By Kerry Nietz
I lost track of the number of times I heard the
questions. Usually they came coupled with an incredulous stare.
“You want to be writer? Did you take any writing
courses in college?”
To which I’d shrug and say: “I took a technical
writing course in college.”
More stares.
“Well, yeah, my major was computer science.”
It never seemed strange to me that someone who
was trained in a technical field could want to become a writer later—over a
decade after being established in their career. It was something I always hoped
to do. But for many people, my change of focus was unexpected. I’d broken an
unwritten rule: People who want to write, plan their careers accordingly.
It has always been about setting challenges,
though. About testing myself. Regardless of what the rules were. Regardless of
how you’re supposed to do it.
I spent my share of time in the corner in grade
school…
I did write my first book, though. Entitled Fox Tales,
it is a memoire of my first four years in the software industry. The subject
matter wasn’t the challenge, obviously. The writing was. It took me a few
iterations to get it right, and many rejections to get it published, but my
story found a cover in 2003 and got great reviews. Following conventional
writing wisdom, it was written in first person past tense.
The prologue, however, was written in first
person present tense. Curiously, that chapter also got the
most remarks from readers. There was something about the in-the-moment feel of
it that they enjoyed. Those remarks stuck with me. I wondered if I could ever
write a whole novel in that tense and point-of-view.
Skip ahead five years. I’d written a handful of
novels, but sold none of them. The idea of a first-person present tense novel
still itched at me, and I also had this idea for a story about a guy who fixes
robots.
“This is it,” I told myself. “I’m going to write
this one last story.”
I was also going to throw out the rules again,
because every writing book I’d ever read said that first novels should be
written in either first or third person past tense. I was
going to accept my own challenge, and if that didn’t work, maybe I would look
at doing something else. Maybe those early detractors were right.
Six months later the first draft of that novel, A Star Curiously Singing, was finished. More importantly, that novel was
published in October of 2009 by Marcher Lord Press. It went on to be a finalist
for three different awards and win the Readers Favorite award for Christian
Science Fiction. It also earned an average 4.8 out of 5 stars rating on Amazon
with over 70 reviews. (Coincidentally, another first person present tense novel
was published a month prior to mine. The Hunger Games)
I went on to complete a trilogy and another
standalone in that same in-the-moment style.
Skip ahead another three years. There was this
longstanding joke title in the Christian speculative fiction community. It was
something my publisher used to share at writing conferences as the only sort of
Amish fiction that Marcher Lord Press might accept: Amish Vampires in Space.
The title got me thinking. Was it possible to
write a novel that was faithful to all three genres—Amish fiction, Vampire
fiction and Science fiction—and yet still tell a plausible and compelling
story? Could that campy title serve as a premise for a serious novel?
I started writing. A few months later I was
30,000 words in, and felt happy about what I’d done. I told my publisher and he
encouraged me to continue. On October 1st of 2013, four years
after my first novel, and ten years after my first book, Amish Vampires in Space was published.
That wasn’t the end of the story, though. Two
months later Marcher Lord Press was sold, and the new owner decided he didn’t
want my genre mash up in the catalog.
“Why?” I asked. “Reviews have been generally
good, sales are on par with other Marcher Lord titles. There has been lots of
buzz…” Plus, I knew the book was respectfully done. It didn’t demean or
villainize anyone. Except vampires.
The answer was elusive, though. All I got was:
“It would not have been a book I would’ve published.”
“Why?”
“To actually create or incarnate a punchline
isn’t something I would’ve done.”
So there it was. Again in meeting a personal
challenge, I’d broken another rule. Inadvertently.
At least I’m consistent.
_______________________________________________________________________
Kerry Nietz is a
refugee of the software industry. He spent more than a decade of his life
flipping bits, first as one of the principal developers of the database product
FoxPro for the now mythical Fox Software, and then as one of Bill Gates's
minions at Microsoft. He is a husband, a father, a technophile and a movie
buff. He has one non-fiction book, a memoir entitled FoxTales: Behind the
Scenes at Fox Software. His first novel, A Star Curiously Singing, was
published in October of 2009. His recent book,
Amish Vampires in Space made Jimmy Fallon’s list. He has an article, “Making Space for Amish Vampires,”
recently published in
Southern Writers Magazine, May/June 2014 issue. His website is
www.nietz.com
