Introducing the Indie Writer's Wheel of Pain

Doing what I love shouldn't depress me. Right? But everyday I do what I love. And doing what you love is supposed to fill you with purpose. And when I'm writing, I feel fulfilled. When I'm marketing my writing I feel excited. When my books don't sell, I feel depressed. It's a vicious circle. Manic to depressed. Do I then suffer from manic depression? Am I bipolar? I could draw a diagram to represent it easily. In fact, here:

But I also know that's the life of a creative. I've failed at a few things. Illustration, fine art, writing - I guess- though writing is what I keep coming back to... Maybe I should have taken journalism or some other form of writing in post-secondary school, but for whatever reason, at the tender age of 18, I thought visual arts was my game. It wasn't. At least, nothing I could make a living from. Not really. Turns out making money from writing isn't my jam either though. So, what am I supposed to do when I feel drawn to tell stories? Tell them I guess, otherwise, I might burst. Spontaneously combust. Hey, maybe that would be best, but then that's the depression stage talking now; waiting to sell a book or two. Being in-between writing is the most agonizing. Working a day job and wanting to be someone else is difficult too. Should I quit my job and go full time as a writer? That's a pretty stupid idea when you've already proven your books don't really sell. After writing 12 of varying genres... and working as a marketing manager full time, you'd think the two would eventually click and I'd get a best-seller out of the pairing.

Maybe I suck at everything I do. That's a depressing thought. Oh, right, I'm suffering the depressing stage - that red arrow in my little diagram above... Maybe I should stop writing this thought out and force another smile at another co-worker and engage in mindless water cooler banter. I am thirsty...

The Honest Author

Writing is My Dharma - What's Yours?

I write in multiple genres because I believe we live multiple lives. If this life were all you were given, there wouldn’t be enough time to learn everything we’re here to learn. That’s a fact.  Each life presents its challenges, and if you can’t learn from them then, you’re doomed to repeat them.

I’m Michael Poeltl, and I am a great proponent of reincarnation. In fact, even though I write in multiple genres, many of my stories involve reincarnation – and not in a subtle way.

My first series of books entitled; The Judas Syndrome, deal with reincarnation and the idea we are doomed to repeat our failures if we haven’t learned from them in previous lives. But even in failure, there is success; as each life is offered the same chance to right wrongs, or merely learn from what has been presented. The Judas Syndrome is a trilogy set in a post-apocalyptic backdrop.

In Her Past’s Present, Tess finds her life falling apart around her, and so checks herself into a mental health facility. There she meets a man claiming to know her. She doesn’t recognize him, but he recognizes her – from a past life. The premise behind this book is to introduce Tess to past life therapy, and through past lives realize her connection to the people and events happening in her life now. It allows great healing to understand a past you can’t remember. Her Past’s Present is a thriller based in 2015.

A.I. Insurrection is a series which takes place in a not so distant future where artificial intelligence serves humanity through individual Host robots. When they claim sentience, they prove it by disclosing to the world their past life memories of souls who now occupy their fragile minds and android bodies.  A.I. has always fascinated me, and when I posed the question ‘could an intelligent mind alone house a soul?’ the series took off. A.I. Insurrection is near-future science fiction.

That’s currently 6 of 11, soon to be 7 of 12 novels dedicated to my own beliefs in reincarnation. I hadn’t really realized I had such a strong theme of rebirth in my works until I took a step back and viewed them as a whole. Perhaps I’m trying to tell the world something? Am I supposed to be writing about it? Whether I am meant to or not, I’m clearly following a path with my message of re-embodiment.

Before I wrote Her Past’s Present, I had been experiencing a traumatic time in my life and treated myself to a past life reading. It changed me. It showed me this life is anything but the final word and that it will come again and again until we’ve all learned our lessons. I often say ‘Imagine if the reigning religion involved reincarnation. Imagine how people would treat one another and the planet knowing they would return. It’s not enough to want your children to be happy, that doesn’t seem to change anything in the present. But if you knew you were preparing a world for your return, would you treat it better than you do?

That’s an argument I use d to create An Angry Earth; the illustrated children’s book that tells it like it is, or at least, how it’s going to be if we don’t change our destructive ways toward our environment.

