H.D. Duman

Where to begin? I guess I would say that we should get down to it. No messing around, just some good old fashion writing to lead us down the path of discovery of what it truly means to write a story such as WolfScape. Perhaps along the way we may find things about ourselves we didn’t know existed before writing WolfScape. After all, to know a mind is a beautiful thing and to waste a mind is a terrible thing. So let the journey begin and see where it leads us.

Seventeen years ago, and about the time I retired from Lockheed Martin I began to accommodate the idea of writing seriously. I already felt comfortable in using the quill since research was part of my job. I joined a basic creative writing course to see if I had the chops to be creative and unique and write something interesting. The table was laid out in front of us with various items, and the class was asked to pick an item from the table and write a short story about it. I chose a cowboy boot. There you go, a western saga in the making. If I recall, along with the mechanics of writing, we were instructed to write a portion of the story each week and then report back in order to have other members of the class critique what we had written.

Oh with trembling hands and mind filled with fraught I came back week after week to discover what I was taught. What I gleaned was more than I bargained and found that I really enjoyed the art of the craft.

After successfully completing the class, I joined the writing community of Longview – Kelso called WordFest and really enjoyed getting together with other writers on monthly get-togethers to explore and discover the writing techniques of like-minded folks in the area. How kool was that, and in between I joined and went to weekly critique classes to get my work, um lets just say, looked at. At first the path was bumpy and filled with pot-holds, but as time went by the path turned into a road, and the road turned into a highway. After two short years I was now a certified member of Willamette Writers in Portland, Oregon and attended the monthly classes and yearly conferences. I was on my way and in another year I completed my first novel and submitted the manuscript, lets just say to twenty-five publishers before it was accepted.Yay! Also, while attending the conferences I pitched my novel to producers, screen writers, you know, movie moguls, but to no avail.

I did learn a thing or two and this increased my chances to be discovered. I also had to learn the publishing side of the craft. Ugh!

This side of the craft can be a minefield. There are various ways to tip toe through the mire without getting burned too severely. The most common way is to subscribe to Market Publishers. This will give you the information on all publishers I believe in the United States and what genres they specialize in. Just call and see if they will accept your manuscript for fiction novels and outlines for non fiction books.

Another method is to search out literary agents that can represent you and your fiction or non fiction enterprise to publishing companies. Beware, there are distinct differences between a literary agent and a literary consultant. It’s best, if possible, to get a senior literary agent. In either case of these two examples, you need to get involved in developing and managing your platform for marketing purposes. This involves building your social media sites and communicating with your readership. Of course it is prudent to have a good platform already developed before going any further in finding a publisher or literary agent. Also, your publisher should be promoting your book on their side. The days of authors getting in their cars and traveling around for every book signing are nearly over, except for the major events.

Now how do I write. In my case when writing novels I first create a character list and  note’s information page. Carry a notebook with you – you never know. Also, you may need to create a loose outline to indicate where your story is going. These three entities go side-by-side with your writing. In my case, I usually create a loose outline in my head as I write. My characters, especially the protagonist and antagonist usually dictate where the story is heading and eventually take control of my writing. I am no longer writing the story; my characters are doing it for me. I know this concept can be hard to understand, but excellent writers (naturals) do this. I also rely on sprinkling a fair amount of metaphors and similes throughout the story. This adds frosting on the cake – there I go; a metaphor.

How about writer’s block? There are volumes discussing this. In my case it is pretty simple. When writing I usually go back to the previous day and edit what I just wrote. This warms me up and gets my juices going for the next segment.

Now back to Wolfscape. After my first novel, Path To Peril, went out of print because my publisher went bankrupt I took a little hiatus from writing. I was disenchanted to say the least. I eventually regrouped and thought that I wasn’t going to let any publisher derail my career. All the while I was thinking about what I was going to write next. I hit on the idea after reading, “The Other” by Tom Tryon. The plot was about twin boys that grew up in the Midwest during the depression. One was good and the other was evil.

