You Should Write a Book

Most writers are motivated to write because of things that have happened to them. And the first instinct is to write it as a non-fiction autobiography because the experiences are so vivid and personally profound. Often, well-meaning friends who've heard you recount portions of the story exclaim, "You should write a book!"

But they don't realize just how hard that actually is.

One reason it's harder than most people think is that if you're writing non-fiction, your editor will need to know more of the facts and context of any given story than you - from your narrow and limited point of view - actually know. So, as you try to write FACTUALLY, you'll discover that you don't know nearly as many facts as you thought you did.

Of course you can set out to find those missing details, but, as a journalist, I can tell you that the process is time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with all kinds of difficulties. And perhaps the biggest difficulty is that if you're writing things that are unflattering about a person, you could get sued for defamation of character. Even though what you're writing is true, if the person's not a public figure, you could lose a lot of money defending yourself in court.

It ain't worth it.

Not only that, but, publishers are less likely to want to make your story into a book because you're not well known, making it harder for them to sell the story of a nobody to the general public. Publishing is, after all, a business.

So.......?

Here's what I suggest:

Use those personal stories as a way to inspire your imagination. Change some of the details of the events and characters so that the real people won't recognize themselves, then build a story that still conveys the deeper "truth" you want to communicate. If you have a vivid imagination you'd be on firmer ground going in that direction. That's because you get to "dream up" the facts, something an editor of non-fiction won't let you get away with.

That's how I dreamed up my first novel "Fast Track." The book got its start because of two traumatic experiences in my life: a car/train collision I witnessed as a kid, and my sister's suicide. But, instead of recounting what happened in the style of a just-the-facts-ma'am journalist, I made up an entirely different story - a mystery/thriller - that still highlights themes and truths surrounding sudden death and suicide. I used my imagination to create a story that would resonate with people who don't know anything about me personally.

If you're able to camouflage the true events that happened to you and create a compelling story that still conveys a deeper "truth," you may be able to write not just one book, but ten, simply by using what happened to you as your creative muse.

Ever Feel Inadequate? Some Thoughts on Writing - and Living

A woman sent me an email recently telling me she has a "yearning" to write, but wonders if she can really sit down and write a book. She asked, "Did you ever wonder if you could really do it?"

The short answer is, "yes." Here's my longer response to her - and if you substitute the word "living" for "writing," my comments might be relevant to you even if you're not a writer:

Yearning and self-doubt are both essential elements in the process. The yearning propels you to the keyboard; the doubts cause you to stare stupidly at it. The yearning is necessary; the doubts are inevitable.

At some point, it's probably valuable to look more deeply at yourself and ask why you have doubts. Chances are, your answer will revolve around these two inadequacies: I'm not smart enough and I'm not good enough. (Apologies to Stuart Smalley)

The first one -- not smart enough -- is probably true. I don't have to look very far to find someone smarter than me. But I know I'm smarter than some people, too. I am who I am.

My mom, who was a third grade teacher, refused to tell me my IQ even though she knew. "You're above average," is all that she'd say. She explained that if she told me it was high, I'd coast through life and wouldn't try very hard; if she told me it was low, I'd give up and wouldn't try, either. She always used to say, "It's not the IQ, but the 'I will.'" Throughout her career she saw kids who were oblivious to their low IQ thrive because they worked hard and tried.

As for not good enough - that's true, too. But that doesn't mean that you can't improve. First you try, then you look critically at the result to see where you need improvement.

Writing [living] is a process. The more we do it, the more knowledgeable and skillful we become. WHATEVER you write won't be perfect, but instead of being paralyzed by fear of failure, put all that yearning and doubting into motion. As you try to do your best, your "best" will steadily get better.

Hope that helps.

Just a reminder: I'll be speaking and leading some writing workshops this Friday and Saturday (April 23 and 24) at the Writers' Institute at the University of Wisconsin - Madison

Change is Good

Not long ago, one of my writing students came to me, vexed because she was making so many changes to the story she was writing. Even though my response was tailored to writing, it applies to life, too.

Here's what I told her:

Change is a good thing. Get used to the idea of change because you will be making a LOT of changes throughout the novel-writing process.

Some changes will be huge and fundamental; others will be minor tweaks, but in almost every case, you will be changing your story and your manuscript for the better.

Why?

Because the act of writing puts your thinking down in an objectively observable form. Until you write it out, the ideas are merely elusive and ethereal images in your head. Often, it's only when you read what you've written that you can identify sloppy thinking, poor logic, or other problems.

