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When people first found out I was publishing a book, I got many congratulations, and a fair amount of people who said they either could never write a book or didn’t even know where to begin.  This week’s blog is meant to go over how I write. Who knows? Maybe when they see how I do it, they’ll think to themselves “That looks pretty easy. I think I can do that too.” I hope so. I love reading new ideas.

When I write, I go very slow. I’m sure you’ve picked that up already after reading my extensive outlining process. It doesn’t end there though. When I finally sit down to actually write my story idea, on the first day, I only write one page.

I do this because this is one of the hardest steps of the writing process. Actually starting it. For that reason, I give it the respect it deserves, and devote all of my writing efforts for that day to fulfilling this one task.

Given the amount of outlining that I’ve done prior to sitting down to write page one, it may seem like this is actually an easy task when you get right down to it. It’s not. It still proves to be a challenge every time. I may have had this idea kicking around in my head for a while before I started to map out how I want the story to take shape, and I may have already spent at least two months outlining what I want in the story, how I want it structured (and I could keep going on and on), but this is the first time I’m seeing the words put down on a blank canvass. This is the first time I’m actually composing the words, and reading the story myself, and seeing how it makes me feel.

On the latest story I’ve written, even with an outline to rely on, it took me almost an hour just to write one page.

From there, it’s about building on my initial success. The next day, I’ll challenge myself to write two pages. I’ve already accomplished one of the toughest tasks in the process: beginning. Now it’s about proving to myself that I can guide the story where it needs to go. These pages still take some time to write, but not as long as it takes to write that opening page. The following day I push myself write three. And after that four.

Can you guess how many pages I strive for after that?

If you guessed five…

…you’d be wrong.

After writing ten pages in four days, I feel I’ve proven to myself that I can meet my writing goals for my next story. I’ve already started, and increased my writing quotas for four consecutive days. By this point, the story is also well under way, I’ve found that I can guide the story where I’ve wanted it to go, and I’ve settled on a style and structure for the book. Now it’s all about maintaining this routine.

So on that fifth day, I go back to writing just a single page. I’ve just pushed myself four days in a row, and spent between two to three hours on the fourth day fitting in writing with the rest of my responsibilities for the day. It’s a nice little reward, allowing myself a bit of a break, only having to write for around a half hour that day. After all, it’s not about writing the book as fast as possible, but writing it as best as I can.

But that fifth day doesn’t just act as a break. It acts as the start of the process all over again, because the next day I write two pages, the day after three…

I start getting into a rhythm with my writing. I’ve developed a four day routine so I can fit in my goals with whatever else is also going on in my life. If I miss my goal one day, that’s fine. I’ve got a new challenge to tackle the next day. And the more I keep it up, the more my daily wins overwhelm any minor setbacks.

So, if you’re an aspiring writer, after reading how I tackle my writing, what do you think? Are you ready to take that scary first step towards writing a book yourself?

“Open your mouth and say ‘Ahh,’” Dr. Addams instructed.

The boy with the chipmunk cheeks obeyed after another coughing fit. He’d never seen the boy this glum before, even when he’d been peppered with chicken pox last year.

“Wait, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I meant to say, stick out your tongue the way you would when your teacher’s not looking, then say ‘Ahh.’”

The boy with the chipmunk cheeks tried to focus on sticking out his tongue without smiling.

“Or maybe when a girl you like passes by but doesn’t smile at you.”

That did the trick.

“Andrew, do you have a girlfriend?” his mother teased as she saddled up beside the boy with the chipmunk cheeks. She was noticeably more relaxed than when she first came in. She had also noticeably added eyeliner and some blush for this visit[D1] .

“Mooooom,” Andrew groaned around the tongue depressor.

“Hold still for just a little longer,” Dr. Addams directed.

“Listen to Dr. Addams,” the mother ordered. “He’s going to make you feel all better again.”

She seemed to lean a bit closer to the doctor as she spoke, and Dr. Addams wafted the strong scent of vanilla. That was new as well. Lately she’d been sticking with a fresh coat of vibrant lipstick anytime she or her son had an appointment.

“I don’t think we’re looking at anything too bad,” Dr. Addams said, standing upright. “You can close your mouth now, Andy,” he told the boy with the chipmunk cheeks, before turning his attention to the mother. “Looks like nothing more than a sore throat. Some cough syrup for a few days should clear it right up.”

“Oh, thank god,” she exclaimed. Dr. Addams was pretty sure she knew it was nothing serious. If it had been, he doubted she would’ve taken the time to doll herself up before coming in.

