On the day I celebrated my 80th birthday I decided to become an author who would write best sellers. I had written a few books about fund raising in my earlier life, as well as a biography for my family, but no serious novels that could find a place on shelves of book shops.
So, I decided it was time to get serious and made plans to write and publish 5 books before I reached 90. I failed to achieve this goal as I only published the fifth at age 93. Never mind, my plan is to write another 4 before I reach my century.
I made an instant decision that my first would be about my boyhood hero, John Flynn, known in my era as Flynn of the Inland, founder of the Flying Doctor Service. Took me a while to work out where to start as I knew that, if the opening pages don’t grip readers, they toss the book away. So, I decided to open with an account of the day when the Presbyterian Church sacked Flynn for being too visionary and not fundamentalist. So it was that THE MAN ON THE TWENTY DOLLAR NOTES was born and it sold well. People love to read about nation builders.
My second was DINNER WITH THE FOUNDING FATHERS. I wrote it as an historical novel based on the lives of great leaders who founded Australia on 1 January 1901 (not 26 Jan). The key leaders were Barton, Deacon, Griffith and others. I based it around a fictional dinner where they review all the battles they fought over the 13 years it took to achieve a Federation of Australian States. I kept rigidly to the historical facts and created dialogue based on the known character of each of the heroes. Good authors don’t create history.
Then came A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET. This is pure fiction, not history. I found fiction to be much harder to write as it requires a lot of imagination. The story is about a famous Anglican Priest who gets a terminal illness and decides to depart via voluntary assisted dying. Huge controversy erupts but he decides to make his last three months the finest of his life. Sells mainly to people and families who face end of life challenges.
Number 4 was CATCHING THE LINVILLE TRAIN. A political history of nine decades of my life. Lots of chapters about world events that impacted on me, people I worked with and wonderful places I visited. All happened from age 6 when I took my first journey out from the small village of Linville where my life had begun. It was a train to Toogoolawah. Gradually, trains took me on many journeys. Again, I do not distort historical facts, but I hugely enjoyed researching it all on google. Did not have to visit a library. Fact is you can only become an author if you enjoy the long search for excellence. Once it becomes hard work, give it up.
The last, so far, is WALKING WITH THE MAN, BUT NOT TO CHURCH. I have written it in secular language for the 90% of us who don’t go to Church and never will. It simply creates a modern example of the original disciples who went out to the world to ask people to follow a great man, their friend Jesus. The Bible did not exist for another 400 years. They did not tell anyone that they must be saved from their sins. They just talked about the Man and I follow their example today. My challenge was to quietly evaluate all the dogmas and fears that Churches tried to embed in my soul for 9 decades and present a compelling case on how we can create a new world by WALKING WITH THE MAN. I chose my words carefully and redrafted them 15 times so as to get it right. If you want to be an author, your calling is to enjoy the long haul and write for your audience, not your own ego.
Now I am writing book number 6. Its a novel based on ‘Walking with the Man’ that will happily take my initial message to a more powerful and inspirational level. While doing this I am learning to become a ‘page turner’. Our readers must keep wanting to turn the next page before going to sleep.
So, how do you start? My strategy is simple. I grab my computer, sit in a comfortable lounge chair, pour myself a whisky of top quality that will expand my mind, and start typing the first 1000 words. I stop to read it and do considerable redrafting as I never get any page right the first time. Then I gradually expand it 5000 words at a time, redrafting all the way and being aware that publishers don’t like books of less than 60000 words.
Now, may I invite you to read all of my 5 books. As you read them, take notes of how you feel I could have written them better. This will help you to plan a personal strategy for your book number one.
Go to my website right now.
Click on Shop, then click on 5 book special which you can buy for 100 dollars, including postage. (If you buy them individually it costs you 70 dollars more as 5 lots of postage are involved and there is no book discount)
I will sign and post them to you as well as sending you my contact details so you can call me to have a yarn about how you are going in writing your first book.
Cheers
Everald
PS. Below is a page from my website. The photo is me on the day I received the Order of Australia for a second time.
