Who here's gotten into writing fiction? Screenplay, novel? How far did you get?

Curious the answers I'll get here. As for me, I will eventually complete one of my screenplay or book ideas ... and I've been telling myself that for years ...

 

According to some of my readers, I'm a great fiction writer.

 

Three novels - all published in the previous decade. The first one came out when I was 29 (and had started writing it at 27). Goodness, what a fun stretch that was. Never forget the day I saw the hardcover at an actual bookstore.

Good-sized publisher, regional book tour (even got to appear on the sports radio talk show that I grew up listening to), lots of print and radio attention... and not a lot of sales. A triumphant book signing in my hometown where my high school English teachers showed up and bought stacks of them.

The publisher, five years later, gave me any remaining copies for free. Hundreds still fill my garage

Fiction is a bear for a first-time/non-celebrity author. Especially niche fiction, as mine was sports.

For the second and third novels, I formed my own LLC to sell them. I found the library market to be quite receptive and I sold the small print runs of 2,000 a piece through emailing libraries and having a website -- keeping about 30 copies of each for my purposes. The math was pretty simple: $15 book - printing cost was about $4.50, I paid a copy editor a flat fee for each book, graphic designer brother did the cover, PayPal took about 80 cents. Each book cleared about $4 profit. What I called my "break even hobby".

My third novel was my best work as it touched on deep issues within my own childhood. I have a fourth novel that has been in draft mode since 2009 (think Kurt Warner meets Fred Steinmark). I just don't have the desire to plunge back into it -- rewriting it nine times as I did with my first three works.

However, while the books didn't make a lot of money, they opened a lot of doors, career-wise. With three published novels to my credit, I can call myself a "writer" when looking at news jobs as most of the younger colleagues still have subject/verb/predicate issues.

I'm extremely proud of those works that came out when I was between 29 and 34. I was at a different stage of life then (more professionally cynical, less personally cynical) and that "voice" is far different than my current voice.

 

While taking a class in screenwriting, one of the instructors noted my journo background and asked me to advise on his in-progress documentary about a D1 college football program. I crewed on a shoot as assistant director, and now we're writing, editing and raising money, and applying to festivals to find a distributor.

 

I've had five short stories published in the last year and a half and have a novel under consideration with a publisher. I had long planned to go to grad school for creative writing, but never did. Still, I've read just about every fiction-writing book out there, took some online workshops with Writer's Digest, and now feel like I've hit my stride at age 43. I have a lot wider range of life to reference, in addition to locations, jobs, relationships. I really feel as if I've finally developed my voice, and what's great about fiction is that I don't have to adapt that voice to suit an editor or the tenor of a publication, which is what happens a lot when I've written for websites or magazines. If you don't like what I've written, fine, I'll try to place it elsewhere.

It's a side gig, but I do write almost every day, usually about 500 words.

If this novel I have out gets accepted, I think it'd be the proudest freaking moment of my life next to the birth of my daughter. Of course I'm prepping for rejection, because rejection is the name of the game. Kevin Wilson ("The Family Fang") has a great essay in the current issue of Poets and Writers about the necessity of failure. It's not online yet, but I'd highly recommend stopping by a newsstand and reading it.

EDIT: I also commute on a train for three hours a day, and that provides me with the opp to write and read a lot. Otherwise I wake up at like 5 am and get in an hour or so before I have to wake up my daughter. In short, the best time to get any fiction writing done, for me anyway, is when you're not expected to be paying attention to the people in your life.

 

162 pages into my first novel. My creative writing background is in theatre and I've had some plays get up and walk. Last year I sacked up and made it through the first few hoops of ATL 10:00. I'll know in June if another one slips through.

 

I always found the most enjoyable part of writing novels was, after writing 150-200 pages, when the characteristics of each major character/plotline would lead me to changing to plot to better fit each person. Almost like a discovery within the process.

Never had a novel end close to where I, originally, had the story board ending.

One book was on college basketball and I wrote it in "real time", starting in October and ending in April. I'd watch college basketball games late at night while I would write on a laptop to cultivate the ambience. Damn, that was fun.

 

I tried writing fiction in high school/college, was miserable at it and gave up on the idea. I always marvel at those who can do it.

Every once in awhile I'll hear a radio interview with some novelist who says he or she created a character and that somehow the character took the story in an entirely different direction from the one the writer had planned, or he or she started without a clear idea where the story was headed and let the characters/story lead them to a conclusion. That just mystifies me -- those concepts seem completely alien to me. I can't even begin to imagine how that's possible.

 

Published my first novel at 13.
Went on a whirlwind signing tour across the globe, won a Pulitzer and some other awards I can't remember, got offered millions for novel No. 2.
Turned down the money to play Madden '07.
Discovered women at 15, booze at 16 and weed at 18.
Went into the highly lucrative world of sports journalism and have been enjoying the huge paychecks, weekends and evenings off and public admiration since. Looking forward to what my career in newspapers will bring.
Perhaps I'll cash out at 45.

 

I wrote a fictional screenplay that my agent said was so bad I should never show it to anybody. I'm currently working on TV and film projects that are both fact-based, sold, and going well. I think you can write in different forms—as in, if you understand narrative, you understand narrative, and you just have to learn how to write for the screen, for the page, whatever. But while I know there are certain writers who can write both fiction and non-fiction (JR Moehringer comes to mind), I think that's the harder switch, and I have come to accept that I can only write non-fiction. I can tell a story but first I need someone else's facts.

 

I don't have any TV or film projects going, but I have the same take -- give me the facts and I'll tell the story. Just don't make me come up with a story out of thin air.

 

Had you folks been working in a newsroom at the same time you were putting together these stories? How'd you balance the time?