by Joelle Steele
Like most writers, my writing has evolved over the past 54 years. It started with a plan, detoured off, sometimes into the sunset, then rejoined the caravan to go off in a different direction or two. I started writing when I was a child, mostly essays and little short stories. Then, when I was 16, I wrote my first novel, “My Name Is Aniak.” It was sci-fi with an original premise, but I had not yet learned how to develop characters, write dialogue, or establish and fulfill a plot. So, I tried again when I was 19 with “The Dressmaker’s Daughter,” and I improved a little. Finally, I got it right at age 21 with “Hidden.” But it was 1974, and post-Viet Nam War amnesty decisions at the time pretty much destroyed the entire premise of that book. Like its title, it vanished into obscurity.
When I was 24, I invented the Ardens and the Brahms families. I created a huge family tree chart with just under 400 members that hung on many an office wall for years until I computerized it in 1998. But, I didn’t write the first Arden novel until “Devil’s Garden” in 1978, and “The Rosary Bed” in 1980. A third Arden novel, “Avenging Angel,” was permanently tabled when I became ill and then was injured in a major automobile accident. At that time, I had six other Arden novels already outlined or in some partially-started form.
In 1983, I switched gears and for almost 30 years I wrote 25+ short, non-fiction books, a dozen of which were for the horticultural industry. I also wrote two family histories and my memoirs, as well as books about astrology; overcoming creative blocks, writing family histories, face comparisons, handwriting, web design, poetry, Swedish-Finn recipes, home made feline diets, employee management, basics of contracts, sales and marketing, and probably more that I can’t recall at the moment. I didn’t turn back to fiction until 1989. I was then 38, and I wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, “Live to Tell.” It turned out to be a cathartic opus, the ending of a chapter in my life that was best laid to rest, and in 2010, I deleted it.
I continued to write non-fiction, but then in 2013, I also resumed working and completed several other Arden/Brahms novels: “Shades” (2014), “Delusions” (2015), “Reflections” (2016), “Spider in the Attic” (2019), Buried in the Peat – in English & French editions (2021), “The Man in the Drawer” (2023), “Death by Orchid” (2023), and The Bones of Creed Howlett (2024). And along the way I also wrote more non-fiction, including several books about face comparison, ear identification, handwriting forgery, one about decorative landscape etchings, and an English/Spanish guide to interior landscape maintenance. I currently have about a dozen more Arden/Brahms novels in various stages of completion, mainly “Oddities.” And I have two other novels partly mapped out, and who knows what may become of them?
People always ask me the same questions about writing: where I get my ideas, how I find time to write, and how long does it takes me to write a book. I begin by explaining that ideas are a dime a dozen and they are everywhere. When I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing, and that happens every day, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. But, I must further explain that not every seemingly “brilliant” idea I have is right for me or my writing style. I pick and choose, and most don’t make the cut. The ones I still think show promise make their way into my idea files where I add to them periodically or allow them to languish until I eventually put them out of their misery and delete them.
An idea is just an idea until it is developed into a story. For me, that means research. To me, research is where my ideas begin to take shape. To avoid becoming derivative, stale, repetitious, or stereotypical in my writing, I lean on the arm of research. In particular, with novels, research leads me to more original story concepts that I might not otherwise have even considered because I simply didn’t know of their existence.
As for finding time to write, I have always written every day, even when I was working full- or part-time jobs. I am very organized in my life, so that helps. But, I am also very goal-oriented, so I make sure that I set aside a certain amount of time every day to write. My minimum is one hour if I’m doing a project for someone else or have home improvement projects or art projects or activities planned with family and friends.
When I’m simply freelancing, I’m self-employed, and so I often write for at least 30 hours per week, writing almost every day. But I do try to set realistic goals for what I can achieve each day. If I know I only have time to write two pages that day, I write those two pages. If I can write for 30 minutes, I write for 30 minutes. I also type about 90-100 WPM, which allows for greater output in less time. Typing fast is a writer’s greatest tool besides a command of the English language.
So, how long does it take me to write a book? It’s never the same for any two books, or for any two authors. Some of my books have taken a long time, maybe 600 or more hours, and others 200 hours, which is about a month and is probably the bare minimum. But it can be hard for me to say how long most books take because, in general, I’m usually working on at least ten or more books that are in various stages of completion. I pick one to concentrate on until I finish it, but that doesn’t stop me from working on the others every now and again, especially when I suddenly get an idea for how to write a particular segment of a book or I figure out how to make something happen in the story. Also, most of my non-fiction is heavily illustrated (by me) and I typeset my own books to accommodate all those photos and drawings, etc. That means lots of non-writing hours of work. And, I’m not always writing books. I also have to work on writing articles, web pages, and contract templates, and I do art and design, as well as handwriting forgery detection and face and ear analysis and comparison.
I never miss an opportunity to write. I write on paper when I’m not at my desk and have an idea. I have something to write on with me and next to me almost all the time. I write mostly on my desktop computer in my home office, but back in the 1980s and 90s when I was traveling a lot, I wrote in other countries, in planes and airports, trains and train stations, buses and bus stations, hotels, campers and campgrounds, and at the homes of friends and family. I wrote many of my articles and books in spiral-bound notebooks and then later typed them up on my computer. I only print out my work when I’m going to do the final edit, and again when I proof it. I typically edit and rewrite a book at least four or five times before I’m done.
I do a lot of charts and maps to help me visualize where things are or how people are related. Each book shares at least one mention of a character from another book, and there is always one character from the fictitious Arden or Brahms families. I keep the Arden/Brahms family tree in my genealogy software and print out the part of the family that pertains to the story I’m writing. Then I scribble all over it, making notes everywhere. In most cases, the charts are almost completely unreadable by the time I’m done writing the book. Same with maps and other notes. A student in one of my writing classes commented on seeing some of these charts and maps that it was “an insight into your mind.” I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but you can decide from this family tree chart I used for “Reflections.”
I’m never blocked, not even for a second. I’m never bored or tired of writing. I never run out of things to write. I shift back and forth from one project to another based on which one I either want or need to finish first or that I have time to work on long enough to make headway on it. I don’t like to let more than one day pass without working on a project as I feel the flow of my work kind of lapses and it can be difficult to get it back if it does.
I almost never fail to complete a project because once I start an article or a book, I have already invested in sufficient research and planning to know that it will work. That said, I have had a book fall apart to the extent that I had to abandon it entirely. I was working on an Arden novel call “Bird Lady.” I loved the idea for it, I was very happy with my progress on it, and then it all fell apart when I realized I had made a very small yet fundamental plot error, and while I tried off and on for months to find a solution, I simply could not fix it. I kept several descriptive parts of the manuscript and used them in one of my other Arden novels.
