Jeff Haws

Independent author

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Does the book’s title really matter?

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I had this discussion on Facebook recently, as I consulted with various people on what the title of my upcoming novel should be. On my first book, once “Killing the Immortals” came to me, it was one of those proverbial light bulbs popping up above my head. Maybe literally. I can’t say for sure. But it was fairly bright in the room at the time, so perhaps.

Anyway, I knew right away that was the title. It was striking, a little mysterious, and had a seemingly contradictory nature that I liked. I love forcing readers to ask themselves a question they can only answer by reading whatever it is I wrote. “How can you kill immortals?” Know how you’re gonna find out? Buy my book and read the thing, damn it. [Read more…] about Does the book’s title really matter?

Where do Ideas Come From?

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Ideas

I’ve been asked a few times since starting my first book, “Where did you get your idea from?” I wish there were some simple answer, like “I had this amazing epiphany one day!” or “I went out to the idea tree and picked one.” I can confirm we do not have an idea tree, though I’m considering planting one in a few months. I hear they’re a spring/summer plant.

The answer on that particular idea is that I’ve always been fascinated by questions of “What would happen if …?” And, seeing as it’s basically a stated goal of modern medicine to cure every disease and keep people alive for as long as possible, this is a great “What if?” That would be to say, “What if we actually reached a goal we have?” It’s compelling to me because it’s a goal we have as a society, but I think it might cause a lot more problems if we achieved it. And my story is just about one problem I came up with. I thought of plenty more — from massive overcrowding in cities to healthcare distribution to resource depletion to restrictive family planning to all sorts of other issues — and I talk about some of them in the book because they have an impact on the story, but this was the one I thought translated the best as the main focus of a novel. Of course, it’s quite possible I’m wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. [Read more…] about Where do Ideas Come From?

The Book I’m Writing is Not Mine

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Writing

This recent blog post from Mark Malatesta at Literary-agents.com was pretty striking for me to think about, the notion that the book I’m writing, this one I’m putting all this time and effort and energy into eventually producing for people to insult me over, isn’t really mine at all. It actually belongs to you, the reader. Maybe these blog posts do too. Or is that taking this whole idea a bit too far? Let’s look at this for a second.

With the book, I am, believe it or not, hoping to actually sell a few copies. It’s true. As such, once I pour out my blood and sweat for months, then do it again for a second draft, then let people read it and tell me how much it sucks, then finish a final draft, then answer a million questions about how to go about publishing, perhaps querying agents/publishers, the title, cover design, genre categorization, printing, price, and where I last saw my phone (pretty sure it was on the side table by the bed … hmmmmm), I’ll set out to sell the book to people. People who read. People who can’t read will be of little use to me, but I wish them well in their journey of life. [Read more…] about The Book I’m Writing is Not Mine