Path Of Least Resistance / Happenings In The Outhouse 26-Sept-2025

When I first started down the self-publishing path, there was a lot of trial and error.  More so than I care to admit, and much of that is between me, myself, and I.

Wait, let's back up.  To the beginning . . .

Yes, that far back.  When I first got an inkling, an inner spark, that I wanted to be a writer.  That urge to see my books on bookshelves, and in bookstores around the world.  Okay, maybe that's going back a bit too far, since that was 2nd grade and I was around seven.  Let's push the clocks ahead to my first few college years at Bemidji State University.  That was when I first started to get serious about being a writer.  I had a goal of writing one page a day.  That's it.  Then it was a bigger goal to finish the darn thing.  And I did.  It was a 1000-page behemoth of a novel in the horror genre (way too long, I know, but what did I know back then?).  Then I studied the market and sent query letters out to literary agents.

Want to know what I did next while I waited for agents to get around to reading my queries?  I started the next novel.  It ended up being another 1000-page behemoth, but the writing and finishing was easier this time around.  Why?  Because I had already done it.

With 38 individual works that I have self-published at this point, I have learned a lot and have set things up to make each story easier than the previous.  Since there is a standard template, that's where I start each new story.  I don't have to reinvent the wheel.  It's already done.  The path of least resistance.

And when it comes time to publish each new work, I already have the files set up and I have a checklist of what needs to be done.  Easy peasy.

As time goes on for the next quarter and beyond, I will slowly be adding things to do.  Easy things that have the path of least resistance.  I love learning new things, but I'm taking it one at a time, not overwhelming.  If it was, I'd probably procrastinate.

Rule Two: Finish What You Are Writing / Happenings In The Outhouse 11-April-2025

My first novel I ever completed was while I was in college at Bemidji State University.  Prior to that, I started many stories, but it wasn't until then that I actually finished one.

This is rule number two: finish what you are writing.

Again, seems like a simple concept (and it is), but you would be amazed at how few people actually finish it.

It was a huge sense of accomplishment when I finished my first novel.  It was something I remembered, and it was in late November 1994.  I have finished many novels and shorter works since then.  But I always make a point of finishing what I'm starting.

Finding Support / Happenings In The Outhouse 04-Feb-2022

Who has your back?

You have been working on something for a long time--or there is something you have been putting off and now is the time to get it started.

It doesn't matter what it is.  A project for the home.  A side business.  Getting in shape.  Furthering your education.  Moving forward in your grief.  And the list goes on . . .

Whatever it is, you may find yourself asking who has your back?  Who is supporting you?

First, let me tell you that you should be supporting you.  You should be the one to put the full weight of your decision into whatever it is that is driving you.  Letting others in, especially at an early stage, may be disastrous.

But this depends on who it is that you are letting in.

Find one who will be both honest and positive.  They should be an encouragement to you.  If something is completely unrealistic--like, if I wanted to be the next great NFL quarterback, when I've never played football and I could care less about the sport--the feedback should be something you should take to heart.  But if you have been in the business world for a few decades and want to advance your career by going for an MBA, that is more realistic.

It may be difficult to find the right one to support you.  But, if you trust in God, the support will be found for you.

But as a first step, give yourself grace, be positive, and be your number one supporter first.

25 years ago, two amazing events occurred / Happenings In The Outhouse 29-Nov-2019

Twenty-five years ago, the movie Interview With The Vampire came out in the theaters.  It is the only--and I mean ONLY--movie I have ever seen more than once in the theater.  Not including the re-releases of any Star Wars movie, of course.  But even those, I have only seen once in the theater.  At home, I have watched them a lot more.

There are a few Netflix series/movies I have watched more than once, however, but that doesn't count either.

