Category Archives: Chris Orcutt Books

12/12/12

Two Ideas to Get You Through (The 1st Draft)

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know that I began writing the third installment in the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series last Monday, and that I’ve written about 18,000 words so far.

What you don’t know, because I haven’t spoken about it at all, is what a bitch this first draft has been.

The tension of not knowing exactly where the story is going is killing me.

It’s been a while, you see, since I had to write a Dakota novel from scratch. The last time I sat down and started a first draft was seven years ago.

Seven years.

Obviously, I’ve written first drafts of other work since then—stories, essays and speeches mostly—but nothing compares to the intricacy of a novel.

Which is why I’ve recently taken great solace in two quotes on writing by two masters: E.L. Doctorow and Bernard Malamud.

Doctorow compared writing—particularly writing a novel—to driving at night through fog. “You can only see as far as your headlights,”  he said, “but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Whenever I’ve found myself getting frustrated with not being able to see the story more than a chapter or so ahead, I’ve thought of Doctorow’s quote: “You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

The second quote, by Bernard Malamud, was directed to writers in general: “Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.”

This is especially apropos to the writing of a first draft—the very definition of uncertainty.

Learning to be comfortable with uncertainty is imperative for a writer. Uncertainty about where the story is going. Uncertainty about how it will be received. Uncertainty about finances. Uncertainty of all kinds.

These two ideas—uncertainty, and seeing as far as your headlights—are getting me through the first draft, and they’ll get you through, too.

—Chris

 

11/28/12

Dakota Novels Get 5 Stars from IndieReader

IndieReader, the popular and informative web-zine about self-published books, reviewed A Real Piece of Work back in February and gave the novel 5 stars.

So when I published The Rich Are Different over the summer, I submitted the novel to them for a possible review. They were swamped at the time, but I followed up with them last week, and today, less than a week later, they published a review of the second book.

Another 5-star review.

Read the review of A Real Piece of Work.

Read the review of The Rich Are Different.

The reviewer of both books, Maya Fleischmann, creates some nice turns of phrase in her reviews. She writes, “Action, lust, danger, style and witty repartee, Orcutt’s A Real Piece of Work is a work of art.” And of The Rich Are Different she writes, “Dakota Stevens is thoroughly likeable and appealing with his rich mix of chivalry and clever mischief.” There are several other examples, but I’ll let you read them for yourself.

Besides promoting the reviews, there is no larger point of this blog entry, except perhaps to acknowledge that like all writers, I want my work to be liked and accepted. Certainly reviews from regular readers mean just as much to me as IndieReader’s, but there is something especially nice about having a professional stamp of approval. They even sent me a “sticker,” shown here.

Thank you for putting up with this rambling, gloating entry. Sometimes, though, you have to stop and savor the small successes, and this is one of them.

 

11/26/12

Dakota Stevens #3: Starting from Scratch

While writing the first two books in the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series—A Real Piece of Work and The Rich Are Different—I kept notebooks of other plot ideas, titles, scenes, characters and anything else that occurred to me for future installments.

As a result of these notebooks, I had begun two more Dakota novels and created outlines for 3–4 others.

However, when I opened these notebooks recently with the intent of continuing one of the stories I’d started, I didn’t like what I found.

I’d written this material (including the first hundred pages of a Dakota & Svetlana prequel) between 5 and 7 years ago, and I’d matured as a writer since then.

I no longer liked the direction I’d sketched out for the character and the series.

A realization soon followed that made me sick to my stomach:

I needed to dump all of that work and start over.

When you’ve created a series character, starting from scratch is a scary thought. For the first time since I invented Dakota & Svetlana, I won’t have drafts of work to build on. I’ll be facing a blank Page One and all of the paralyzing dread that accompanies it.

But I’m doing it. I’m starting from scratch, mainly because a novel is a hell of a lot of work, and you have to start with a story, a vision, that you really want to tell. It’s the only thing that carries you through.

Ultimately, the task before me now is to figure out what excites me about Dakota & Svetlana, and to ask myself, “What is the Dakota story I would most like to read?”

I know that’s the question I need to be asking because it’s the same one I asked myself before writing the first two novels, and I’m pleased with the results.

Allegedly, J.R.R. Tolkien was partly inspired to write his Lord of the Rings series for this very reason. He thought about the books that he would most like to read, realized they didn’t exist yet, and set out to write them.

He wrote the books he most wanted to read. This is a great lesson for all of us writers.

Over the coming months, I’ll be writing the first draft of Dakota 3. I have no idea what kind of story it will be or where it will take me; all I know is, I want it to be a fresh take on my vision for the series, and I want it to be as well written as I can possibly make it. We’ll see if I can pull it off.

Wish me luck, Dear Reader. I’m going to need it.

 

11/20/12

Thanks for the Incredible Year

A little more than a year ago, I published A Real Piece of Work for the Kindle, not for a second anticipating the terrific success the book would have.

In fact, when I published it, my only hope was to sell 1,000 copies, at which time I would release the second novel, The Rich Are Different. I thought it would take a year to sell that many copies. Instead, it took three months.

This has been an incredible year for me, and it’s all been because of you readers. As my way of saying thanks (this is Thanksgiving week, after all), I am making A Real Piece of Work available for FREE for one day only—on Tuesday, November 20. Tell all of your friends.

So, how has this been an incredible year for me?

Well, first, I sold thousands of copies of A Real Piece of Work, not just the 1,000 I hoped for. Thank you for spreading the word about the book and for continuing to publicize it.

The excellent sales made it possible for my wife and me to fulfill a dream I’ve had for over 20 years: to go to Paris. I wrote about the two-week trip at length here.

The reviews of both books have been stellar, with A Real Piece of Work having just reached one hundred 5-star reviews. Besides the praising reviews by you, Dear Reader, there have been raving professional reviews, including ones by IndieReader and The Kindle Book Review. I want to give a special thanks to the two reviewers, Maya Fleischmann and Rachel Abbott: your kind and generous reviews of the novel really helped. Thank you.

There has also been some publicity about me and my work, including newspaper articles and a lengthy interview. Not to mention some fun film footage about my predilection for typewriters by my best friend, documentarian Jason Scott.

It’s been an incredible year all around, and I’m hoping that sales of both novels will be strong through the holidays. If you know anyone traveling who might want a good read, consider suggesting A Real Piece of Work or The Rich Are Different. Great for plane and train trips, and for people stuck away from home.  ;)

I sincerely wish you and yours an enjoyable Thanksgiving and a joyous holiday season.

—Chris Orcutt