougher than you initially imagined.

I do anticipate it being completed by the end of February so I won’t be too far behind. And I’m going to make an effort to simplify this version of the outline. Right now, it is more important to get the basic plot down rather than work out all the detailed plot points…or how this plot works.

Overall, I’m having a ball. It’s like putting together a puzzle, except you only have a vague notion of what it’ll look like in the end. It’s really about waiting on the characters to reveal themselves to me and tell me their story. Some are more forthcoming than others (my villain just doesn’t want to open up yet!) but I’m patient so I’ll get it all and when I do, I’ll share it with my readers.

A year ago, I sat in the lobby of a hotel in Cairo and waited for my local contact to show up and take me out for dinner. It had already been a long trip and I was more than a little tired, stressed and overwhelmed. I needed an escape. I didn’t have anything good to read so I decided to let my mind wander to my fiction. That would give a nice escape for a few hours, enabling me to keep my mind active while escaping the stresses of my day.

I wrote out a list of my old novel and screenplay ideas. I thought I’d tinker on one or two and see if I could break loose any new ideas. One of my early attempts at a novel had been about a group of eco-terrorists who decided to save Mother Earth by destroying her greatest enemy – humanity. I’d never been able to fully develop this idea and had once found a book by the same title I’d given my work-in-progress. It was a related but drastically different plot but I felt the story would never amount to anything. I’d shelved it years ago.

I also recalled a script I’d started about a deep sea research ship and the strange thing they found on the bottom of the ocean. I’d written it as an assignment for a screenwriting class I’d taken in college. It was one of the best fiction pieces I’d written but I’d been stumped by the “strange thing” they’d found. So many stories had been told of mysterious items discovered that, when brought back to the surface, had wreaked havoc on those who found it. I’d never figured out how to be unique enough in my mysterious discovery to take this story far.

But then an idea struck…what if I combined the ideas? What if I took the idea of eco-terrorists and combined it with some kind of deep sea discovery? I was immediately struck by the idea of working in the subject that I’d spent the last several years becoming familiar with thanks to various jobs as a business writer. I decided to use what I’d learned about the oil and gas industry, combine it with my stories of eco-terrorists and some mysterious find at the bottom of the ocean. What I began to plot out that day was the beginnings of my novel, The City of Black Gold.

Then, of course, reality hit and I had to go back to work writing about the technical side of the oil & gas industry in order to continue getting my paycheck. My creative energies were spent focused on that and the novel soon found its way into my drawer. It surfaced briefly after the April 20, 2010 Macondo blowout that killed 11 men, destroyed an oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico and dumped over 200 million gallons of crude into the ocean. Kinda creepy how life imitated the art I was creating…my book opened with the eco-terrorists attacking an abandoned jack up rig, a practice run for a real attack.

Again, the book was put aside.

Lately, however, I’ve begun to take a new look at my fiction. I think it is something that surfaces when I’m on a long trip and need a mental escape. That was the case on a recent trip to South America. The novel idea came back to me and I started thinking about what I want to accomplish as a writer.

I’ve always seen myself as a storyteller. Not just a magazine writer or a business writer. I’ve seen myself as a storyteller. I am good at finding a story and telling it in a compelling way that draws my readers in and makes them want to find out what happened. It is what I do in the articles I write for my full time writing job. And I’ve received numerous complements from people saying they enjoy my stories. And while writing stories, nonfiction articles, for magazines has always been part of my career path, it is not the end goal. What I really want to do, to paraphrase a line from many actors, is write books.

The first writing I did was a book. I was in the fourth grade in Dallas and it was a school-year long project for the Talented and Gifted program I was enrolled in at Daniel Webster Middle School. I wrote a book, albeit a very short one, on sharks. It was called, The Wide World of Sharks.

Since that first foray into writing books, that has been my goal as a writer. It has gone from writing thriller novels like those I enjoy reading to wanting to write great works of creative nonfiction…think of the book The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger. And I have a list of nonfiction stories I hope to tell someday. Yes, I said, ‘someday.’ And that is because I’ve discovered that writing these books is tough. It takes a lot of research and that requires travel and expense. It also requires the opportunity to speak to the important people who’s story it is. That, for me, is the tough part. I don’t feel like I have the credentials as a writer, or more specifically as a storyteller, to approach these people – who are often very important people – and ask them to tell me their story. I need a stepping stone, something that will allow me to build that credibility and put me in a position so that when I call them up, they’ll take my call.

Fiction. That is my answer. It is the primary style of storytelling. We take events from real life and use it as a spring board to spin a yarn, to tell a story. So I’ve delved back into my fiction with gusto. My plan, simply, is to write a few good novels to establish myself as a storyteller of good repute; then I can move into more important works like my nonfiction storytelling.

1. Establish a reputation by doing good work.

2. Use that reputation to do great work.

The City of Black Gold is to be that first novel. It is a solid story that is coming together very nicely. I spent a great deal of time this past week working on the plot. I had, from my time in Egypt, a great deal of plot points and story path ideas. I’ve spent several evenings this week working them together into a comprehensive first draft outline. I have also spent time planning out a timeline to write at least four outlines and two full drafts of the novel to have it ready to pitch to agents and editors by the fourth quarter of 2011. I’m developing a strategy to build a platform and prove to my future publisher that I and my novel are worth the seven figure advance they’re going to give me.

In a few days, the first outline is due. I’ve made significant progress in the last couple of days and while I have a long way to go, I will have the outline complete on time. And when I do, I will post it on here (temporarily while I develop the book’s website…after which, all development progress will be on that site…I’ll update you when that’s done).

