Writing a Novel in Five Days While Traveling: WMG Writer's Guides, #14
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About this ebook
One of the most prolific writers in modern fiction writing shows you how he does it.
Author of over one-hundred-and-fifty novels, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith gives an intimate day-to-day, minute-by-minute account of how he wrote a full novel in five days while traveling.
From tips on how to prepare for the writing to what to do when the trip gets in the way, Dean deals with it all. A moment-by-moment account of what it feels like to write a novel in five days while traveling.
And yes, he wrote this book while writing the novel. A don't-miss read into the mind of a prolific and bestselling fiction writer.
Dean Wesley Smith
Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA TODAY bestselling writer, Dean Wesley Smith published far over a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. He currently produces novels in four major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the old west, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, and the superhero series staring Poker Boy. During his career he also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds.
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Book preview
Writing a Novel in Five Days While Traveling - Dean Wesley Smith
Introduction
Yup. A crazy idea. Especially considering I have not once been successful at writing while traveling.
How’s that for a negative start?
So I figured it was about time to teach myself how to do this and as I figure it out I might as well write this nonfiction book as well as the novel.
Win—win. If I pull it off.
Otherwise, it will be an entertaining failure for you all to watch right out here in public.
And what’s really silly is that I will be doing all my normal e-mail, normal workshop stuff, and still doing the CFO job for WMG while I am gone. I will be cutting nothing out.
Yup, nothing will seem different from your end except the content of these blogs.
So if you have questions or want to sign up for a workshop, feel free. I will be doing all my normal computer work every day, three times per day.
Some Considerations to Start
Today is Sunday and I will not start the novel until Wednesday. But I am doing these nonfiction introduction chapters each night ahead of that while traveling.
My first consideration in getting ready for something this crazy is that I do not have a laptop computer. I have an old iPad, but don’t use it much at all anymore.
I use massive Mac computers with second screens. I have three set-ups like that. One for my internet at home, one for my writing computer, and one in my WMG office.
So as this trip got near, I thought about buying myself a laptop and then carrying a second screen and keyboard with it. Good idea until I realized how silly that was. I would be carrying a second screen, so I could just carry my large Mac just as easily.
So this morning around 10 a.m. I put a pillow in the back seat of my car (a very smooth-riding Cadillac CTS), carried my big internet computer out and put it on the pillow, screen toward the seat. Put another pillow between the screen and the seat and then covered the entire thing with a blanket and strapped it in with a seat belt.
Easy and it rode like a charm.
The real advantage of driving: I can pack as much as I want. And I don’t much care for flying these days, so driving is more fun anyway.
So now I am sitting in front of my big internet computer in a really nice hotel suite somewhere south of Eureka, CA. I have just finished doing all the work for the coast anthology workshop and got out the next story for the writers to write.
And I have answered all my e-mail earlier and am now writing this introduction.
This desk and chair is actually as comfortable as my chair at home after I put two pillows under me to get me to the right height.
Why Do It This Way?
I think trick number one in trying to write while traveling is to be comfortable. If you normally write on a laptop, do that. I normally write on a big screen, so I am doing that.