Going on, I thought why not apply the plot to the animal kingdom. I knew from the onset it was a bit of a stretch. I did what I usually do, which is, create a character list and notes to help carry me through. The plot I created is mainly a story of two wolves in which one is a doppelgänger of the other and is created from the ‘splitting’. You want more, you’ll have to read the book. This isn’t about the story, but the mechanics on how I wrote the story.

Okay, after forming the beginning of the story in my mind I started writing. Slow at first, but as the plot was developing so was I. Thank God for computers and not typewriters and white out. Don’t be afraid to express your ideas on the screen, because you can easily change them. Some of the story was easy to write, but other parts were more difficult. I had to research the location, wolves, etc. Roughly it took me about nine months to finish eighty-five percent of the story. Remember I had “The Other” in my mind while writing the new plot. However, I was stuck on how to end it. I went around and around for about a year or so until I discovered it was right in front of me. After rereading it three or four times during this period I realized that I was using the ‘Push and Pull Syndrome’ multiple times in the story. This easily equated to the dreams and what the wolves were doing. Therefore, I was able to use this method in ending the story. Like the USRB reviewer said, the story is fantastical to the very end. In this particular case, it urges the reader to turn the pages faster and faster while taking control of their emotions. That’s what the ‘Push and Pull Syndrome’ is all about – taking control of the other’s emotions. Hence, this is the double meaning of the story.

The second edition of Path To Peril is a period historical fiction/thriller that takes place from 2008 to 2014. It took me almost four years to write the original version because of all the heavy research that went into the book. It explains how and why the United States is falling off the cliff and going into serious decline. Some have asked why put yourself through such a tiresome and brutal research in order to not only dig up facts that are causing this, but also develop an interesting story that surrounds these facts. After all, in my opinion, who wants to read a book filled with dry facts and nothing else.

You may asked why I wrote this book. For decades I have taken a keen interest in the affairs of the US. I’ve been around for awhile and have experienced many changes in my life time. The decade of the fifties, after World War II, was docile for the most part and didn’t rattle too many chains. It was a decade of us and the world catching our breath.

The sixties got really interesting and brutal at times with the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s Liberation movement, the assassination of JFK, RFK and MLK and the beginning of the Viet Nam war. By the end of the decade: I don’t know about you, but it plumbed wore me out. I think you know where all this is going.

By the time I retired in 2008, I had enough material to write forever. Where do I start, I asked myself. As far as I was concerned everything was written “Ad Infinitum” for the history of the last few decades. The most obvious place for me to write was the present, so I took up the quill and first wrote about what was happening in the United States and the World from 2008 to 2014.

As I said, the United States was falling off a cliff and in serious decline. Why was this? There were a lot of reasons, but the central tenet to the book had to do with the electorate – our society. People weren’t paying enough attention to what was going on. Also they were being fed hogwash by most of the media, and sorry to say our society didn’t have the time to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Now, that’s where I came in. Since I’m retired I had time to do extensive research on all of this. I knew parents that were raising children, sending them to school, working full time and sometimes working more than one job simply didn’t have the time. I know, I’ve been there. So some of my books were written to alert and teach people what was going on. Pick up a copy of Path To Peril (second edition), read it and when the rain washes you clean you’ll know! Finally, pick up a copy of Road To Recovery, which will be launched next spring, read it and this will fortify and further your knowledge on what is happening.

You know I already had the description of the story written. The first part was about stopping Iran from developing an atom bomb. The second section was about foreign terrorist, a product of our last administration, using technology to bring down our power grids and send the United States back to the eighteenth century.

Sometimes things don’t work out the way we plan. We see this all the time in real life, and we also see this writing stories. Well my characters have led me to a partial impasse. Do I continue the way my summary was written or do I take a new path. The situation my protagonists are in has led me to believe that part of the story should go in a new direction, but use the same technology that some of my characters have already explained and referenced.

So a description and summary can easily be changed, but a story is more difficult. In this case my characters can write themselves out without backtracking which is all fine and well. Plus, it gives them more to follow. Therefore, I think I’m going to listen to my protagonists once again and go in the direction they want me to. So be it!