Novel Writing Background

So, a few years ago (actually more than a few) I had the realization that I'd been writing stories, mostly short stories, for as long as I could remember but never let anyone read them. I studied biology and chemistry in college, and took the one required English literature class.  After I had graduated, I decided that I wanted to take a formal creative writing class to learn or brush up on the mechanics of writing fiction, so I took a nighttime fiction writing class at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, my alma mater. I got some glowing praise from Wendy Brenner, who was the course instructor. Amazingly, she still teaches at UNCW some 20 years later!

Anyway, I came up with an idea for a full-length novel back in the early 2000's, and I started writing it during National Novel Writing Month in November of 2001, for which I 'won', by writing at least 50,000 words that month.  After NaNoWrimo, I worked, through Writer's Digest, with two published authors -  John deChancie, as well as the late Ardath Mayhar, and on editing the manuscript.

Eventually, I completed the roughly 90,000 word manuscript, and due to a couple of job changes, as well as the birth of my first child, it sat on the shelf for a couple of years collecting dust. I picked it back up sometime in the late 2000's and started looking for either a publisher, or an agent to help me find one. I didn't make much progress on that search. I had a few close friends read the manuscript and offer advice on corrections and changes, and in 2011, did a full rewrite during NaNoWriMo. The completed novel then sat on the shelf while I started the publisher/agent search again.

This time, however, I pushed hard on contacting a number of publishers and agents in the science fiction genre, and found that as a rule, the publishers wouldn't work with an agentless author, so I focused my efforts on getting an agent, while starting on story outlines for additional stories. More on that in a minute.

I had several good contacts with agents, but at the time, vampire literature was all the rage.  Think Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire) and the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer.  All of the agents decided to pass on representing me and my new novel which was originally titled 'Dark Star', but had been rechristened 'Osiris'.

While the letters were flowing back and forth between me and the various agencies, I fleshed out story outlines for at least three more books in the series, which I dubbed 'The Avalon Series'. I started working on the second book in the series, 'Avalon' for NaNoWriMo 2012, and won with it, having written just over 68,000 words during the month of November.  I spent the next year in my agent search, and for NaNoWriMo 2013, wrote nearly 70,000 words on a combination of 'Avalon' and an as-of-yet unnamed third book in the series.  That's when I hit a brick wall.  From 2013 to 2018, I did no writing at all. I thought about it occasionally, but was focused on other things. In my next post, I'll discuss what happened this year that gave me the push to make Osiris happen.