This is the beginning…of my first novel and of my career as an author of books. I am taking my writing career to the next level, from writing articles and business copy to writing books. It is an exciting time, full of grand dreams and possibilities. But to take this beyond just a ‘beginning’ and see it through to the end, I must do the work. So I close this post and go back to plotting out The City of Black Gold.

Twitter is a great way to communicate our short thoughts and inspirations. Over the last several weeks, I’ve started emailing Tweets to myself that have spoken to me in some way. Most are quotes from famous authors and speak about life, hope, creativity, etc. As I find more, I’ll add them to this list and keep this post updated.

“We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.” Buckminster Fuller

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Jack London

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” Robert Brault

“What you think, you create. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you become.” Adele Basheer

“In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.” Mortimer J. Adler

“The misfortune in life is not that it ends soon for many, but people sit around waiting for it to begin.” Unknown

Today I got a book in the mail. It was one I’d ordered about a week ago…”Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays.” It is a tome of over 1,200 pages and is the collected works of the man who coined the term ‘essay.’

For most people, the word ‘essay’ probably brings back horrific memories of high school English class and dreaded assignments that made up their final grade. For me, those were memories of where I excelled. Whenever a grade depended on the quality of my essay, I knew I’d get a solid A.

To me, the essay has always been the purest form of writing. It is free form, without the boundaries of a magazine article or even fiction. An essay is the best opportunity for a writer to express his inner most thoughts, to explore any idea or theory. The essay is thought put on paper.

Several months ago, I read a post on Tim Ferriss’s blog about De Montaigne and it reminded me of my love of this form of writing, and of who first delved into it so formally.

So I decided to read and study the works of the master. I decided to buy his complete works and read about the things which carried his fancy and drove him to create a wholly new form of writing.

Perhaps I’ll find a deeper appreciation of this form. Or perhaps I’ll learn something of him, or even myself in these pages.

Whatever happens, I’m sure it will be well worth the many hours spent in these pages.

Who said that blogging was a 21st century activity? I can blog while sitting in my living room illuminated only by candle light. I’m doing it now.

You see, Texas is in the grip of a horrific winter storm. Blustering winds and an arctic cold front have dropped local temps so low that the power generation system for this state are taxed beyond their limits. The result…rolling blackouts. So far, I’ve been without electricity for four hours. The “rolling” part of these blackouts seems to have fallen off its rollers.

So I sit in my candle lit living room and blog while watching temps drop to 29.5F. Yes, not even 3F below freezing and I’m in the dark.

I grew up in Africa where losing electricity was fairly common so I’m not particularly bothered (although dinner was somewhat lacking!) but I am surprised that such a minor drop in temps (and it’s not like we’ve had these temps for weeks…it was 55F+ yesterday) would so tax the local grid. Just goes to show ya that even the remotest thing can happen at any time.

And it makes me wonder what weirdness the universe has in store for us next…but that’s another blog post.

I’ve been struggling this week with a major article I have to write. It’s a key part of my job and an important piece for the next issue of my magazine. But I can’t seem to get a handle on it.

I’ve read through my notes, almost 50 pages. I’ve started retyping those notes, trying to find a thread or a flow that’ll get the story rolling. But I still have nothing, or very little.

Is it writer’s block or just the don’t wannas that is keeping me from writing this article?

On one hand, it’s been 3 months since I interviewed these people and saw the various locations I’m trying to write about. Getting back into the mindset and recalling all the extra details that my notes should lead me to takes time after so long away. So writer’s block.

On the other hand, I’m not that interested in this story myself so there is a significant amount of inertia to overcome. The don’t wannas.

But, I’m not all that worried. When I look back at the previous nine articles I’ve written for this magazine, I’ve faced the same overwhelming fear that this time I won’t be able to do it. I won’t be able to write the article. I struggle to find the words even though they are already in notes and I just have to piece them together. I feel lost. I start to panic.

That’s normal. That’s the first stage of beginning to write. I’m overwhelmed. I panic. I keep pushing and eventually I write a sentence that leads to another. Then I’ve written a paragraph. Then a page. Before I know it, I have a 3,000 word feature article.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not fun. It’s stressful and frustrating and painful. But I get there. I guess it’s like any learning process: first you don’t know what you don’t know; then you know what you don’t know; next you don’t know what you know; and finally, you know what you know.

Writing, for me, is exactly that. I just have to trust the process. It can be a tough road but it gets me to my destination.

I found an interesting article online today. Actually, it was on someone’s Twitter posts. It was about the status of books and book publishing. It was called “Books Are Doing Surprisingly Well” by Eli Rosenberg.

What was surprising about the article was that it showed that readership of printed books had risen every year since the tallies had been kept. More authors published more books than any previous year. More publishing houses had printed these books than before. Nothing short of every possible statistic showed an increase, surprisingly this included library card holders – up to 68%, and literacy at a staggering 98% of Americans.

For a guy like me who makes his living off of writing, this is encouraging on numerous levels. First, it shows there is still that traditional market for traditional books. Second, more authors are publishing more books with more publishing houses. That means my dream of holding a hard bound, dust jacket covered copy of MY book can still be a reality.

The ironic thing about the article was that while I was thinking that this increase in books and publishers is answer sign of the economy turning around, the sole comment when I read the article said, “I guess people prefer to stay at home with a good book when times are dire….”

I just purchased three new domain names for my fiction projects. They are:

www.joesputnikpi.com – blog fiction
www.thecityofblackgold.com – a thriller set against the backdrop of the international upstream oil & gas industry
www.thekingsgambit.com – a thriller about clean water set primarily against the backdrop of devastating floods in China

I’ll be developing these sites over the next few months and linking them to this blog. If you’re interested in checking out my fiction, be sure to tune into these sites and follow the story development of each.