The release of Interview With The Vampire isn't what came to mind with the two events--oh, by the way, I watched the movie four times in the theater!  Yes, four!  It was released on November 11, 1994.  The only reason this date comes to mind is because I went to this movie to celebrate the completion of my first novel.  It was a 1,000-page behemoth of horror fiction.  I have met so many people in my life who have wanted to write a novel and never do it.  Well, at that point, I did it.

The second (and better!) amazing event occurred just after Thanksgiving at Bemidji State University.

There was this cute brunette I had noticed for quite some time and she worked as a dispatcher for the campus security.  Campus security was also housed right across from the stairs leading up to the cafeteria.  On the day in question, Mike, a friend of mine, said he was going to ask her out.  Feeling defeated, I made my way into the cafeteria.  Minutes later, he sat down.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"She shot me down."

Okay.  Maybe she had a boyfriend.  Maybe . . . well, I thought of a million reasons why I shouldn't ask her out--the number one reason was that I was a first-rate chicken shit (sorry for the profanity, but I was deathly scared to talk to women, even though I had friends who were girls; I know, go figure, right?)

After eating, I made my way down and saw a guy I knew from Tae Kwon Do who happened to be working at the security office along with the cute brunette.  So, taking a deep breath, I walked in and talked with him.

Then, I said hello to the brunette.  I must've stood there and talked with her for over an hour.  Her name was Melissa, although most called her Missi.  We gradually became friends over the course of the next few months.  By August 1995, we decided to take it to the next level and start dating.  Almost two years after that . . . we were married.

And have been happily married for over 22 years since then.

The mentality of the first novel

I'm very proud of completing my first novel back in November 1994.  It was a crowning achievement, of which I celebrated by going out to the movie Interview with the Vampire, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt--honestly I saw the movie four times in the theater; something I had never done with any other movie before or after.  Not even any of the Star Wars movies (although I have probably seen Star Wars: A New Hope close to a hundred times on video).

The day before I completed my first novel, I achieved a total of 1,000 pages (these were Brother word processor pages, where the word count is much less when compared with that of today's Microsoft Word).  I celebrated that by going out to the bar, Bottom's Up, in Bemidji.

I came back early that night, just a little buzzed.  I was alone.  Well, not really.  I had the characters in my head who just wanted me to finish the damn story.  Which I did the following morning.  Then I saw the movie.

Celebration.

Looking back on it now, I couldn't believe how much stuff I put into my first novel--a deer hunting horror story, an homage to my second favorite author, Stephen King (my favorite author is yours truly).

When I calculate the approximate word count nowadays, I come up with between 175,000 to 200,000 words.  *Gulp!*  If it was a fantasy novel, that would be about right.  But this was a horror story.  It was complex.

But a bit too complex.

I threw everything, inlcuding the kitchen sink, into it.

Why?  Because the mentality of the first novel is that everything needs to go into it.  Throughout history, there are authors who have struck gold with one novel.  Harper Lee, J. D. Salinger, and William Peter Blatty come to mind, in that regard.

The best advice on first novels is NOT to throw everything into it.  Hold back.  Only put in what it necessary for the story, and that's all.

Because there are always other books to write.

Create sawdust

You open the door to the workshop.  The master woodworker is busy at his bench, sanding down the finishing touches on his latest creation.

"So, you want to become a master, do you?" he asks.

"Yes, sir."

"Any questions before we begin?"

You rub your hands together.  "Yes, sir.  What's the key to it all?  How can I become a master woodworker like yourself?  There must be one thing you can tell me."

"There is," he says.  "And it is simple."

"I knew it," you say, excited to finally hear the secret to the master woodworker's success.  "Please share, sir.  What is it?"

"Create sawdust," he says.

"What?!?  Create . . . sawdust?  What do you mean by that, sir?"

"In order to become a master," he says, "you need to put in the work . . . and create sawdust.  Lots of it."

What irritates me about a lot of Q & A sessions authors have with fans and/or wanna-be writers is that everyone thinks there's some magical key to success.  "How do I create scenes that resonate with my readers?"  "How can I increase the tension in my story?"  "How can I make my characters more believable?"  And on and on . . .

