Flashback: Who I am and How I Came To Be

Russel D McLean is away for the next week. A blog post tying into the Million for a Morgue/Shortbread competition will appear here next Friday. In the meantime, here's a piece that originally appeared at Elizabeth A White's blog on the origins of Russel's need to write:

What made me a writer?

Because, seriously folks, you have to have your brain examined if you want to try doing this for a living. It’s a tough life. Your work has no intrinsic value. This thing that you for a living rises and falls on people’s opinions and moods. Technical skill counts for little if you don’t engage readers on some emotional level.

On top of all of this you have to combat the idea that what you do is easy. Anyone, they say, can string words together in a logical order. But what you’re doing is much more than that. You are trying to give those words life. You are trying to evoke a reaction in the reader, a belief in the lies that you are telling them.

To do that takes a lot of work. Sometimes more than any other job would consider necessary. As much as I joke about how the writing life appealed because it was indoor work with no heavy lifting, it comes with its own worries, especially for the occasionally insecure.

But I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

I was one of those kids who lived in his head. At primary school, my teacher would ask us to write diaries every week about what we did over the weekend. I’d lie compulsively in these. Make up stories about animals that talked or high adventure in space ships like those I saw on the TV. When my school teacher came to see me at a recent event, she expressed surprise at what I wound up writing, but none whatsoever that I was making a living from my humble scribbles.

As I grew older, the stories became more complex. I have a jotter with a half finished attempt at a Doctor Who novel* and a lot of efforts at creating comic books** that chronicle my attempts to create more fleshed out and involved stories like those I was reading.

But it wasn’t until I was maybe ten or eleven that I started to realise that writing and creating stories was more than just fun and games, that the people who wrote the books I loved were getting paid for what they did.

You see my dad also wrote. Somewhere around that time he had his work was accepted by BBC Radio 4. On multiple occasions. That was when I realised that art could equal profession. You see, it was a revelation to me that he was paid for these stories. Actual money.

My ten year old brain started working. Even then, I didn’t like the idea of a job in the real world. I started to wonder if maybe he got paid a small amount for a few stories, maybe I could make a larger amount by selling a lot of them.

But where do you begin?

It was a couple years later when I started reading dad’s copies of WRITER’S DIGEST. The magazine changed a lot down the years but back then the advice in its pages was golden. J Michael Stracynski’s screenwriting column (he was chronicling the development of a show he’d created called “Babylon 5” – whatever happened to that show?) was invaluable to me, full of genuinely practical advice about structure and story that I think could apply equally to any storytelling format. In fact I still apply a variation of the five act TV outline to most things that I write. This often doesn’t happen until redrafts, but I find it helps to search for and identify the story’s natural breaks and rhythms to create a stronger second draft.

Nancy Kress’s fiction column taught me a lot about novel writing and prose techniques that I still use to this day.

Reading the magazine – occasionally before my dad (I’d often be home from school before he came in from work and could grab the post) – I started to work on honing my craft. I entered the WD competition yearly – never getting anywhere – and watched the careers of the columnists grow. When Babylon 5 made it to air, I felt a kind of privilege to know what had gone into the writing and creation of a show I came to love.

My first professional submission, as I have already mentioned, was to Virgin Publishing’s range of Doctor Who Tie-In novels. I chose the wrong moment to submit as the minute my manuscript crossed the transom they lost the rights to publish any more Who books. But they sent me back a beautiful rejection that I still have. One that encouraged me while making sure my head didn’t swell, assuring me that I still had a lot of work to do but maybe there was something there.

That, I suppose, was when I became hooked. That was the point of no turning back.

It would take another ten or eleven years, a lot of rejections and a lot of painful mistakes before I’d finally see print. It would take a long time to make that fateful switch in genres that would help me finally discover my voice and uncover the kind of stories that really got my blood flowing. But that letter from the kind folks at Virgin marked the point where I resolved to become what I am today.

A writer.

And one who loves what he gets to do for a living.

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

by: Joelle Charbonneau

Okay. I admit that I hate when people ask me that question. Not because I don’t have an answer – I do, but I always feel like it’s the wrong answer. So many writers I know answer that question not only with a YES but with stories of writing their own books at the age of six or eight or ten. I love listening to those authors talk about their lifelong love affair with writing and their longtime desire to reach readers with their words. When they are done I always feel a bit ashamed that my answer to the same question is no.

No. I didn’t always want to be a writer. While I have had loved reading from the time I learned to do it on my own, I admit that while growing up it was never my dream to be an author. Reading other people’s stories or bringing other people’s words alive on the stage was what I was good at. It was what I did. In fact, when I started typing my first book it wasn’t because I had a burning passion for writing the next great American novel. I simply had an idea for the beginning of a story and was curious to see where the story would take me. It wasn’t until I finished that manuscript that I really started wondering if I could learn the skills necessary to make the words I wrote good enough for publication.

Funny, but while I’ve had one book published, another coming out this year and more on the way, my reasons for writing haven’t changed. I mean, sure, I’d like to make money at this adventure. If for no other reason than to justify all the time I spend in front of my computer putting words on the screen. But my core reason for writing remains the same. I have an idea that intrigues me. I write to see where that idea goes.

Do I hope that someone some day might want to read the story? Sure. But that isn’t the reason I write. I write because I want to know how the story unfolds. I want to see how the story ends. It’s about me. My curiosity. My interest in the characters and the troubles they face. I don’t wonder about the readers who might open the book or the publishers who might be interested in giving me a contract on the book until I hit THE END. Because until that point – it is my story. Written just for me.

So maybe I haven’t always wanted to be a writer. Maybe I never dreamed I could finish writing book let alone ten manuscripts. And maybe some days I feel guilty that I have adopted the dream that so many others came to early in life and have yet to find success with. One thing is certain – no matter if I never get another publishing contract and if no one else beyond my household reads another word that I write – I will continue to write. Because I want to know how the story goes. It’s as simple as that.

So I guess I want to hear your writing story. Why do you write? What makes you sit down and face a blank screen day after day hoping the words come in order to fill it?