Writing Fantasy With a Full-Time Job
About two months ago I learned that my current job contract was ending earlier than planned. This came at a time when I still had two full drafts left to complete on The Records of Eleshar, Book 3, and forced me to consider exactly what writing fantasy with a full-time job truly means. Especially when my primary income is in jeopardy.
I Had to Make a Choice
Up until now, I hadn’t had to worry about that. Before The Records of Eleshar, my writing didn’t come with deadlines and promises. I could drop whatever project I was working on and take care of whatever I needed to, then come back when I was ready.
It’s a completely different animal now. There’s money invested in my books now: advertising leading up to book 3’s release and the ever-increasing total that’s been spent on the series’ production. There’s also a small but avid fan base that I have to be there for, especially after all that time I spent trashing authors who don’t finish their series.
As this all became top of mind, I had to take a very serious look at what writing a long-running fantasy series looked like when life was messy. How do you keep to schedules when life becomes messy and bills need to be paid?
The hard truth of the matter was that, if push came to shove, book 3 would be put on hold. After all, mouths need to be fed and roofs need to stay over heads. But after the investments and the plans made, I didn’t want to do that.
So, I shuffled things around, and now the book is going to release on time!
I Had to Remind Myself Why I Write
It’s not universally known that most authors, whether indie or traditionally published, have a full-time job. We have to, because indie books are hard to sell, and even if the book you published through Penguin Random House is on shelves across the country, you’re not likely to make more than your five-hundred dollar advance.
Indie authors write mostly for the love of the game. We do that while holding tightly to the dream that one day, one book will explode and make us big. We do that in a world where the dream is all we have to motivate us, and sometimes that motivation isn’t enough.
The gurus may hate that I’m saying this, but the truth of the matter is that when you’re deep in the trenches of drafting a book, and your royalty estimates from your last one have sat at zero dollars for the last six months, motivation is near impossible to dredge up. It’s this reality that make all of us indie authors deal with the reality of writing fantasy with a full-time job.
Keeping a 9-Book Series on Track Through Major Life Changes
In times like those, I settle for consistency. I’ve decided that, more than anything else, I want to write my fantasy series. So when I’m alone at my computer at eleven P.M., when there’s no positive feedback, and I could think of a million other things I actually want to be doing, I remember that I chose this. I lean into that choice and I embrace the suck.
That’s what it means to write fantasy with a full-time job. You must be willing to sacrifice, to write when you don’t believe it’s going anywhere, and to ultimately know that when push comes to shove, you’ll set it aside when you have to.
Protect the Time
I made a lot of abstract points just then, but the core of what I was saying was you need to learn to protect the time you spend writing/publishing/marketing your books. Let’s put those into some concrete strategies.
Milestones and Time-boxing
You’ll get a lot of advice about what your goals need to be when you sit down and write. Stephen King famously said he tries to write two thousand words per day. That’s a great goal. Some people want to write for two hours per day, that’s also a great goal.
Those strategies will both work. In the first, you’re reaching for a daily milestone (two thousand words, or one chapter). That’s great because you can’t write eighty-thousand words in one sitting, so you have to take it in small bites. It also allows you to see regular progress from every session. These don’t have to be daily, either. You can set a chapter a day for three days a week, or segment it into whatever increments work for you.
In the second strategy, you’re doing something called time-boxing. This is a great way to carve out the time you need to write. If you’re a busy person, time-boxing is sometimes the only way you can justify taking the time to write. But, to make this work, you have to adhere to it. Once two hours is up, you’re done writing.
These strategies are the practical ways that I fit in writing fantasy with a full-time job.
How I Protect My Time
Personally, I try to write one chapter a day. I do that because I know for a fact that I’m making acceptable progress, and I can use that goal to create the milestones and deadlines the project manager in me needs.
For everything else, I time-box it. Once I’m off work, I take one hour to unwind, then it’s dinner and time with the family. Then at 7pm, I’m writing until I’ve finished a chapter.
I do this because I hate the idea of starting something that people have read and not finishing it. That has happened to me with too many series, and I refuse to be one of those authors. But I’m also going to do it because I choose to finish it. It’s a promise I made to myself, and I’m going to take it as seriously as if I made it to someone else.