Writing advice can be broken down into six simple words: read a lot, write a lot.  That's it.  In other words, as with the master woodworker story above, you need to create sawdust.  What you write in the beginning isn't a masterpiece, so don't treat it as such.  Just write.  Write as if you're practicing for the big story.

Create sawdust.

Write.  A lot.

If you read a lot of stories, you'll know how good stories are put together--and you'll also recognize how bad writing is . . . well, bad.  But don't just study stories, you also need to write them.  I learned a lot about writing back in college when I wrote my first novel.  Some of it I didn't recognize until years later (yes, I thought it was a masterpiece at the time).

If you want to become a successful write, then write.  Create sawdust.  You can't reuse sawdust and make a bird house or tool chest or even a house.  It's throwaway wood.  But it doesn't matter.  Write anyway.

The world depends on it.  The world needs you.

So write.  Today.  Create the equivalent to sawdust.

Happenings In The Outhouse 15-Nov-2013 / A strange thing happened while deer hunting

My first novel--a deer hunting horror story--was, by all conversative accounts, a 200,000 word novel.  I wrote it back in college, Bemidji State University, and I completed the first draft roughly nineteen years ago this month.

There were a lot of things wrong with this novel.  Most of which I didn't realize until several years later.  I still learned many lessons with that first novel, ones I still carry with me to this day.

As I sat in the deer stand this past Saturday--for Minnesotans, this time of year is practically a statewide pasttime for many of the forests and fields are littered with spots of blaze orange--I thought about this story.

Then I came up with a plan to rewrite it.  Completely.  From scratch.

The basic story is still good, but it was way too long.  I also had so many plotlines running through it, I failed to utilize the K.I.S.S. principle: Keep It Simple Stupid.  Now, this story may not even be written (over from scratch) in 2014 for I have tons of other projects in the works.  By all accounts, I'm probably looking at a 2015 date to work on this.

Sitting in the deer stand with my son, I also came up with a few other story ideas: a new mystery/suspense series, based on a character I wrote about in a short story in my novelette Guest of Honor, and another story that I'm calling Wild Hogs meets Duck Dynasty.  Right now that's all I'm going to say about that--about either one.

I've started editing Shadowkill.  I'm only on the fourth chapter at this point, out of an overall 50+, but things are going well so far.

Help! I have stories in my head that need to get out!

Last week, I saw a Facebook post where the person said something like, "Help!  I have stories in my head and I have a full-time job!  How do I get started?"

I sometimes forget that there are other people who are not as far ahead in their writing process as I.  Some have never started--or worse, don't even know where to start.

Let's start with the notion you have lots of stories and don't know which one to pick.  Here's what I suggest: sit down with a blank piece of paper and write down as many of the ideas as you can.  Some will be more fully-formed than others.  If this takes more than one day, so be it.

When you've exhausted your list, you'll also find that you're creating room for even more.  This is the fun part of writing: coming up with new ideas.  Be a magnet for new ideas.  Also, find an easy way to collect those ideas, be it a notebook or "Stickie" or Smartphone.  Trust me, you'll want to write these down.

Look over your list.  Pick a half-dozen (or less) that really jump out at you.  There will be at least one.  Once you've narrowed the list down, ask yourself which one is the most fully-formed.  If there are none, just pick one.  I don't care how: flip a coin or draw straws or the old eenie-meanie-miney-moe.

Now that you have your story chosen, sit down and write.  Set a daily goal or x amount of words or pages.  Write your accomplishments down on a calendar so you can track your progress.  I don't care if you have a full-time job and three kids.  At one time, when my now fourteen-year-old son was born, I worked three jobs: one full-time and two part-time.  I don't recommend it, for there were days I worked literally twenty-four hours straight.

And yet I still wrote.

You can do it.  Write for fifteen minutes to start with.  Then expand it to more.