Look at it this way: Writing is clearing your head; reading what you've written is the act of assessing if what was in your head was as good as you'd originally thought. More often than not, it isn't.

Look critically at what you write. By doing so, you'll often find ways to make it even better. DON'T FEEL AS IF IT HAS TO BE "RIGHT" THE FIRST TIME. FIRST DRAFTS SUCK. SO DO FIFTH DRAFTS.

So, take heart. You're a long way from having your manuscript [or your life] be what it should or will be. You're at the stage where you're putting a slab of unformed clay on the potter's wheel. The clay blob will only turn into a work-of-art as you form it and mold it as the wheel spins.

It's a process. You're at the very beginning. There's still a lot of creative fun ahead.

Are you having fun yet??

1959 Fatal Crash Leads to Novel

On the night of December 20, 1959 – fifty years ago today -- I was sitting in the left front seat of the Vista-Dome car of the Burlington Zephyr passenger train as it hurtled through northern Illinois on its way from Chicago toward my hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The engineer would later tell a coroner’s jury that he was going 90 miles an hour (legal at the time) as we rounded a gentle curve at the tiny town of Chadwick.

From my vantage point in the darkened dome car near the front of the train, I could see the locomotive’s searchlight slice through the darkness, sweeping the tracks that stretched ahead of us. Suddenly, off to my left, I saw a car speeding toward a crossing we were approaching. The car looked like a 1949 Chevy, distinctive because of its sloped rear end. A split second later, I lost sight of the car as it went in front of the train.

I heard a bang, the train shuddered, and debris rained onto the Plexiglas dome, cracking the window I’d been peering through. I ducked, then scrambled down the narrow stairway to the dome car’s lower level where I told my dad and the conductor what I’d just witnessed.

I was nine years old.

Eventually, the train came to a stop at least a mile down the tracks. My dad got off to investigate, but I didn’t want to see the carnage, so I stayed behind, shivering in a frigid vestibule and looking out the open door as Dad made his way to the front of the train.

An ambulance silently passed by, red lights flashing, a shrouded figure stretched out in back. I would meet the ambulance driver, Bob Helms, years later at a book signing in Chadwick. Tears welled in his eyes as he told me about that night in 1959 when he helped retrieve the mangled bodies of the three people whose lives ended so suddenly and brutally.

The crash killed Eugene Kutzke, 22; his wife Ellen, 17; and her brother, Raymond Stage, 11 – all of Freeport, Illinois. Earlier in the day, they’d been in Dubuque, Iowa and were returning to Freeport in a borrowed car.

I remember being particularly troubled that a boy about my age was among the victims.

The coroner’s jury ruled the crash an accident. The car came from the West and made a sharp left turn just before the grade crossing. Several buildings on the right side of the car would have obscured the driver’s view of the tracks, which crossed the road at a slightly oblique angle. The speeding train was coming from the right. Even if the driver saw the train – which I doubt -- he wouldn’t have had time to react.

After my dad returned from his foray to the front of the train, we went to the club car and sat with several other people who listened as we recounted our stories. A woman told me she lived nearby and would send me a newspaper clipping with details of the crash. Thirty-five years later, it still hadn’t arrived.

Fast forward to about 1994. I was doing a writing exercise recounting a personal experience – the one you’ve just read. As I wrote, I remembered a radio news report about a car-train collision in which an infant survived. I began wondering what if an infant had survived the crash I’d witnessed and grew up wondering about her past. That idea turned into my mystery-suspense novel “Fast Track.”

The novel isn’t about the accident. If anything, it’s an example of how a personal experience can be the seed of an idea that can blossom into something else – something redeeming.

The book begins with my 25-year-old heroine vexed because she doesn’t know what to do with her life. She discovers the body of the aunt who raised her from infancy – a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning. (This is an echo of my sister’s suicide in 1980 – but that’s another story for another time.) That trauma begins a quest to unlock secrets kept hidden for a quarter century when her parents died in a mysterious car-train collision.

The manuscript went through 14 major revisions over 10 years before I found my current agent, Barbara Casey, (the 39^th agent I queried). During that process, I drew on other personal experiences to add texture to a story that includes politics, journalism, and mentoring relationships.

But it all started 50 years ago today in Chadwick, Illinois. So, I suppose it’s fitting that I named my heroine Lark Chadwick.

***

John DeDakis is a Senior Copy Editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” and the author of the mystery-suspense novel “Fast Track.”

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So, You Have to Give a Speech?