“You excited that school’s almost out?” he turned back to the boy, who nodded. “You probably don’t want to start your summer vacation being sick.” The boy’s nodding grew more vigorous. “I think you’ll be able to enjoy the start of your freedom with all your friends.”

“Oh, I know Andy will love that,” the mother said, stroking her son’s hair. “I was so nervous about this cough. I was worried it might be contagious.”

Dr. Addams shook his head. “It’s better to be on the safe side, but I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about here,” he said as he removed his gloves.

“If you’re confident about it, then I’m confident too,” she said. “After all, you must encounter countless patients everyday. I’m sure you’re sometimes concerned about catching something and getting Mrs. Addams sick.

The emphasis on ‘Mrs.’ Caused his eyes to drop down to his bare fingers. He was sure she had already noticed they were unadorned with jewelry of any kind.

“I’m not married,” he said with a politely forced smile.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, although the sly grin that broke out on her face suggested she was anything but. “I just assumed you didn’t wear a band while you were seeing patients because it might tear the gloves or something.”

She laughed it off like it was an innocent misunderstanding. Some harmless blunder. Bu the resting of her hand on his bicep seemed nothing short of pre-meditated.

“Well, I can’t thank you enough for curing Andy again. We’ve been in here a lot this past year,” she went on.

Dr. Addams shrugged. “Think nothing of it. Some kids just have that one year where they catch everything under the sun. Andrew looks to have drawn the short straw.”

“Well, I know Andrew’s in good hands when he’s with you.” Her top teeth were stained from gnawing at her bottom lip. Judging by her eyes, she appeared to be working up her courage.

“Dr. Addams,” Nurse Raskin’s voice cut in from the doorway behind him. He waited to turn before breathing a sigh of relief.

“She’s back.”

---

The challenge of writing Dig Down was that the story had to hold up as part of two conflicting perspectives: one in which you empathized with the main character, and one in which you hated him. As a result, a lot of care went into how to write every scene, so that in an initial read through, you could still feel one way about Rob, but in all subsequent readings, you could interpret the same passage in a new way.

The conversations between Rob and Preston were the most challenging scenes to write under these rules. Unlike the chase scenes, I couldn’t rely on suspense to distract the reader from Rob’s true motives. This was a discussion that dove deep into Rob’s history and explained how Rob became ensnared in the predicament he found himself in.

Crafting the fractured relationship was the first step in disguising Rob’s true character. My hope was that the reader would be willing to side with Rob, whose point of view they were seeing the story through, if they could just be given a reason to. Rob’s upbringing would make Preston appear cold and unsympathetic. I was also banking on readers convincing themselves Rob had to do business with Axel because Preston was threatening to fire him, essentially destroying his career.

It wouldn’t be until late in the story that readers would start to have it confirmed over and over again that Preston was not the vicious disciplinarian Rob was making him out to be. Preston only hesitates to help Rob until he knows his son has a plan to escape. He offers to help him out by providing a briefcase. It isn’t until Preston catches him in a lie that Rob realizes he’s seeing Preston glaring at him with anger and disapproval for the first time. When these details come to light, the reader is forced to re-evaluate everything Rob has told them.

I also made sure to include little story beats that might not have seemed important at first, but were crucial to setting up the final showdown between father and son. Throughout the story, in both the scenes in the townhouse and during the chase, Rob gets called from a number identified as The Succubus. He receives one of these calls while talking to Preston, who asks if it’s his wife calling. Rob responds that it is, which is the truth. Who his wife is, and Rob’s relationship with her, are two surprises that I reveal in the later sequences of Dig Down, whose purpose once again is to change the perspective the reader has on Rob.

Lastly, I kept Rob a static character, who has no growth through the story. This was done so that he would appear and remain consistent in both timelines of Dig Down. By remaining unchanged, both before he enters Preston’s townhouse, and once he’s inside, I felt it would be easier for readers to come to terms with the fact that Rob doesn’t do what he did in Preston’s townhouse because he was backed into a corner. He did it because that’s who he is when you dig down and analyze his character. With this now undeniable perspective in mind, your attitude would then have to shift about everything he’s done in reaction to what’s happened to him, and you see him for who he’s always been, because he’s never changed.

The first thing Preston saw when he opened his eyes was the cab driving shaking him awake. Looking around, he realized he’d slept the entire way home.

