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Thank you for reading all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed the second installment of The SPOOK & GOON Space Adventures series.
I finished Invasion of the Frorees with a final 30-minute writing sprint on the morning of January 31. After thirteen days of inspiration, I wanted to keep the momentum going. I sat down over lunch that afternoon and dove right in on what would become Escape of the Glitter Princess.
Aside from a vague idea of the trio saving a princess tossed around with my mentor, Ramy Vance, I didn’t have much idea of what would happen. The first few days of writing were rough attempts to see if some story might take shape. At the time, I was still deciding whether I was a plotter or a pantser.
Most writers seem to fall into one of the camps where they either have a meticulous outline and write from that, known as plotters. The other side sits down and writes whatever comes to mind, known as pantsers. I never knew where things might lead with the action, so I guessed at that point I was more of a pantser. For me, half the fun of writing fiction is letting your mind take you to new places when you let go and open yourself up to it.
It’s also cool how the mood I’m in when I sit down at my MacBook Pro adds subtle suggestions to the plot as my mind takes off and I start typing. I wrote the milk and cookies scene with Jock on a Friday evening, thinking it was funny that a big guy like Jock had to order milk instead of bourbon.
A few hours later, I got a text message from my wife who was out to dinner with a friend. They’d just ordered milk and cookies for dessert, which seemed a pretty crazy way of life imitating art.
I wrote Desire’s Akumal scene with the solar storm the next morning before reading a news report about one that was set to strike within the next few days. With all the weird coincidences, I knew I was onto something. Too bad I didn’t know where it was going, but I was having a blast finding out.
It wasn’t until I got to the tent scene that the story finally took shape. It’s an obvious nod to the TARDIS in Doctor Who, but it allowed me to take the story in new directions, adding the quirky bits that came out of nowhere. The idea of slave traders seeped in from reading a lot of Wayne Stinnett’s novels, though I had to make them more humorous than dangerous.
I was also able to weave in two of my earliest memories from the summer of 1977—Star Wars and Elvis. I turned five that July and saw Star Wars six times in the theater, including once by myself on a hot Sunday afternoon as my parents were tired of seeing it. A month later, I remember lying on the floor in front of the TV when David Brinkley came on the NBC Nightly News and said, “Elvis Presley died today.”
I kept up with my writing sprints, backing off a bit to just over 3,000 words per day in an attempt to keep from being overwhelmed with juggling the writing and my job as a corporate recruiter.
I wrapped up the story on the evening of February 19, cleaned things up a bit and gave it to my wife to read. She struggled through the beginning and its various twists and turns. I ended up cutting huge sections from that part and starting the opening later in the story. I forgot about it for a few months while I wrote the prequel and then the next book, Attack of the Mutant Miners.
Once we finished the summer editing sessions for Invasion of the Frorees, we jumped right into a similar process for this one. After a few months on the shelf, editing with fresh eyes revealed a much better story than I remembered. The love affair between Jock and the princess had some moving moments that I really enjoyed.
I fleshed out a few scenes, including the snake and frog raid toward the end, cracking myself up as I sat on the couch coming up with various ways to torture the slavers.
We’re now working through Book 3 the same way as I get ready to hit publish on Book 2. With having done it once, the process was much easier this time around. As before, I can’t wait to do it again.
Chad V. Holtkamp
Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands
8 October 2018
Copyright © 2018 Chad V. Holtkamp.
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