Yes, you can do it.  It doesn't matter what it looks like.  The craft of writing will get better with practice over time.

Down to the home stretch - how are your goals for 2012?

For 2012, I had a total of 11 separate goals.  And of those goals, I've accomplished a solid 5 so far.

What are they?  Sorry, my goals are something I keep to myself, although you may guess one of them: finish editing Beholder's Eye.  Yes, I can mark that one off the list.  To publish it was another one.  Even though I didn't accomplish that one doesn't mean I'm a failure.  On the contrary, I've accomplished much.

Now with the holiday season looming ahead and the rest of the head coming at us like a freight train, how are your 2012 goals shaping up?  Don't kick yourself for not getting to all of them.  In fact, if you did accomplish them, you either didn't have as many goals as you should have or your goals weren't audacious enough.

Think big for 2013.

What if one of your goals is to publish your novel and all you did was write the first draft and get to a second editing round?  I think that's a huge accomplishment even for tackling such a goal.

Dust off your list of 2012 goals.  Let's take these last one and a half months and work to achieve something.  You can do it.

The Perpetual Bell Curve Of Becoming A Published Writer

You've all seen a bell curve:

Imagine a smaller bell curve at the very right edge of each larger curve.  This is what the path to publication looks like, and for those who make the population is quite small when compared to the bell curve just before it.

Because that's where the quitters are.

Okay, let's examine each curve.  The first one is quite simple: those on the far end are those who actually want to write and will make the effort to do so--this works with any type of business venture.

Next comes the ideas.  If you make it past that and don't quit, let's write the first draft.

Did you complete it?  Congratulations!  You are a very small minority of people who have taken the time to put down words to paper (even virtually).

How many people have that first written novel in a drawer for years and years, never to see the light of day again?  Many.  Okay, let's take it out and polish it up.  This is called editing.

If you complete that, you've cleared another hurdle and you owe yourself another congratulations.

(Are you seeing a pattern here?  The curve is not the amount of people in that space.  It's a mountain, a hurdle you must cross.  And the more you cross, the easier the next one is to be.)

Once you are past that, you find yourself at the publishing hurdle.  Unfortunately, this one is quite large when compared to the rest.  And this is where most people, if they make it past the rest, stop and quit.

Don't quit.  Do everything you can to get it published.  Or work on another project, which will come easier than the first.

Clear the hurdles.

Do it today.

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What I did wrong with the use of flashbacks in my first novel.

Keeping on task with our talk about flashbacks, let me be the first to admit that in my first novel--the deer hunting horror story I wrote back in college--I used a lot of flashbacks.  And I mean a lot.  In the first three chapters!

The bulk of the book was relatively flashback-free, but I used up my store of flashbacks in the first three chapters, with three alone in the first chapter.

A huge no-no!

Okay, I know this now, but I didn't then.

In the editing process, I've eliminated most of them from these chapters and have sprinkled a few to later chapters.  When I plan on going through this book again--when, I have no idea, but it's fair to say that it'll be years before that book will ever see publication--I'll chop it up even more and strike . . . well, all of them.  Looking at it now, all of the flashbacks I used were amateurish and completely useless to the telling of the story.

The lost art of learning for yourself - part 3

Welcome to part 3 in exploring the lost art of learning for yourself.

When I first posted this a few weeks ago, I received such an overwhelming response that I decided to delve further into this subject.

Back at college, I started writing my first novel . . . the first one that I finished.  Prior to this, I had started several over the years, but didn't get much more than 20-30 pages done before quitting.  Looking back, I'm not sure why I quit.  Some of the stories are good--they'd need a lot of refining, though, so they'll sit on the back burner for a number of years.

My first novel was a deer hunting horror story--something that was a pure homage to Stephen King, my second favorite author (yours truly is number one).  When I started it, I decided that it would take me five years to write.  Given that I was going to school, I felt this was a decent time frame, but in looking at it now, five years is WAY to long to write the first draft of a novel.

