Background

Usually when a book come out, the reader knows very little of the context for the book unless the author is a celebrity or the book is based on a well known event. The first Wentworth book, Identity, grew out of a context that I thought I would share. The remaining four books are grounded in that context as well. After the pentalogy is finished, it will be the end of Wentworth unless I need him as a bit player in a future story.

In the late 1990's I was interested in Computer Ethics, especially in the area of person privacy. I couldn't understand why there was only one side in the privacy debate. To make a long story short, I realized that the problem was that people evaluated ethical issues in technology based on current circumstances rather than circumstances brought about by the technology. I came up with the catch phrase "we need a headlight into the future" and realized that stories could provide that headlight. The problem was that most people who were involved in Computer Ethics and understood the technology did not know how to write stories. And people who did know how to write stories, did not understand the technology very well. For my part, I was up to speed with the technology and an adequate writer, but I would need to up my writing game in order to write the kind of stories I was interested in.

Approach

I decided to force myself to learn how to write better by announcing to some colleagues that I was going to write a serial novel (inspired by Dickens) and send out a chapter each week. I also promised to include some of my colleagues as characters in the novel to encourage them to read the chapters so they could comment on them. Even people who were not characters were motivated to read the chapters to see what was happening to people who they knew. Thirty something weeks later, I finished the novel. It went through a few iterations such as email to web pages to word document to Kindle book. And I learned a HUGE amount about writing in the process.

• I learned what it was like to write with a deadline

• I learned how to plant plot seeds to nurture later

• I learned how to create believable characters

• I learned a lot about a writer's relationship to his or her characters

• I learned that even if you base a character on someone you know, the character will take on a life of it's own

• I learned that if you are going to use someone as the basis for a character, you shouldn't tell them

• And, most importantly, I experienced the sublime joy of having your creative juices flowing and following the inspiration of your muse

What Happened Next?

After the first Wentworth novel, I could not stop writing. I followed, almost immediately with the second one Along Came a Spider which is a more traditional mystery story. I was rolling and writing and I was getting better at it. On the third Wentworth novel, I decided to take a risk and see if I could create a despicable character and make him sympathetic by the end of the story. I also decided to move on from email and post chapters on the web. I also tried exploiting some web page features such as allowing the read to hover the cursor over a character name and get a pop up to remind them who the character was. I stretched this idea to include pop up maps and word definitions. It was a cool idea but it required Internet Explorer. Eventually, when Internet Explorer was no longer available, it was not possible to read this book online.

I converted the 2nd and 3rd books into Word documents and set them aside.

Writing Stories to Explore the Ethics of Technology

Unexpectedly, which is how most things happen in academia, an opportunity arose for me to teach a Writing in the Disciplines course. I jumped on the opportunity. I taught the course for several years and learned a lot of teaching writing. What I learned was probably not the more conventional approach to teaching writing. But, it worked for me and formed the foundation for Writing Stories to Explore Possible Worlds. Whenever I learn a lot, I don't complain. It will be useful somewhere.

Going Forward

Once I retired and decided to pursue writing I wrestled with whether or not I should turn the Wentworth books into Kindle books or just forget about them and focus on writing new stuff. I decide that the effort required to finish the pentalogy was not that great and getting it on Kindle would help me learn more about self-publishing while sharpening my fiction skills. And, since there were only going to be five Wentworth books, I would not fall into bad habits.

Something I Learned - When is Enough, Enough

Younger writers, a group which does not include me, often obsess over achieving best selling status or ranking high on the Amazon best selling list. I sympathize with them. It is not easy to be young under any circumstances. And, if you are in need of money and recognition, it is even more difficult. Sadly, there is never enough money or recognition but you don't learn that until you get older. Anyone who thinks that a mega best seller will make all your problems go away should read Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. In case you spent your life thus far locked in a woodshed in the mid-West somewhere and have never heard of Elizabeth Gilbert, she wrote the mega mega best seller Eat, Pray, Love. After the smoke cleared, she realized that she had a long life left yet to live, that she still wanted to be a writer and that she had set and incredibly high bar for herself.

Another of my favorite stories is on topic here. Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were playing golf one day when Vonnegut mentioned to Heller that a hedge fund manager that they both knew had made more money the day before than Heller had made in royalties for Catch-22. Heller responded that he had something the hedge fund manager would never have. "What is that", Vonnegut inquired. "Enough!" was Heller's response.

I love this story and am motivated to continue this digression just a little further. There is a Greek myth about a woman named Cassandra who received a blessing and a curse from the God Apollo. The blessing was the gift of prophesy. She could know the future. The curse was that nobody would ever believe her.

I think this idea could be adapted to be a little more on topic. The blessing would be that a person would be successful at everything they attempted. The curse would be that it would never be enough!

So, back to writing. When I was writing scholarly papers my goal was to write papers that would last over time. My goal in my encore career is similar. I am less interested in having a big hit than I am in writing something that gets traction over time. In order to do that, I have to keep advancing my skills, and sometimes go back an fix something I could have done better. I am happy to do this and it is way easier to do this in self publishing if you have patience and determination than it is if you have an agent and publisher who need to be paid.

Thank you reading my ramblings.