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Monday, April 30
Join the Wranglers in welcoming fellow Hoosier David Slegg on this last day of our month of special guests. I laughed as I read his post because--hey, to a girl who grew up on a farm, some of it sounded way too familiar!
First of all, I want to extend a great big country thank you
to Liz for inviting me to be a guest on WordWranglers. I thought I would just
share a little of my story and talk about the writing process from a debut
author's perspective.
The most taxing part of the process for me has been finding
time to balance all of my responsibilities. I don’t think it would be an issue
if each day consisted of 72 hours instead of 24. Besides freelance editing and
writing, I’m living on a working Angus cattle farm. We are currently in the
middle of calving season. The one thing you need to know about cattle is that
they do not care about any schedule that you have set up to accomplish a list
of tasks. In order to help clarify this point, I’ll share with you some of the
events of the past couple of days. Friday night, one of our very best cows gave
birth to a giant of a calf. Generally, a newborn calf is in the neighborhood of
70-80 pounds. This heifer was well over 100 pounds, making us wonder aloud how
she had managed to give birth without assistance. We found the cow and calf
just after she’d given birth and the calf was unable to stand. The night that
followed started out by driving the calf back to the farm and placing her in a
warm bath to get her core temperature back up. Once she seemed to be
stabilized, we used a hair dryer and towels to get her dried off and propped
her up using rolled up towels. We finished with this process around 1:30 am.
Someone got up to check on her every hour that night because she would die if
she flopped onto her side, being unable to breath properly. The next morning,
she seemed to have a little more life and we took her to be reunited with her
overly protective mommy, who thanked us by giving my brother-in-law an
unexpected moment of flight when she caught him with her head. In the end, she
didn’t make it. We’d spent most of a solid 24-hour period doing all we could
for her, but it just wasn’t to be. The birth had just been too traumatic for
the little gal. I had planned to spend Friday night and most of Saturday
writing for the series and working on this blog post, but when you live on a
cattle farm, things generally don’t end up going as planned.
First of all, I want to extend a great big country thank you
to Liz for inviting me to be a guest on WordWranglers. I thought I would just
share a little of my story and talk about the writing process from a debut
author's perspective.
When I moved back to the family farm late last year, I had
no idea how things were going to shake out. I'd started an editing business as
I finished up grad school in Boston, and one of my clients was the bestselling
romantic comedy and humorous mystery author, D.D. Scott. As we bounced ideas
off each other during a conversation this winter, we ended up deciding to
co-author a new series together with a bit of a twist.
The twist is that we decided to release the Stuck With A series in serial format.
We're still going to release the novels in the series via Amazon, B&N, etc.,
but we're also releasing them a chapter or two per week via subscription to a
Yahoo group. We chose this method for a couple of reasons. D.D. often gets
questions from her readers wondering when her next title will be available and
we looked around and didn't really see anyone else releasing indie novels in
serial format. To date, we've released a prequel and nine chapters of the first
novel, Stuck With A Stiff, to our
serial subscribers. So far, it’s going great.
D.D. and I settled on using Google Docs to collaborate on
this project. Because the master manuscript is constantly auto saved, we both
know that we are always looking at the most current version. I can’t imagine
what fiascos might result from passing a Word document back and forth. I have
found the process of writing with a co-author to be very exciting. We’re able
to bounce ideas off one another and help tighten up the each other’s scenes and
dialog. We have different voices, so the finished product is different than it
would sound if either of us were writing on our own. Working alongside an
established author such as D.D. Scott has proven to be invaluable to me as a
debut author, and that’s not just the creative side of the process. She is also
really great at utilizing social media to connect with readers. I’m getting a
real education on the fly.
The most taxing part of the process for me has been finding
time to balance all of my responsibilities. I don’t think it would be an issue
if each day consisted of 72 hours instead of 24. Besides freelance editing and
writing, I’m living on a working Angus cattle farm. We are currently in the
middle of calving season. The one thing you need to know about cattle is that
they do not care about any schedule that you have set up to accomplish a list
of tasks. In order to help clarify this point, I’ll share with you some of the
events of the past couple of days. Friday night, one of our very best cows gave
birth to a giant of a calf. Generally, a newborn calf is in the neighborhood of
70-80 pounds. This heifer was well over 100 pounds, making us wonder aloud how
she had managed to give birth without assistance. We found the cow and calf
just after she’d given birth and the calf was unable to stand. The night that
followed started out by driving the calf back to the farm and placing her in a
warm bath to get her core temperature back up. Once she seemed to be
stabilized, we used a hair dryer and towels to get her dried off and propped
her up using rolled up towels. We finished with this process around 1:30 am.
