My awesome readers,
Hope you're well. My newsletter is now on Substack, as I previously announced. I think this new platform will allow interactivity and be more engaging. I promise not to spam you incessantly. Each week, I hope to make a few minutes of your day interesting or amusing, apart from getting you early insights into my works or occasionally announcing deals and releases. So, stay with me!
First, the cringe-fest that was my first unpublished novel.
Story time.
My first published novel, which many of you have read, was "The Atlantis Papyrus." It came out in 2019 and took about 1.5 years to write. It continues to do well and most readers go on to read the rest of the series.
But was that my first attempt?
No.
In 2010, when I was living in London (which I love, by the way, and the weather didn't bother me one bit, but I digress), I made my first attempt at novel writing. I shudder at that, but we all learn from our follies.
The name of the book was "14 Days." It was about a serial killer in London, a very disgruntled man upset about the actions of executives and consultants who brought about the financial crisis (remember the terrible years of 2008-10?), and decides to kill a bunch of them and leave cryptic messages on Twitter and the grisly scenes. A specialized investigative unit of the London police gets involved, and our protagonist is a "Detective Inspector (DI)." So far, so good. Cliche, but not too terrible I think.
But I'm neither English nor had I spent sufficient time in England.
My DI was named "Gordon Canning," and his boss was "Neville Ashford." The book was bleak and rainy. The pen name I chose was "Graham Arrow" (oh god). And my characters did and said (what I thought to be) very local things like drink tea, say "You alright?" and "Mate," and go to the pub.
It was all horrible. I humbly apologize to my English readers.
Finally, after about 140 pages of that travesty, and clearly out of depth, I gave up. For your amusement, here's a screenshot of a page from that attempt. See, I even snuck in a “borough!” I did live near Kensington though, so I had that going for me.
Now, do I regret it? Not at all. Not only did it give me a sense of what it took to write a novel, but also helped me in thinking about what I enjoyed about writing. Life got in the way and I did nothing for a few years. Finally, in late 2017, I resurrected the idea of writing but with a subject that I love—ancient history. I'll tell you about how "The Atlantis Papyrus" evolved another time.
What's the lesson? It's okay for your first attempt to suck. Learn, and move on. And then look back and laugh about it. And even get others to laugh at it because why not?
A recommendation:
Have you seen “Jury Duty” on Amazon Prime? Unique concept and amusing. I won’t spoil the fun—and it’s advertised right at the beginning—but it’s about an unsuspecting guy who is called in to act as a jury member in a completely fake court case. The judge and all his fellow jurors, and even the officers, are all actors. Give it a try. It’s great!
And with that, this week’s newsletter comes to an end. I continue to make progress on The Weave.
See you next week, you awesome people!
Jay.
PS—With Substack, you can now even ‘like’ and leave a comment, or easily share.