Some suggestions on how to gain confidence in front of a crowd:

1. It's NOT about YOU, it's about THEM. In other words, they came to hear about your book. You know more about it than they do, so put yourself in their head and try to speak to their need. (In this case, their need is to know more about you.)

2. Whether it's a large crowd, or only a few people, make your talk personal. Talk to them as if you're talking to just one person. It can either be a person who seems to be looking at you attentively, or it can be a friend who's not there, but is in your mind's eye.

3. Just be you. No need to be pretentious. Have an idea of what you want to say, but don't read them a speech. Instead, speak from your heart and in your own words. Think of it as a conversation.

4. It's a two-way street. Once you've said what you wanted to say, then take questions. That way, you'll know what THEY (remember, it's about THEM, not you) are interested in. Keep your answers short and then ask, "did that help?" That gives the person a chance to ask a follow-up to seek better clarification.

5. You might consider checking to see if there's a Toastmaster's club in your area. It's a great way to get experience as a public speaker, and get helpful feedback on your speaking style.

I'll stop there. I could probably go on. Bottom line: once you realize you actually have something to say, then you can relax and just say it and not worry about what people think about you because you can't control that. All YOU can control is your message and your delivery. You're just talking with someone. You do it every day. Only this time, a few extra people will be eavesdropping.

Final thought: HAVE FUN WITH IT.

A Son Remembers His WWII Dad

When I was nine or ten years old, my father took me to a college basketball game. As the clock ran out, a trumpeter in the pep band thought it would be cute to mark the demise of the rival team by playing Taps.

Dad was not amused.

“Shut up!” he roared.

The trumpeter played on, oblivious.

Dad got to his feet, fists clenched.

“I said, ‘Shut up!’” he bellowed even louder.

Embarrassed, I cringed in my seat. I’d never seen Dad this upset. But most people in the noisy auditorium were unaware of my father’s wrath. His anger was drowned out by cheers, and by amused laughter at the cleverness of the Taps-playing trumpeter.

Later, Dad explained to me that his strong emotions went back nearly 15 years when he was an officer on Gen. William Woodward’s staff during the 104th Infantry Division's assault on Nazi Germany. Under the leadership of Major General Terry Allen, the "Timberwolves" fought through Holland, Belgium, and into Germany, seeing unbelievable carnage.

Some men had become numb to it.

Dad told me about seeing a couple soldiers carelessly tossing dead bodies into the back of a truck to be hauled away from the battlefield. As Dad watched, a passing officer angrily chewed out the men:

“These are soldiers of the United States Army,” the officer yelled, “and they will be treated with respect!”

Whenever Dad told that story, his voice would catch.

Fast forward. Spring, 1995 – fifty years after the Nazis surrendered, and some 35 years after Dad’s anger boiled over at that basketball game. His emotions were still raw as we sat together on the back porch of my home in suburban Atlanta.

Over the course of three days, I held a small Radio Shack tape recorder between us as he talked about his life. Not surprisingly, his days in combat with the 104th took up most of the eight hours I captured on tape.

Dad was a shy man, placid, slow to anger; rarely did he show much emotion of any kind, except laughter – he loved to laugh. So, it was unexpected when, during a taping session, he suddenly broke down and wept.

He’d been describing the day he came across a group of Timberwolf infantrymen who’d been caught in a crossfire and slaughtered.

“If it hadn’t been for those guys in the infantry,” Dad said, swiping at his tears, “I never would have survived the war.”

Dad died in 1996. I went in his place to the 56th Timberwolf reunion in Atlanta Aug. 28 to Sept.3, 2001. There I had a chance to relay his appreciation of the infantry to several of the Timberwolf veterans I met: George Bacon, Emmett Burke, Jess Carpenter, Robert Clark, Warren Colglazier, Art Decker, Mel Falck, Albert Fontana, Walter George, Vern Gilbert, Warren Jershky, John Rison Jones, Jr., Dick Karst, Matthew Kiley, Earl Lutz, Art Mason, Dick Matthews, John Montgomery, Navy Myers, Herbert Orton, Ernest Peters, Warren Pugh, Paul Radlinsky, Floyd Shockley, Art Sorenson, Charles Todd, Robert Tresnak, Phil Tretola, and Keith Zimmerman.

And I listened as many of them talked about sphincter-tightening experiences. The memories were old, but the tears were fresh.

One told me, “Think of the worst you could go through -- then double it.”

Another said he wrote down his story, but hid the manuscript in a safe deposit box for his children to read after his death.

