A Wild First Week as a Writer

Is it Friday? Really? The entire week has felt like one Friday after the other. My first week as an author is drawing to a close, and it has been amazing. I’m sleeping in until 6:00, getting a full night of rest, relaxing (a little) in the evenings, and writing during the day. I may only be able to afford to do this for a year or so, but I’m going to enjoy every last second of it. I feel like I’m able to balance my passion with the rest of my life. It feels nice.

This has still been a packed week. It started with a talk at my hometown library on Sunday, which was a killer way of kicking off my career. On Wednesday, I spent an hour on the phone with three people from BBC Worldwide Productions, who want to turn WOOL into a TV series. Later that night, while I was sleeping, an agent whose name I recognized immediately emailed me to say that someone in her office couldn’t stop raving about WOOL, so she read the first book and would love to talk representation. Get this: Neither of them have finished the series yet. Their heads are gonna explode when they do! (Also: I’m Skyping with this agent this afternoon. Be interesting to hear what she has in mind on the literary side for the series).

But what about the writing, you ask? What have I been working on? Well, a few things. Despite the fact that WOOL 5 just came out a little over a week ago (two weeks early), and the herculean task of assembling the Omnibus Edition both for print and Kindle, I went right back to the keyboard and started the next adventures.

Allow me to warn you about them. One of these projects may never see the light of day; it’s simply too revolting. More on that at a later date. What you are probably dying to hear about is the next WOOL series. Guess what? There won’t be one. I’m trying (I may break down later, but I’m trying) to retire the name. There will be more Silo Stories, and the further adventures of the cast of WOOL 5 will be eventually told, but first I’m going to slow it back down and take you to the beginning.

One of the things that worked great with WOOL was the gradual build-up of the action. It started short and slow, and then each sequel got a little longer while picking up the pace. It culminated in what I thought was a nice crescendo, a satisfying climax. The problem with starting off from there and zooming forward is the chance of reader exhaustion. This is why action films get worse over time. They skip all the good character relation stuff from the beginning of the first film and come out guns-blazing. See FIRST BLOOD (vs. RAMBO), the TERMINATOR series, ALIEN(S), and PREDATOR.

So, you who wait with bated breath, prepare to be bored out of your minds with the next Silo Story.

But in a good way.

It’ll work in the end, I promise.