An Adventure: Conceiving, Writing, and Publishing "North"
This post originally appeared on my main website, amandalinehan.com, on May 3, 2017. It's been lightly edited.
I'm a little late on this, but I published a novel recently and I wanted to tell you all about it.
It’s called North and it’s about 19-year-old Jayne, who robs her employer and goes on the run. Along her journey she steals a guy’s car and he becomes her road buddy (his name is Jack), she plays a lot of poker, hangs out on the beach and, oh yes, is being chased by a cop who has been out to get her for a long time (this is Officer Savage, or just Savage for short, and she has a story all her own).
North is a story about being out on the road and having adventures but also about family, home and running away. Jayne has a lot she’d like to leave behind, but ultimately must decide if running will lead her where she wants to go.
North is available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook and is available at various retailers, subscription services, and libraries.
Long Commutes Are Great For Story Ideas
Jayne first appeared to me while I was in my car, which is extremely appropriate for a character who goes on a long road trip, but the truth is that I get a lot of story ideas in the car, whether they’re about road trips or not.
I had a pretty long commute to work for almost ten years (at least an hour each way) so there were lots of chances for fictional characters to introduce themselves to me. 🙂
I met Jayne probably five or six years ago, and she sort of swam around my head for a couple of years before I actually sat down to write her story.
She’d visit me on my commutes and show me what she was up to, and generally when Jayne appeared another person appeared too. Someone who was out to get her. Someone who was chasing her while she ran.
This person turned into Savage, and in my mind Savage was practically a machine–hard, cold, and completely obsessed with Jayne. I’m happy to say that as I actually wrote the story, Savage softened quite a bit and turned into an actual human being, although I would still say she’s obsessed with Jayne.
So that’s how this all got started–in the car. And like I said it was probably a couple of years–at least a year and a half–before I actually got Jayne and her story onto paper (or the screen, really).
My Journey With Jayne
I decided to write North (By the way, I think that was always the title. I don’t remember having a working title other than North.) during NaNoWriMo 2013. I hadn’t participated since 2009 and I was excited to try again.
I think I got about 28,000 words that November (North is about 66,000), so, not enough to “win” but a great start. And I finished it early in 2014, maybe in March or so, I don’t quite remember.
This was the first novel I had written completely without an outline, although I certianly had some ideas in my head, they just weren’t committed to paper. I thought that NaNoWriMo would be the perfect time to experiment with this and I got excited, and a little scared, and decided to try it.
So as Jayne and Jack meander their way up North, I meandered along with them. Asking myself only what would happen next with these characters and essentially taking my own journey along with them as they went about their road trip. And let me tell you, I had as much fun as they did.
I don’t remember getting stuck for too long in any one place. If anything I’d want to move things along and the characters would want to take their sweet time. The beach chapters were like that, which certainly makes sense, because I’d want to hang around the beach awhile too.
Anyways, at a certain point I had written the last word and I put North away for awhile, I just didn’t know at the time how long that “while” would be.
Guns Are Very Loud When You Shoot Them Indoors
I moved on to working on other stuff. I started a vampire novel, did some book covers, published a few short stories, etc, etc and then found myself wanting to return to North in late summer. I decided to try out the first few chapters with my local writing group to see what they thought.
I got some good feedback but one piece in particular I paid attention to. One member pointed out to me that in chapter 3 (I think) when Jayne shoots the gun inside her house, that the noise would be deafeningly loud.
I had no experience with guns and was glad for the information to increase the accuracy (I mean, it is fiction, but still). This member and I got to talking about some other stuff and decided to trade novels for a beta read and we finished up around six months later.
The gun information was still probably the most important I got and I always enjoy when I meet someone who can make my stories a little more accurate. That’s one thing my local writing group is great for–meeting other writers who have some kind of expertise that you don’t. There have been many times when someone has submitted something to the group and gotten some advice on a piece of their story that could be more accurate, which is really helpful.
Coming Home (or to Publication)
The next year and a half, I worked partly on North and partly on all the other things that indie authors do. I’m not totally sure why I was so slow in getting this published but there were lots of other things to do that would take priority at any given moment and I knew I’d get it up there eventually.
In late Summer 2016 I started the publication process with North including designing the cover. Once I got started it actually came together pretty fast and early in October it was available for purchase.
I have a tendency to spend my time in an intuitive way, meaning I use my intuition to go from one activity to the next or to tell me what my priorities are at any given time.
North should have been ready to go sometime in 2014, maybe early 2015, but for whatever reason the adventure didn’t begin until late in 2016. Maybe there’s some reason for that, I don’t know, but I do know that taking a journey ultimately means that you don’t control the journey. Things come at you from the side, something else takes your attention, maybe you spend some time meandering, but in any case, you eventually arrive at the end.
The end of the journey for me with North is, of course, the beginning of the journey for the reader with North. So we all begin at the end, or end at the beginning. Or something.
Amanda Linehan is a multi-genre fiction writer and indie author. She has published 13 titles since 2012. Get a free, exclusive short story, The Sommer House, when you sign up for her fiction newsletter.