At the same time, I read a number of books about Stephen King and what his life was like, how he wrote, and the story of his success.  This was even before his monumental book On Writing.  So, as you can see, I was already taking the initiative on studying successful people in the field I wanted to be in AND I was setting a goal on how I wanted to get there.

Who, today, has achieved the level of success you've dreamed of in the field of work you wish to participate in?

You can even go beyond this and explore the biographies of any number of famous/successful people.  Their achievements should inspire you.

Follow your dreams - but first, let's sacrifice something

What are you willing to give up in order to follow your dreams and succeed?

Watching TV?  Playing video games?  Reading, even?  Sitting your fat butt in the recliner, working on countless Sudoku puzzles?  Listening to music or the mindless political drones on the radio or 24/7 cable news channel?

Whatever it may be, you will have to sacrifice something in order to win.  Let me say it again: you WILL have to sacrifice something.  It is a must.  If you don't, whatever that thing is that's getting in the way is more important than your success.

But, Mark, come on.  I need to watch the next Law and Order and then Pawn Stars.  Oh, I can't forget about the five hours of reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond.  Whatever will I do with my life if I can't watch them?

If that sounds familiar, then watching TV is far more important than getting your life in order and accomplishing something that only less than 5% of the population is willing to do.

I challenge you.  Be the 5% and succeed.

Who knows, maybe you'll end up better than the 5% and be one of the so-called 1%.  Just think what good you can do in the world if you accomplished that level of success.

Examine your day and find out what's blocking you, what keeps you procrastinating . . . then step over that wall (because it's a short wall) and go what it is you are meant to do.

This crazy little thing called Writer's Block

I rarely get writer's block nowadays.

But it's an event that occurs in a writer's mind that causes them to stumble and seize up their writing.

Was I always this way?  Oh, no.  What did I do to remedy it?  Let's explore . . .

In the infancy of my writing career--we're talking in elementary school years now--I used to write the first few pages of a new novel, and for whatever reason I'd quit.  I never really understood it.  In seventh grade, my parents bought me an old black typewriter (yes, you heard right, a typewriter) that had to weigh close to fifty pounds.  (Watch the Stephen King movie Misery to get an idea on what it looked like).  I wrote about thirty or more pages, single-spaced, of a ninja trilogy.  The weird part is I had the entire trilogy all laid out in my head but I stopped at those thirty-plus pages.  I never did anything else with it, and it had nothing to do with writer's block.  I just didn't think the story was worth writing.  I didn't think anyone but me would want to read it.  But who knows what the distant future will bring . . .

My earliest recollection of writer's block was in college.  I was working on a deer hunting horror story--the first novel I ever completed (see a previous blog on how I celebrated this milestone)--when in one of the first few chapters I didn't know how to go on.  At one in the morning, I was getting pretty tired even though I still didn't go to bed.  I continued to write for a few more minutes, not really paying attention to what I was writing, when all of a sudden I wrote something I never intended to write.  It was like someone else's hands were on the keyboard.  I stopped.  I had no idea where to go from here.  Yawning and finally feeling the affects of sleepiness, I went to bed, the story rolling around and around in my head like tumblers on a safe.

In a flash, I awoke and the rest of the chapter appeared before my eyes.  Could I wait to write this until morning?  Not a chance.  I spent the next hour (it must've been after two in the morning at this point) writing the rest of the chapter.

How else can one handle writer's block?  Start with a different viewpoint.  In my first novel, I actually wrote one chapter from the point of view of a white-tailed deer.  What else?  In the thriller I'm currently editing, right in the middle of the book, when I was going to bridge the gap between the murder investigation with a plot-twist that upped the stakes on a more personal level, I had the main character be involved in a traffic accident that landed him in the hospital.  I didn't really plan this either.  It just happened.

Writer's block may also be solved by simply writing something else, starting a new project, or even reading a book--I know we're all reading, but how much is a topic for another blog.