Someone got up to check on her every hour that night because she would die if
she flopped onto her side, being unable to breath properly. The next morning,
she seemed to have a little more life and we took her to be reunited with her
overly protective mommy, who thanked us by giving my brother-in-law an
unexpected moment of flight when she caught him with her head. In the end, she
didn’t make it. We’d spent most of a solid 24-hour period doing all we could
for her, but it just wasn’t to be. The birth had just been too traumatic for
the little gal. I had planned to spend Friday night and most of Saturday
writing for the series and working on this blog post, but when you live on a
cattle farm, things generally don’t end up going as planned.
The farm doesn’t just conspire to rework my schedule. It’s
also a source of inspiration. Stuck With A Stiff is a humorous mystery set
partly right here on this cattle farm. One of our cows is a professional escape
artist, and she was the inspiration for my character’s bovine arch nemesis. I’m
also using the farm to help brand myself as an author with by posting a Farm
Pic of the Day on my website and on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve gotten a lot of
positive feedback about the photos. Who doesn’t like to see cute little baby
calves running around?
Well, that’s a little glance into my world as a debut author
and cattle farmer. I hope you’ll come on over and join me in sharing a little
of my life down on the farm.
David Slegg’s Website: davidslegg.com
D.D. Scott’s Website: ddscottville.blogspot.com
About the Stuck With A
series: davidslegg.com/the-stuck-w-a-series-serial-novels
David’s Twitter: @davidslegg
Editing Site: theeditdude.com
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15 comments:
Thanks for coming, David. I SO enjoyed your post. I hope the serial idea works well for you and D.D.--and that the calves do well, too!
Welcome, David! The serial idea is unique; hope you have great luck with it! And I love the premise of the series.
Thanks for inviting me to guest blog today, Liz! I'm glad you enjoyed the post. I'm planning to use some of the incidents that happen around here in my fiction. Some of the things that take place here on the farm turn out to be entertaining if you're not the person who has to go through it in real life. You just can't make this stuff up.
Thanks again!
Thanks, Kristina! We're having a great time and getting a lot of positive feedback about the story and the format.
Good post! This reminds me of the old serial movies series that ended on a cliffhanger.
Hi David from another Hoosier. Love the cow bit, especially the escape artist. We lived behind a farmer with a similar problem. He showed up at our back door one morning asking if we'd seen his cow. I still giggle over that one. Good luck with your story. I'm sure you know serializing is how Dickens started. Great idea!
Wavin' atchy'all!
What a great post, David!!! Just terrific!!!
I'm havin' a ball co-writing the Stuck with a Series with you and can't wait to see what we think of next...
And I'm a huge fan of your Farm Pics of The Day!!!
Any of you who'd luuuvvv to join our Serial Novel Adventure, just c'mon over to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scottandsleggstuckwithaseries/?yguid=350839209
and we'll sign you up for FREE today!!!
Thanks, Ann! That's the idea.
Thanks, Allison.
Funny story about the cow. Yep, I'm that guy knocking on your door.
We do know about Dickens. We're actually advertising our serial as "D.D. Scott and David Slegg do Dickens."
Thanks, D.D.!
That's a great idea, partner.
Wow! and I thought I was busy! I lived near a farm a few years back and our neighbor had a stir crazy cow too. One day, hubby and I were sitting on the front porch when we saw him walking down the street in our subdivision. My husband laughed and said, "Now that's something you don't see every day." A few moments later, a police car drove past announcing on a bullhorn for everyone to stay in their homes. It was hilarious. Good luck on your book. It sounds like a fun read!
Great post! I love all of your farm pics too.......brings back lots of memories! I am really enjoying your serial e-book and look forward to each new chapter.
Great post! I love all of your farm pics too.......brings back lots of memories! I am really enjoying your serial e-book and look forward to each new chapter.
Thanks, Shawn!
We're loving the process of creating the story and we've gotten a lot of positive comments so far.
Wow. If they called the cops, that must have been one crazy cow. Some of them really are nuts.
Thanks!
I'm so happy that you're enjoying the story.
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