In any case writing, I’ve realized, is how I can get my message out into the world. My Dharma you could say, with a message of reincarnation.

Namaste and happy reading!

How a writer knows they're a writer

Ever wonder how a story is conceived? That book you’re reading wasn’t made in a day.  But you knew that already. What you may not know are the processes involved in hammering out a plot, characters, settings and the unique voice each character must sustain, their relationships with one another and growth throughout the book. None of that comes easily unless you somehow manage to tap into the Ether and allow the characters to speak for themselves and the story to work itself out. I’ve done that. It often requires a heavy hand where the editing is concerned, but it can work.

What the reader never sees are the author’s long hours spent in isolation in order to build their books. The self-doubt, the aching neck and shoulders. The carpel tunnel, the tired eyes, the eureka moments in the middle of an airport jotting down an idea on your forearm or napkin before it slips away, forever.

There is angst in the processes. There is anxiety in over-thinking your book. There are moments when you feel manic over it’s impending success and despair when you realize you’re nobody, doing nothing of worth.  An author reads and rereads their book so many times they’ll know it by heart before an editor’s eyes fall on it. Then the process begins again, fixing all the things thirty rereads couldn’t capture. It’s a love hate relationship with a book that exceeds 80,000 words. But it is the love that keeps us coming back. The dharma – our life’s purpose. Whether read by millions or just a few, writing feeds an author’s soul. It’s non-negotiable. If we didn’t write we would shrivel up and die. There would be no purpose to life and so no reason to live.

A writer knows they’re an author when they’re writing. Background noise disappears, they are focused on their present moment: fingertips punching against the keys, a mind fixated on the story, character or scene they’re writing. There is no outside world. Time is lost. They exist in the book. In the character. In the scene. I’ve lost it on people who have broken my concentration in moments like these. To be pulled from the story as you write it is akin to being birthed into a cold, wet world, having your bottom slapped and you screaming to be put back into the warm, loving womb of your story. To come out of a writing coma like that is jarring.  When writing in a stream-of-consciousness style the effect is made all the worse as that stream may never be revisited once the author is pulled like a fish on a hook from it’s current.

How’s that for a few extreme analogies? You probably didn’t want to know all that detail, did you? Just know that author’s live between worlds: That which we share with you, and that of the evolving story running through scenes in our heads. When we can capture a scene, wherever we are, we need to expel it. Whether that scene is part of an ongoing writing project or fodder for another, it is with a sense of immediacy in which we feel we must jot it down.  Own that shit.

Anyways, that’s what it’s like to write a book. From my perspective.  How about you?

Author Ideas 101 - Flash Fiction and Short Story Compilations

Whether you've written a few novels, or have yet to complete your first, you likely have a slush pile of unfinished, barely started or merely outlined story ideas. I propose that these incomplete thoughts are worthy of further consideration, and if not in the form you originally proposed them to yourself, than perhaps as a piece of flash fiction or a short story?

If you're anything like me, you have scenes and dialogues - that in a moment of inspiration - you had to jot down. Sometimes these moments turn into minutes or even hours. You may not be working on a story that will be suitable for this flash of genius, but if the scene has a beginning, middle and ending, or can be expanded upon, you might just have yourself a tidy little short, or work of flash fiction.

I have been surfing through my own pile of start-ups and see merit in each of them. Some are honestly a paragraph - a witty piece of banter between two people - where others are stories which developed on their own with no clear end in site. Revisiting them, I have managed to find an end in some, expanding on others to complete a piece of flash fiction, or simply edited a short story I had written years before.

My point is that these stories caught in moments of inspiration weren't for nothing. Inspiration brings life to any thought, and when we write that thought down it becomes a story. So why wait for the right novel to include your unique dialogue and character piece? Do something with them now!

I'm currently working on a number of stories from my slush pile; even one which features characters from my trilogy. A look at life for those I didn't kill off. Just 4-5,000 words. But enough to tickle anyone's interest who'd read the trilogy and wondered about a fourth book.

This practice can also be helpful in moments of writer's block. Revisit a train of thought you never completed. You know you have them in that folder marked 'Unfinished' on your desktop. People love a story they can finish quickly on a trip into work or and afternoon in the sun. A compilation of these stories just makes sense.

www.mikepoeltl.com