It’s a Book!

Some of my friends have mentioned to me the relative absence of posts of late. Some of my more liberal and progressive friends were probably relieved. It’s not that there isn’t anything going on. It’s just that I have been a little busy, finishing a book! And here now is that story:

When I retired, I fully expected to take up writing in some form. In the year before retirement, I convinced my boss to let me write a blog on the limited (government-only) work system, detailing any advice or sage wisdom I had about our business. I pitched it as a means to capture/transfer tacit knowledge, that is, all the things you know about your profession which aren’t in books anywhere. I really believed in the concept of passing along such knowledge, which literally often walks out the door with the retiree.

But I also had another motive: to get into the habit of writing, which I wanted to commit to in retirement. I have always enjoyed writing, and had some success: a well-received paper here and there, positive feedback from people who know something about writing, even an occasional minor award. But there’s a great leap from any of that to being a writer, and while my interest was there, I was unwilling to dedicate my time to the craft in retirement. As I told those who asked, “it was too much like work” and that was one thing I wasn’t going to do as a retiree.

This blog served to keep me in the practice of writing, and never felt like “work.” I enjoyed the research, the back-n-forth when friends disagreed, the writing/editing/polishing involved. I started many short stories and wrote up several concepts for screenplays, but never got down to the hard work of completing anything. Common writing advice is to “write about what you know” but anything I wanted to write about with respect to my old job would require pre-clearance from the government, which I wanted to avoid. So I focused on light fiction about ordinary things.

A little over a year ago, I woke up at two in the morning with a crazy, detailed dream fresh in my head. I thought about it as the fog cleared, and I remember thinking, “that would make a great story!” But I went back to sleep anyway. Then the dream resumed where it left off. When I awoke, I remembered both parts of the dream in great detail, which is unusual for a dream (at least for me). I told Judy about it, going over the story in detail, and she agreed it was an interesting premise, and that I should do something with it. I sketched out the basics of the story in a Word file and put it away with the rest of my unfinished works.

But the dream-story would not let me rest. I woke up time and again in the middle of the night, with additional dreams filling in gaps in the original one. I started making more notes. As I identified plot holes or character gaps, I had more dreams. I started to think about the story line during my conscious hours, too, usually while working out, which was often when I did my best creative thinking back when I worked. I had made the story out completely but had almost nothing on paper. Whenever I started to think about writing it, I remembered all the research I would have to do to get it right. And the story was current espionage fiction, so agency review would have to approve it also. Sounds like “work.”

Finally, my old college roommate visited, and asked the same question I had heard so many times before: “where’s all the writing you were going to do.” I gave the usual answer about not doing work, but he was amazed that I had this entire story in my head but refused to put it on paper. He badgered me over a long weekend and a vacation trip to Mexico City, and I finally relented and agreed to story board the tale, a necessary prelude to researching and writing a novel.

Out came the chartpak, lines were drawn, dates inscribed, with circles and arrows pointing between characters and events. I have never been at a loss for words (much to my friends’ and enemies’ dismay), and once I actually got writing, it all came very fast. Back in college, I used to make a game of paper writing, keeping track of how many hours were left until a paper was due and how many words-per-minute I needed to write to complete it. Let’s just say I probably set a personal best in words-per-minute during this book.

Then came the hard part. I contacted several friends who have published novels, and they gave me great advice. Contacting the big publishing houses was a long-shot. I tried to get an agent, who would intercede for me with the publishing houses. No dice. Each request to each agent had to be an exercise in customization: “give me your ten best pages, courier font, no italics.” “Give me your first and last chapter, times new roman, with specific margins.” “Give me your complete text, a ten page summary, and a one paragraph summary.”

After spending hours and days building such inputs, I got nothing beyond a “received request” email and a “not interested” email. I did get one actual rejection based on the fact I had a typo in my cover email. I don’t blame them, the theory being if you can’t make that perfect, your work is probably not good enough either. I finally decided to go the self-publishing route, which is quite different from what I imagined.

You may recall vanity publishing back in the day, where authors would pay to get works in print that no one would ever read. This is nothing like that. I used Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) from Amazon. The service is free and easy to use, with much helpful advice along the way. Now the book is available from Amazon, and if you have Prime, you can read it for free using their Kindle Unlimited service. A paperback version (printed on demand) is also forthcoming.

What about the book, the story itself? It is an espionage tale, set mostly at the CIA during current times. It involves an ensemble cast of analysts, managers, and scientists, working on a super-secret program, with a small sci-fi twist. All the characters are of course fictional.

Ever heard of the “DC read?” When someone publishes a book about the national policy community, all the DC policy types check it out at the bookstore, going directly to the index and seeing if/where they’re mentioned, then reading those parts (no kidding). Note to my DC friends: don’t bother, there is no index, and no one you know is in there. All the characters are composites, although it would be fun to try and guess who is what part of whom.

This is not a Tom Clancy-style action story. It falls more in the Smiley’s People end of the genre. Flawed characters grapple with challenges personal, professional, and profound. I try to bring out some of the grittier aspects of the intelligence business: How to keep secrets secret, counterintelligence versus analysis, cover, when to use (or not) what intelligence has learned, how the personalities and foibles of “real” people play out in national policy. Did I succeed? You’ll be the judge.

As I wrote the work, I realized that several characters were demanding greater attention (I came to conclude both the novel and the characters are real, at least in my head, after all that sleep disruption). So I have continued the process, story-boarding out a sequel which takes the characters forward from now to the next year or so, bringing in some additional characters, and spicing it all up against the backdrop of an international crisis. And I have the concept for a conclusion to the trilogy that wraps up all the main characters story lines. Can’t leave them out there, dangling, lest they interrupt my nocturnal rhythms again.

So I hope you find the E-book story, titled “Red StReam,” on Amazon, and I hope you find it interesting. Drop me a note here on the blog, or on Facebook, or via the email address listed for me as the author inside the book. I look forward to hearing from you!