Editing—Yikes, this is harder than it sounds

From beginning to end, I think I wrote my first draft of my first novel in about six months. This was while I work a full-time job and have two kids who need time and attention as well. My wife works even more than I do, so I’m generally in charge of laundry, cleaning and shopping and a good chunk of the cooking.

I’m not trying to be boastful about writing quickly. Part of the reason it went fairly quickly is that I literally type fast. I’m not kidding—I almost type faster than I think. Including law school, I went to roughly 20 years of formal education. My typing class in 9^th grade has been, unquestionably, the most important class I ever took. I understand it’s not required in many states, which I find baffling in our modern society. The writing and the typing went fast, but not the editing.

The editing went on for probably another 12-16months. I showed it to my wife first. I honestly don’t think she wanted to be critical. I think she just wanted to be supportive and say what she liked and also mentioned a few things that needed to be developed. I made some revisions and then I showed it to a co-worker; Matt. It’s a daunting feeling when you hand your first novel to somebody and ask them what they think. I wonder how many people have written a novel and never shown it to anyone. I’m sure it’s a substantial number. It represents time, effort and on many levels a lot of pieces of you.

Of course, a writer thinks their work is great, but you don’t really know. Matt took it home and read it carefully and then gave me some really useful insight and was much less concerned about simply being supportive. In other words, he offered some compliments but mostly said how so much of it was off. Not focused…meandering. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but it was all sincere and he had thought it through. He spent real time evaluating it. I’m not sure I ever would have finished without his thoughts. I again revised the text and it started to come into focus.

I had a couple other co-workers who read the next version; Deb gave nice comments but was upset with one character’s decision in the book. Really upset. I saw her point, but I was happy that she got so passionate about any of the characters. Samuel also read it. He gave me my first real review, 3 out of 5 stars. To be fair, he claims to read a lot and feels that almost no books deserve 5 stars. 4 is typically his best. I’m not sure where he shares all this book reviewing, but I could live with 3 stars for a first effort. He also told me about the fact that there are professional book editors who can be hired. I knew that people edited books, but I assumed it was only publishing houses that employed them. I had no idea they were available for a self-published book, which I assumed my book would be.

I got in touch with one of these editors that Samuel knew; Elena Fultz. We met and she asked me a really insightful question; “What do you want to do with this book?” I had started formulating my approach for the future of the book—I was going to use it solely as a fundraiser, benefiting the non-profit I work for; HOME Line. My goal was to sell as many copies as possible. I had no interest in writing the “Great American Novel,” whatever that is. I personally don’t read classic literature with my spare time. I didn’t want to write a ‘classic.’ I wanted to write something entertaining and contemporary; something that was fiction, but realistic enough to be possible.

With that, I sent Elena my latest draft.  She replied within a month with what she termed a “creative edit.” She wasn’t looking to solve punctuation or tenses. It was a big picture analysis. This led to several rounds of editing together and she helped me find a lot of the footing I was looking for throughout the book. I take full credit for all of the ideas in the book, but Elena was critical in making the book more … digestible.

Last, my sister, Michelle, also had a go at the book. She is a teacher in North Carolina and has a keen eye for grammar. Apparently, I’m not the most accurate wielder of the comma. She helped make sure the book looked like it does.

I’ve gotten some early comments from people since the book was released a week ago. One of the early commenters wrote my a nice note mentioning how much she appreciated the editing. Apparently, there’s a lot of work out there that is unedited. I have no doubt that there may be a spelling error or two and perhaps some grammatical issues–but it wasn’t for lack of looking!

Many people have asked me why I wrote a book. I never studied “How to Write a Book.” Most of my life, it never occurred to me to write a book. At most, I was fond of thinking of titles for things (Terminal Degree—how great does that sound for a novel?)

But, on occasion, I would find myself on long drives. As part of my work, I’ve given speeches all around the Minnesota and spent hundreds of hours going to and from these places. On one of these trips, I wrote a country song (Waitin’ on Someday—again, the title’s better than the song) even though I can’t play any instrument beyond a French Horn. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a French Horn in a country song, and my eight year old son is quick to point out about me, “You think too much of your singing.”

In April, 2013, however, I found myself on one of these drives to a small, very northern Minnesota town; Fosston. My aunt was celebrating her 80^th birthday and I was on the road for hours of steady drizzle/gray driving. After listening to music and whatever talk radio I could find, I heard a news report about the latest lottery. The Powerball was at some absurd amount, well above five hundred million dollars. My father has been a rabid lottery player since the inception of the Powerball. He gave up smoking shortly after the Powerball was introduced and figured that he was entitled to spend all of his previous ‘smoking’ money on the lottery.

He’s never won much, but always took it seriously. He’d buy his ‘numbers’ in advance when he’d be out of a Powerball-eligible state. But most impressively, he seemed to have a plan in mind if he won the lottery. It wasn’t one of those, “I’m going to buy twenty Cadillacs like Elvis and move to Hawaii” plans. Instead, he wanted a practical, step-by-step plan for how to proceed once he won. He tried to think it all through—accountants, lawyers, everything.

So, in my highway induced daze, I started fantasizing about my father winning the lottery. I’m a lawyer, so I thought there was a decent chance he’d want to celebrate and tell me (and maybe buy me a new car?) But he might want to talk to me not only as his son, but as a lawyer. So I started thinking about an imaginary conversation with a lawyer who advises clients who just won the lottery.

I turned the radio off. I had discovered my mental caffeine that would keep me awake for the rest of the drive. So there I was, tooling along on a rural Minnesota highway, talking out loud to myself playing out both the part of the lottery winner with questions and the lawyer who would advise them.

By the time I got home the next night, I had the beginning of an idea for a story.

Within three weeks, I had written roughly 30,000 words. I’d type late at night. I’d type early in the morning. Whenever I could squeeze in any time at all. I never really thought about writing a book, I was just entertaining myself with this tale about how a lottery winner would try to deal with life after winning. It sounds glamorous. Like a fantasy really. But, there are downsides. Family turning on you if you don’t share. Charities demanding as much as they can. It isn’t hard to envision some of the potential darkness. But still, how much of a story can there be with a recent lottery winner trying to cope with life? Is that really enough of a conflict? I liked this element of the story, but it wasn’t enough to compose an entire novel. And then, one day while waiting for an early evening meeting in St. Paul, it happened. I met Heléna Midas, and that changed everything.