He stood at the mouth of his driveway long after the taxi drove off, staring at his front door. The trek seemed an impossible gauntlet. Preston inhaled deeply, reminding himself that each step brought him that much closer to his bed. He was still exhausted after the week he’d put himself through.

There was no hero’s welcome for him when he trudged through the front door. His wife was washing dishes in the sink, sparing him no more than a glance over her shoulder. Preston expected the mood to be frosty for a while. He just prayed she didn’t start in on him. He didn’t have the energy for it.

“Where’s Robert?” he asked as he unburdened himself of his luggage. The first thing he needed to do was apologize to his son for missing his game. Again.

Oh, Robert. I don’t deserve your constant forgiveness.

“In his room getting ready for bed,” she said, not taking her eyes from her work. “There’s a plate for you in the fridge, if you didn’t stop to get dinner along the way.”

Preston recognized it as a peace offering. He felt unworthy of her tolerance as well. He’d laid out that these would be trying times while he and Pierce laid the foundation for their firm, but each of these trips emphasized that he’d either grossly misrepresented how tough the path would be, or grossly underestimated what it would take to forge his future.

“I came straight from the airport. I’ve been away long enough.”

She sniffled as she dropped the sponge in the sink, turned, and flung her arms around him. It stabbed his heart to see the tears in her eyes as she kissed him. He couldn’t keep doing this to them, but the firm was so close to providing an income they could live off of without the need for further expansion.

It had to be.

He was the one to break the embrace. “I’ve got to see Robert,” he stated. “The boy’s been without his father for too long.” When she nodded her understanding, his heart felt so weighted with grief he didn’t know if he would be strong enough to walk out the front door for another week.

“He didn’t have a good game,” she called to him as he headed toward Robert’s bedroom. “H was really depressed you weren’t there.” She raised her hands in surrender when he turned on her. “Not trying to fight. Just thought you’d want to know what you’re in for.”

Preston nodded and resumed his march to Robert’s bedroom. His son was listlessly pulling his PJ’s over his head.

“Hi, Robert,” he said softly from the doorway. He berated himself for wishing his son was excited to see him. He didn’t deserve his son’s enthusiasm.

“Hey, dad,” Robert said as he crawled into bed, not even looking at him.

Preston frowned as he walked over to tuck Robert in. “What’s wrong?”

“Ricky and TJ aren’t talking to me,” Robert said glumly, staring up at the ceiling instead of looking at him. “They’re saying it’s my fault we lost the game.”

Preston chastised himself for being happy Robert’s team had lost so he selfishly wouldn’t have to feel guilty for missing another game.

“They’ll get over it,” he assured him. “And even if they don’t…Robert, you’ll find there are more important things in life than being popular.”

“Like making money?” Preston winced. He didn’t think a child was capable of a barb like that. “Are you done leaving us? Soccer starts next month. Are you going to be at those games?”

His mouth hung open for the longest time before he admitted to himself he had to tell the truth. “I’ll see what I can do, Robert. These meetings went very well, but…now other companies have heard how good we are, and want us to come and meet with them.” He thought about tantalizing Robert with all the toys he’d be able to buy him, and nearly vomited over the fact that he’d contemplated bribing his son for his affection.

“But I promise,” he pressed on, “I’m going to try to make all the games I can.”

Preston was hoping for a reaction, but all Robert did was roll over on his stomach to face the wall, so he wouldn’t have to risk looking at his father anymore.

“That’s what you said last time.”

Breaking up Dig Down into alternating timelines was done to serve two purposes. The first was to regulate the pacing of the story, as it starts out with a conversation between Rob and Preston, and then becomes a lethal chase where Rob is pursued by vicious criminals and any wrong move would lead to his immediate death. The second purpose was to hide the nature of Rob’s true character.

While I primarily made the decision to structure Dig Down this way because of the pacing, I also had concerns about how readers would react if the deplorable things Rob did in Preston’s townhouse were the first things they experienced Rob doing. I had a real fear that readers would be so turned off by it they’d put the book down forever. Breaking up the story so that it alternated back and forth between the townhouse and the chase allowed readers to get to know Rob a little better before they realized who he truly was. At that point, the hope was that they’d be invested enough in the story to want to know what happens to him, albeit, their perspective of him and the outcome they hoped for may have shifted.

Writing it this way presented me with another challenge. Every scene now had to be written in a way that you were both cheering every time he made a narrow escape and groaning that he’d eluded his pursuers. The scenes had to be presented in such a way that if someone picked up the book again for a subsequent read through, the reader would be rewarded with tension that still proved engaging, even though they already knew the ending.