How I Plan a Nine-Book Fantasy Series
One of the positives of being a project manager in my day job is all of that directly translates to writing a book. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with jargon, but let’s take a look at how I use those skills to write a long-running series.
Breaking Down Large Concepts
Projects are always a result of someone with a goal. In the case of a nine-book fantasy series, that goal is enormous. So, the only thing to do is break it down into smaller pieces.
At the series level, I had to figure out what the heroes of my story were fighting against, how they would struggle in that fight, and how that fight would end. I then used the Story Grid structure to break those up into three main categories: The beginning hook, the middle build, and the ending payoff.
No, that’s not why the series is nine books (I’d decided that long before I’d read anything about the Story Grid); it’s nine books because I wanted to make a trilogy of trilogies.
But I digress. For The Records of Eleshar, it was pretty easy to assign books to those sections (1-3, 4-6, and 7-9).
Breaking it Down Further
As I outlined each book, I then spent the time to define the story for that book further. I started high level, then broke things into smaller and smaller pieces. I did that until I had every chapter outlined. Basically, the closer I got to writing a chapter or a scene, the more detailed my planning became.
I’ve been doing that with The Records of Eleshar since it started. If I hadn’t, there might not even be one book published at this point.
The Evolution of a Long-Running Series
If you’ve read a lot of indie fiction, you know that some indie authors publish books too early. While I don’t think The Records of Eleshar, Book 1 was published too early, I do think it’s more raw than the books that follow.
For authors who are like me, you’ll find that our books get better as they go.
What Changed From Book 1?
I could list so many things that I’ve improved on since book 1, from overall plotting, to character development, to prose, to my control of grammar. I’d bore you with the complete list. What I would say is that, since book 1, I’ve been able to create smoother stories with deeper characters. I’ve also embedded many foreshadowing events that, if you’ve read the books, you both have and haven’t noticed.
What Lessons Did I Learn Over Multiple Books?
Other than just pure craft, the most important thing that I’ve started learning is how to get my books into the hands of more readers.
The insight that I’ve gained from that has been critical. It shows me where people are dropping off, how many people are continuing from book 1 to book 2, and the right channels to focus on to expand my readership. That is the reason I’m writing this post.
I’m not saying that I’m tuning the stories I’m writing to appeal to the largest audience. I’m actually not doing that, even if I have to sacrifice reach. What I’m writing are books I would want to read, and a series that I would feel satisfied with. I just hope there are others like me who enjoy them too.
How Has the Series Evolved From Book to Book?
Book 1 was a very intimate story. You saw El experience the world while struggling against powers greater than her. Since then, the stories have expanded. Zeriel’s introduction spans multiple kingdoms, for instance. Book 3 will expand that even more.
That expansion is the most notable change from book to book. Will you see my handling of characters improve as well? Yes. And that change will hopefully improve your overall enjoyment of the series, but it’s not the most notable (at least not to me).
Book 1 Rewrite
Many writers have revisited earlier works to improve them. Stephen King famously did that with The Dark Tower. While I’m no Stephen King, I do note that The Records of Eleshar, Book 1, will need to better reflect what the series has become.
That’s not because the story is bad. I still think the story is great and that you should read it now!
But I think it’s not presenting the correct promise for what the series will become. It’s because of this that I will be working on a book 1 rewrite after book 3 has released.
I won’t be changing the story at all. I will instead improve things like prose, pacing, emotional depth, and the series promise.
How Do I Outline While Allowing for Growth?
Earlier, I mentioned how the closer I get to writing a scene, the more detailed the planning becomes. That’s also one of the key ways that I keep things flexible. But it’s not the only way.
Most people assume that when you have an outline, your story is written in stone. If you operate like that, you’re being too inflexible.
As much as I work in systems and processes, writing is still an artform. You have to make room for those times when the story just starts flowing out of you and you’re discovering it as it lands on the page. When that happens, outline be damned. You write that story, then make adjustments after the fact.
That happens every time I write a book. In fact, I had to re-outline the last ten chapters of book 3 because of changes that happened during those moments. And the book is better for it.
Final Thoughts
Though life changes and I’ve had to redefine what writing fantasy with a full-time job means for me, I’m still excited for the readers to get their hands on The Records of Eleshar, Book 3. And I’m even more excited for the future of the series!
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