I’ve been writing on and off for over thirty years.
So why then, you might wonder, was my first book published only three years ago?
There have been a number of reasons, but in large part it was due to Frank Herbert’s Dune and, to a lesser extent, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
How could two such great novels delay my own writing aspirations?
I confess, that prior to starting The Joining Trilogy, I’d not written a single thing outside of school assignments. No short stories, no poems or limericks; not even a caustic Letter to the Editor. And, aside from writing the required essays for Lit and a rare short story in middle grades, I had absolutely no background in creative writing. I was, in essence, beginning from ground zero: creatively speaking. Yet still there was this nagging compulsion to write a book, and I chose to write in my favorite genre: scifi.
Dune, by Frank Herbert, is my most beloved scifi book with its sweeping story and large cast of characters. It was the expansiveness of that tale, the pacing of that tale that became the inspiration for my trilogy. But I had no understanding of the complexities of what I was undertaking. All I had was a growing excitement for the story that was unfolding in my mind.
Not surprisingly, the sheer magnitude of the project overwhelmed me as the cast of characters grew and the storylines became more involved. I struggled to keep the timelines and continuity correct for all my heroes and villains while constructing worlds for them to inhabit. A challenging project, even for a seasoned writer, let alone a complete novice. So sometimes I had to put the book aside for awhile, until I could return with a fresh perspective.
Also, during that first year/first draft of my trilogy, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was published. It became a BIG sensation. And it was clear, from the description, that our stories had some very similar elements.
I stopped writing.
How could I continue?
Everyone would think I was copying Atwood’s story.
Friends tried to convince me that it didn’t matter. After all, every book was similar to others, in some way. I knew they were right, but this seemed too similar. I confess, I couldn’t even bring myself to read the book, for fear of what I might find. But then the movie came out, and I thought, maybe I’ll have a peak─ as movies only cover the larger points of a novel. And, to my relief, I saw that The Handmaid’s Tale storyline was dissimilar enough for me to carry on with my own tale.
But it continued to haunt me, and I became so focused on not sounding like anyone else’s story that whenever I was writing scifi (which was often), I would stop reading scifi. It made sense to me (at the time), as I would inevitably come across some of my supposedly ‘original’ ideas, and this would undermine my fledgling-writer confidence. As it was, I was having a hard time making the locations dissimilar from every book I’d ever read: which, of course proved impossible. I also continued to struggle with the sheer size of the story, while slowly learning the finer points of my craft and developing my own writing style.
As indicated previously, there were other delays to publishing my book that had nothing to do with The Handmaid’s Tale or Dune or any other novel. Life happened, and also a baby. And later on, I became consumed by a number of other writing projects. And, I confess, I even went through a period of writing only nonfiction (what?!).
But I couldn’t resist the siren call of my storylines, especially the trilogy. I returned to those characters that I’d come to love, determined to complete their story ─and mine, for I finally faced the fact that creative writing was not a passionate hobby but a vocation.
It took two more years to finish New Eden, Book 1 of The Joining Trilogy. As I worked on the last rounds of editing, I was feeling pretty pleased with how my writing had evolved (thus far) and was looking forward to sharing it with the world. The Handmaid’s Tale was now a distant memory, both in my mind and the mind of the public. But a few weeks before publishing I discovered that The Handmaid’s Tale had become a Netflix sensation, putting Atwood’s book right back in the spotlight ─a much bigger spotlight!
ARRRRRGH!!!!!
Yes, that was the sound I made.
Why is this happening?! was my desperate cry to the Universe.
But I recovered quickly: I reminded myself that the storylines were different, and that it’s okay for books to have similar ideas ─in fact it was inevitable. And then I focused on the future, content in the knowledge that Atwood’s book was a stand alone, not a series: when I was ready to publish Book 2 in my trilogy, there would be no Handmaid’s Tale looming over it.
But, in a final comedic twist, in the same year that I published Book 2, Progeny, Atwood published Testament, the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale.
Sigh….
I confess, I have yet to read The Handmaid’s Tale or Testament.
Perhaps, next year, once I’ve published the last book in the trilogy, I can finally do so.
I confess, it will be a relief.