My expectation was that at the end of Dig Down, readers would no longer side with Rob, and I wanted to create an experience where if they reread the book, knowing what they now knew about him, that tension in the earlier chapters would still hold up. Hints about Rob’s character are spread throughout the story, I made sure that he doesn’t change as a character from beginning to end, which I believed would help readers maintain their disgust for him if they read the book again. When the audience reread Dig Down, they’d now cheer over things like The Shark holding Rob up at gunpoint, and then grumble “He was so close!” when Rob escape that, or maybe yell “He’s right over there!” when the cops were arresting The Shark.

In order to get this effect, I did my best to inundate the reader with a barrage of close calls. Rob is supposed to be running for his life from many people who all want him dead, so the danger is baked into the premise. By constantly throwing him into harm’s way, regardless of your perception of him, you’ll want to see what happens. Does he squirm free at the last second, of do the walls close in on him for good?

The chase wasn’t the only part of Dig Down I had to structure so that it would hold up to these two conflicting perspectives. Next week, I’ll review how the conversation between Rob and Preston had to be meticulously crafted.

“Again.”

Preston recited the firm’s past six and twelve month track record. He made sure to emphasize the higher growth rate they’d achieved in the most recent quarters.

“What’s the firm’s strategy?” Pierce fired at him.

Preston laid out the firm’s mission statement before diving in the details. Unless a CEO had run a company before, they avoided investing in startups, focusing on companies with proven track records.

“What can Franklin and Moore offer that we’re not already getting?” Pierce shot another question.

Preston explained that their commissions were priced competitively, offering cheaper rates than could be found anywhere else. He then reiterated that they had also outperformed those more expensive firms over the past year, even in this bear market.

Pierce shuffled through the notecards of their presentation. The disapproving frown never left his face.

“Again.”

Preston sighed as he began from the top for the fourth time. Pierce lobbed another brand new set of questions at him as he presented. Preston fielded them all, even though every word of the pitch had lost all meaning to him long ago.

As worn down as he was, he didn’t dare stumble once.

“Again.”

Exasperated, Preston glanced at the time. It was pushing one in the morning.

“Pierce, if we go at this any longer, it won’t matter that I’ve got the whole thing memorized. My head will be too fried to present.”

His partner turned to the clock, grumbling at it as though it had backstabbed him. “I suppose, “ he finally conceded. “You’ve got a great grasp on the number, and I think you’ll be able to field any concerns tomorrow.”

Preston’s head felt weighted as he rose to show his partner to the door. His head would only have the use of a pillow for a few hours. Pierce would be pounding on his door to make sure he was up bright and early, just like he’d done every day this week.

But this couldn’t wait.

“Pierce,” he said as his partner opened the door. Hard eyes met his own tired gaze. Preston decided to butter his partner up first. “We’re going to blow them away tomorrow. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Pierce said, before adopting the same bravado he’d spoken with at each of the week’s pitch meetings. “Definitely.”

“We’ve been closing deal after deal for months leading up to this meeting. And they’ve kept the light on. But this one, this presentation tomorrow, is what’s going to finally set the stage for us to expand.”

“I know,” Pierce said, and Preston detected a hint of joy at the feat. And dare he say, relief. Now was the time to ask.

“So I was thinking, after we knock their socks off, that I’d take some time—” his voice faltered at his partner’s immediate frown “—just a week—” he tried to keep his momentum going “—and spend some time with my boy. I’m…I’m missing so much of his life this past year already.”

For the first time, Pierce showed a sign of exhaustion, belching a deep sigh. “Preston, we’ve talked about this, and now—”

Pierce kept going, but his partner had already begun tuning him out. Whatever was said, it wasn’t going to be anything new. And Preston had heard the autobiography enough times already. Pierce recited it every time Preston gave the slightest indication that there was something else in life outside of Franklin and Moore.

It was the same song and dance. About being diagnosed with colon cancer two weeks after starting the company with Preston. About working on investment strategies while he sat in waiting rooms and during chemo treatments. About never once taking a sick day before the surgery. About never once asking Preston to pick up the slack.

Preston didn’t need to be subjected to the same guilt trip again.

“Once we close this deal, we can’t afford you to be out of the office for a week! We’ll need to hire more staff to handle the workload. And spend months training them. Then we’ll be able to take it easy. Just a little bit longer, Preston. We just need to navigate the company through the upcoming expansion. Then things will be different.”

Preston held his tongue until he’d closed the door behind Pierce before muttering, “That’s what you said last time.”