Dear Hugh Howey

Original: Essay

I’m indie writer Teague de La Plaine, author of the bestselling Sea at Sunrise and other stories. This is my weekly newsletter, where I talk about writing and self-publishing in addition to my own life. I keep the newsletter free, because I prefer you spend your money on my books.

Dear Hugh Howey,

Once upon on a time, I spent twenty years writing my first novel. I thought I was getting “too old” to write (haha!) and decided to go to war instead.

Landing in Bahrain and waiting a week for a C-130 to take me to Baghdad (I’m serious, I really decided to go to war), I realized it was too hot to fight anyone and I should take another look at writing that novel. I had brought my trusty Google Pixel C with it’s awesome keyboard case and was ready to get to work.

I had just made my first honest-to-goodness switch from Apple (steady beau since 2004!) to Google and I was in lust. Writing in Google Docs was so easy and I could share it with my editor (someday!) so much more easily than Apple’s wonky online editing feature (they’ve improved since 2017, but Docs is still better). And the cost? I couldn’t believe how expensive Apple things had become over the years. Google was perfect, especially for my growing family. Little kids love to break things, especially Apple products. I had flirted with a Nexus 7 tablet in 2014, but this time I was going Full Google (Pixel C and Nexus 5 phone along with Google Fi mobile service)—if I could just get the Wifey (aka Sugar Momma) on board.

But I’m not writing to you about Google devices and services. And by now I’m back fully in the Apple ecosystem (I know, I know). No, I’m writing to you about writing.

Anyway, I really had no direction, just a messy half-draft/half-outline of a pretty good story with some cool characters (hey, I liked them!). Actually, before this work-in-progress, I had written a bunch of flash fiction, short stories, and unfinished tales that had started appearing around the time I launched into puberty (which my grandfather didn’t believe was a thing). But this isn’t about that either. It’s about struggling to finish something.

I was struggling to finish a draft.

Blame family. Don’t blame family.

Blame the Marines. Thank the Marines.

(The 3am rocket attack was great inspiration?)

Photo credit: Christopher Michel (Hey! I love Patagonia too!)

But what was even more inspiring was your writing advice. Actually, before I discovered your writing advice (or your writing or even you) I read an anecdotal story about Robert Ludlum. The story goes that he was always bitching and moaning to his wife about never writing his books and hating his job. He bitched and moaned for more than forty years (during half of those years his wife had to listen to it) and his wife had finally had enough. After years of acting and producing in the New York theater scene, and a few years in the Marines fighting in the Pacific, Ludlum needed a change.

“Either write your books, or shut up,” his wife told him (I’m paraphrasing). Amusingly, this is exactly what my wife told me after listening to me complain about wanting to be a “writer.”

So, if Robert Ludlum could start writing in his forties, I could certainly start in my late thirties. And the Marines had given me exactly the time and space to do it.

But that doesn’t mean I knew what I was doing. Enter Hugh Howey (that’s you).

If any of you knows Hugh personally, please forward this to him. Actually, if you know anyone personally, please forward this!

I discovered WOOL as I tore through book after book on my Kindle (war deployments offer a lot of free time, just read Catch 22 to see what it’s really like) and I went down a path of reading everything you published. Then I went to your blog and read all of that—and guess what I discovered hidden away there on your website? Yes! Your writing and publishing advice!

And I didn’t just read it. I totally procrastinated on my own writing and spent hours copying and pasting your advice into a document that I formatted and printed and bound in a folder as my Writing Bible. You are seriously my savior. And I not only put it on my desk next to my Pixel C, but I actually read it over and over.

Love,

Sincerely,

Your fellow writer,

Just another Pen Monkey, (keep this for a future letter to Chuck Wendig)

Thanks for listening reading,

Teague

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