“It’s too awful to talk about,” he explained, “plus none of them seem very interested in what I did during the war.”

One infantryman recounted the shock and horror of finding the bodies of some of his closest foxhole buddies “dead in the street.”

“I just shut down completely,” he said. “My emotions turned to ice. Suddenly, I had no one I could talk to.”

“Could you pray?” I asked.

“I could until [the] Nordhausen [concentration camp],” he replied. (On April 11, 1945, the 104th liberated the Mittelbau-Dora camp in Nordhausen, Germany. The bodies of 5,000 starved prisoners were stacked like cord wood and the few hundred survivors were like walking skeletons.) He told me it took years, and the help of several understanding people, to restore in him a semblance of faith.

“How did the war change you?” I asked several of the men I met.

“It made me mean,” one man confessed.

Some said it took years, and the patience of long-suffering spouses, before they were able to overcome their anger -- anger they didn’t even know they had until others pointed it out to them.

During my time with these men, I tried to resist my journalistic instinct to probe. Mostly, I listened. It was a rich experience. An experience, I fear, will be lost forever if more of us don’t encourage these men to tell their stories for history.

I’m glad I went to the Timberwolf reunion. For awhile, at least, it was like being with my dad again, talking about the days when he was young and freedom was at risk.

***
John DeDakis is a Senior Copy Editor at CNN in Washington, D.C. His father,
N. George DeDakis, remained in the Army Reserves after WWII, retiring as a Colonel in 1960. He practiced law in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and died May 29, 1996 at the age of 88. His son was with him at the end.

Overcoming the Fear of Rejection

I got an email recently from a young woman who told me she’s written a novel, but hasn’t shown it to anyone else because she’s afraid of having to deal with rejection.

Her instincts are correct -- she will experience rejection. And it’ll hurt. But it will also make the elation that comes with acceptance all the sweeter.

So, this is for all of you who have a book inside you somewhere. Maybe it’s just the nub of an idea that won’t go away; maybe all or part of it sits mouldering and neglected on your computer’s hard drive. But whatever the case, the fact that you’ve even thought about writing for publication should be a signal to pay attention to that inner nudge.

If the fear of rejection is holding you back, here are some suggestions on how to overcome it:

Expect to be Rejected: This, of course, is why you’re not letting anyone see your writing. But if you expect rejection, then you won’t be surprised when it happens. Every published author can tell you horror stories about having been rejected. In my case, 38 agents rejected the manuscript for “Fast Track,” my first novel, before I found Barbara Casey, my current agent – and she rejected the manuscript for “Bluff,” my second novel, twice before she deemed it publisher-ready. You know this instinctively and from experience: Rejection is part of life.

Identify What You’re Afraid of: Chances are you have in your mind a terrifying scenario in which someone will read your stuff and then dump on you mercilessly. Either they’ll puke and run away or they’ll be insulting. But let’s be realistic: How often has that ever happened to you? It’s more likely that you’ll experience polite indifference, which still hurts, but when you consider the range of possibilities, actual rejection could be much worse than it probably will be.

Cultivate Courage: It’s okay to be afraid. It’s a natural emotion we all experience. The question is what are you going to do with the fear? I’m always inspired by the guys who stormed the beaches of Normandy during World War II. Were they afraid? Of course, but they went forward anyway. Going forward is what differentiates cowardice from courage. Cowardice is letting fear paralyze you into inaction, but courage is fear in action. So, recognize your fear, embrace it, then move forward anyway. It produces confidence.

Learn From Rejection: Submitting your writing to someone else probably feels as daunting as facing enemy gunfire, but the good news is no one will be shooting bullets at you. Instead, if you’re lucky, you’ll get feedback that’s invaluable. Why invaluable? Because your goal as a writer is to connect with someone. Critical feedback is what you need in order to connect more effectively.

It’s Not About You: When you’re afraid of rejection, the focus is, understandably, on you. You have to start with yourself, but the goal is to get beyond this. Here’s why: Think of your writing as a gift that you’re giving to someone else. But tastes vary and your writing won’t resonate with everyone. People have the freedom to accept or reject your offering. Fine. The payoff comes when you realize that what you’ve written has touched someone else. That makes all the rejection worth it.

Here’s the saddest thing about rejection: If you give in to the paralyzing fear of being rejected, you will have succeeded in one major way – you will have succeeded in rejecting yourself.

John DeDakis is a Senior Copy Editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” and the author of the mystery-suspense novel “Fast Track.” Visit his Web site at www.johndedakis.com