How to Write a Book*

When I was a kid, I spent a good amount of summer evenings perched on a handy crook of a branch high up in what I called my Writing Tree. In my memory, that tree is at least forty feet high, but I bet if I went and visited it now I'd find that it's only ten feet or so. Whatever the truth really was, I felt like I was on top of the world as I'd sit up there and write stories until the shadows got steep enough to send me home. 

I remember a couple of those stories, but most are gone now. There was one about two friends who get transported into a pinball game and have to find their way back to the real world while dodging balls and flippers, and there was an epic fantasy about a boy who discovers he's the Chosen One in a magical kingdom. I'm sure the rest were similarly brilliant.

I kept writing through high school and college, but by then I had decided I wanted to be a theatre artist, so that's where I focused my time and energy. And I did pretty well at it - I was the Artistic Director of Eclipse Theatre Company in Chicago for ten years, got some great reviews and a couple of awards - but I never figured out how to make a living doing it. 

And then I got married and had kids, and it got harder to justify spending so much time making so little money. I was also teaching part-time, and part-time stay-at-home dad. Theatre started to drift away. 

And then there was a global pandemic. You know what that was like.

Once my son started preschool, I found myself a part-time stay-at-home guy with no kids to take care of and an artistic itch that I didn't know how to scratch. I thought about trying my hand at commercial acting or voice-over work, or maybe going back to try to recapture that feeling I had at the top of the Writing Tree.

When I started writing THE FIRST KID ON MARS, I had no idea I was writing THE FIRST KID ON MARS. All I knew was that I suddenly had some free time, and wanted to try writing something. I made up an opening line and used it as a prompt:

Tomorrow is going to be different, she thought to herself.

That was it. I had no idea who she was or what happened today. But I started writing, and discovered after a couple of pages that what happened today was that Abby had accidentally stolen Zamara's very old and important copy of Winnie-the-Pooh at school (because she thought that Zamara had stolen hers; neither of them knew the other had brought the same book for Show and Tell). I also discovered that tomorrow would indeed be different - Abby would start her journey of moving to Mars, and those books would play an essential role in her story.

I think I'm what the writing community calls a pantser. But then I started planning. 

By the time I finished chapter three, I had mapped out a plan for a ten-book story. My desk suddenly looked like this:

Major plot points. Twists. Character bios. Names of Martian cities (I won't use those until book three or four). A history of civilization on Mars that goes back literally millions of years. A history of Earth politics and science that stretches forward decades into the future. Research on space elevators, rockets, and what happens when you cry in zero gravity (hint - it's beautiful).  

The plan still gives me some room for flying by the seat of my pants, but I do know the important things that need to happen across the ten books. So maybe I'm a plantser? 

Spellcheck sure doesn't like that, but I kind of do. 

I've finished a pretty solid draft of THE FIRST KID ON MARS now, and I'm trying to figure out the best next steps to share it with the world. I'm also a little bit in disbelief that I actually wrote a book. That kid sitting in his tree with his notebook and pencils would be awfully proud of me. 

*results may vary