What are your writer's block stories?

Quit Standing In The Mud

At what point does one stop working on their current project (one they've been working on for several years) before they should move on to the next thing?

"But Mark," you say, "I know this is a great story.  If I can just spend the next five years, I know I can get it right."

Sometimes we have to let go and set aside what we're working on and go forth with a new and fresh idea.

The same can be said about writing the first draft of your novel.  When I wrote my very first novel (a 1,000-page horror story I wrote back in college) I remember writing the first three chapters.  Each chapter introduced a different character.  Then, when I finished with the third chapter, I went back to the first one and expanded it.  And expanded it.  And expanded it.

Did I say that I expanded it?

My first chapter ended up to be 50 pages long.  Holy cow!  There were two or three flashbacks, even.  Not a good thing.  But I couldn't get past it until I thought it was perfect.  Then, I made an amazing discovery.  I needed to just write the story, right to the end, without going back and perfecting anything.  So, I spent the next 18 months doing so, spending a lot of late nights and missing (I'm sure) a few parties along the way.  But did I mind?  No way.  I learned a lot about that process, about setting a goal of finishing that first draft without looking back.

What are you waiting for?  Quit standing in the mud, squishing your feet into the wet earth, and get moving.

Write!  Write today!  Don't wait . . . because if you do, you'll get stuck in the mud.  Make the commitment to get out of the mud, because it's nothing but a stagnant pool of failed dreams and lost potential.

Celebrating the completion of a (bigger) goal

Back in college--oh, so many eons ago it seems--I wrote my first book. It was an enormous feat, one that pushed me to every limit imaginable. The book was 1,000 pages long and written on an old Brother word processor. Now, a grand worth of pages is a ton of paper (I printed and put it in three 3-ring binders) and as it took roughly 4 minutes a page . . . you get the idea on how long it took.

Writing the first draft of this first novel was not only an enormous feat, it will be one that will live with me forever. And not just because I finished something that not very many people could do. It was because at that time I met who would eventually become my wife, Melissa.

Sure, I could go on to tell you that we fell in love at first sight (okay, it was for me - not quite sure about her though, as this geeky-looking guy was talking to her as she was working the security desk at the college campus security) and we started dating right then and there. Sorry to disappoint you but I was a major chicken shit. We didn't start "going out" until about nine months later.

So, my friends, how did I celebrate the completion of my first novel?

The year was 1994 and Interview with the Vampire had just been released in the movie theater. Up to this point, I had already seen it twice. But let me back up. This first novel was just a hair over 1,000 pages. On the night I hit the 1,000-page mark, I went out to the bar. My friend Kregg, who bore the nickname Towers on account of his massive height and build (he played football for the BSU Beavers), was bartending. After a few drinks, I looked around the bar. It was damn-near empty. Hell, this was a Friday night. Where was everyone? What I didn't know was that Fridays (at around 9PM) were usually pretty dead. Many go home for the weekends, and besides the crowd seemed to come in around 11PM or so.

Anyway, I said farewell to my friend and went back to my dorm, where I wrote a few more pages before retiring. I woke up the next morning, finished the book, and asked myself, "Okay, how am I going to celebrate now?"

That afternoon, I watched Interview with the Vampire for the third time. By myself. Pitiful, to say the least, but my other friends went home that weekend and the chicken shit that I was couldn't ask out my future wife.

(Oh, by the way, I watched that movie a total of four times - not sure if I've ever done that since.)

How do you celebrate a first draft? Or whatever bigger goal you set before yourself?

Stephen King once said that when he finished writing one of his books (sorry, I can't remember which one), he went out to McDonald's and had a St. Patrick's Day shake.

Whatever you decide, mark the time with a little celebration. You don't need a huge round of fireworks or a weekend-long drunk fest. Just do something special for yourself. You deserve it. Then, get right back to work . . . because we still have a lot to accomplish.