Words. I’ve become a wordsmith. After all these years writing police reports, legal briefs, memorandum and other work related documents, I’ve found I’m a novice wordsmith. I have learned more about writing in the last two years than I did in over 40 years in the work world.
In my two past professions, I wrote to communicate. I had a captive audience. Everyone connected with one of my cases in the system had to read what I wrote, because they had to make decisions on the issues I presented. When I write now, I have to capture my audience with my story, my characters and the world I create with my words. While I’m free to create facts, I’ve found it is much more difficult to maintain the tension, conflict and action throughout a novel than it ever was to report an investigation or present a legal argument.
The happy side of all this is the absolute joy of writing story about things that interest me. When I start a story, I have an ending in mind, but I have no idea how I’m going to get there. I get to see how the story develops, literally by itself. Okay, I know it comes from my little pea brain, but I truly let the characters drive the story. It’s the fun part of writing for me.
I don’t know why, but I put challenges in my path. For instance in the GOTU series, every story must have a historical basis. The first novel is about drug cartels and based on my experience investigating and chasing down smugglers in the Arizona desert. The sequel, in progress now, deals with state sponsored terrorism in 1990. Throughout the series, the team’s operations will be woven into actual historical events. I do a tremedous amount of research on these events and I learn a great deal about recent history in the process.
I have other stories I’m writing in different genres. I’m writing a cold case mystery that looks into the emotional turmoil many homicide detectives go through. I’m also working on a western that explores the concept of justice. Another novel revisits the style of the 1940’s detective novel, but is place in today’s world. The fourth novel is about the little town I live in placed in the 1940’s. All my books will have law enforcement characters in them…some will be very interesting characters indeed.
I hope you will follow me on this journey. I promise I will work diligently to become a journeyman wordsmith and strive to entertain you and also provoke you to think about our world. We’ll have a good time.
This is a pretty nice blog, I do the same thing with knowing the ending, but letting the characters take you there. It is a HUGE part of the fun for me, because even though they live entirely in your head, they can still surprise you. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for the kind words, Firas. Yes it is the fun of writing for me also…then comes the editing…ugh!
And you’re good at writing! You always wanted to be a writer. Congrats!
Thanks, Terry. I feel very lucky to have been accepted by a publisher my first time out and at least it keeps me out of trouble in my retirement.