Hello, writer!

Here we are at the end of September. The leaves are all changing in the woods around my house, and the days are getting shorter! I'm not quite ready to hunker down for winter, but I welcome the oncoming sweater weather!

Today, I get to introduce you to a new author! Nila Patel is the author of Fictioneer's Field Guide: A Game Plan for Writing Short Stories and she's a prolific short story author.

I am a Fictioneer. What does that mean? I'm a short story writer, fiction podcaster, and creator of digital art. I release new stories weekly. I’ve been enchanted with fiction and storytelling since I was a kid. I chose the biological sciences for my formal schooling and as my first profession. But fiction has remained at the core of my life. I’ve dreamed of working for myself as my second profession, with fiction as the foundation. In 2013, I challenged myself to write and post a short story every week on my site. It was meant to help me practice the craft of storytelling, of editing myself, and of finalizing my stories. I came to love writing short stories, and all of the opportunities for exploration that I wouldn’t get if I were working on longer stories. Eleven years later, I’m still writing…

You can learn more about Nila at her website!

You’ve written a story a week for 11 years. How did you start?

I made that decision many years ago because when I was a kid, I wanted to be a novelist. I knew even then, “Well, I've got to have a real job,” but I've always wanted to write. I've always been a reader who loves fiction, particularly genre fiction. When I was younger, it was more fantasy; now, it’s more science fiction. I like reading in a lot of different genres!

I always envisioned writing novels. Back then, it was just traditional publishing. I didn't even know about the concept of self-publishing. As I grew older, I was also interested in science. I loved biology and science classes, and I chose to go to school to learn science. I thought, “Well, with things like art, I can do that on my own. I can buy the tools. I can write at home, but to learn science, I need to go to school because I can't have a laboratory in my own home.” I had dual interests. I really am interested in and passionate about science, too.

Writing was always there, and it took the form of journal writing. In my 20s, I actually did write. I took a correspondence course, and I wrote a novel, which is my novel that’s sitting in the drawer that everyone seems to have. I did try to query, to go through the steps, and I didn't get far. I had a day job and a family, so I didn't pursue writing fully. I recognized that I've got a lot to learn still. I got feedback from editors who said, basically, “You've got potential, but it's not there yet.” I wrote a few short stories later on, in my 30s, and sent those out as well, and got feedback, but always rejections. I knew that I had work to do. I needed to practice more.

I had the idea of challenging myself to write a short story every week. I thought about having it illustrated and trying to practice drawing. I might have gotten it from Comic-Con in San Diego. I went to a panel where people were really enthusiastic about, like, “Hey, if you want to be creative, if you want to put out creative work and have your own comic book, go for it,” that kind of thing. I was motivated by that. But I needed some accountability. I thought I could get that if I posted my writing.

I wanted a website because, eventually, I will write novels, and you're supposed to have a website where people can see what you're up to. I decided that every week for a year, I would write and post a short story, lightly illustrated. I do one for each story now. I thought, okay, however far I go, I'll have more stories than I do now. The whole point is for me to finish writing the story and edit myself so I can get enough practice and maybe send out some stories. I would have finished work, and then I could move on to novels or whatever else.

As it turned out, I got to the end—I actually got 52 stories done—and I wanted to keep going. In the early years, my brother was reading the stories and giving me feedback. He even provided artwork for an entire year of stories. I got that momentum and just kept going.

I realized that with short stories, because I'm doing it every week, even if I write a story I’m unsure about, it's easier to get over that feeling because I know I'm going to be writing a new story next week. I see the site as my sandbox where I can explore and experiment.

Then I started moving up in my day job, getting promotions, and I moved to a managerial-type position, so there were lots of responsibilities. I maintained the short story each week. It was my way of being creative, to write more work, to share it. When it came to figuring out a way to make a living from this, which I ultimately want to do as a second career, that was on the back burner for a time.

I started listening to podcasts and thought, “I can turn my stories into a podcast.” I tried opening a merch store with the images, but my skill level wasn't there. It's much higher now. I want the stories and the podcast to be free because I don't want to be beholden to any kind of external factors. That may remove the fun of it for me. There are other ways I can build a business around the stories.

That was the journey. I still want to write novels. I get excited thinking about it, but I'm focusing on building the foundation of a business. I'm still writing and posting stories because it helps feed my soul. It's a necessity. I need to eat food and drink water to keep my body alive. I need to write stories and read other people's stories in order to keep my soul alive.

What is your writing process? How do you stay consistent?

I acknowledge that I have the privilege of being able to make it a priority in my life. Not everybody does. I left my job a few years back so I could focus on building a business.

When I started, I would use the whole week to plan the story and then write, and it took longer. When you do something over and over again, you get better at it. You get more efficient. I don't think I intentionally tried to come up with a plan, but over the years, I noticed this system that helps me get into the zone, as they say, much more quickly. I'm not puttering around with, “What do I write?” Sometimes, you can waste half an hour or an hour just thinking about, who should be the character, what should I write, and what's the setting? That plan is the core of my decision-making. What genre this week? What's the word count? Those things can shift, but I'm starting with a baseline.

I wrote my book based on that method, too. I have five steps that help me come up with the idea, develop it a little more, and write the outline, which I call the Keystone. Once I have an outline, I feel like I have the story written. I'll be like, “Okay, time to take a break. Go eat some yogurt. I'm good for the day.” Now is the fun part: when I can write. I commit to having the stories posted by midnight on Sunday. Even when I had a family emergency one year, I was putting the stories out. It was often the next day, but I was still putting them out because I needed to write to anchor myself. The system helped.

I would call it a workflow. It's flexible enough these days that I have a theme each month, like cartoon June. I'm trying to stretch the imagination. I do the brainstorming and idea part early so I can batch ideas for the month. When I get to that week, I will write the outline and then draft the story. I often spend Sunday writing, maybe drawing images. Sunday is when I can take time for myself and write. I have the system now, so I don't have to work on the story all throughout the week.

How did you decide to write your book?

The book was a meandering journey. When I first left my job, I had a plan for having three income streams. One was having merchandise based on my artwork and the artwork my brother has done for me. The second would be an online course. I learned about these online course platforms where you could create your own course. And then, eventually, novels.

I thought I would do merchandise first because I had images ready. Then, a challenge came up with the hosting platform that I use, Teachable. They had this launch accelerator challenge, a 30-day challenge for you to make a minimal viable product. I made one sale, so I thought I had committed to creating the rest of the course based on my workflow for writing a short story. I thought this would maybe be a better way for me to get started with the business. I had a general plan of how I could move forward, and I made that course.

While making the course, I wrote up transcripts and thought, “You know, I could put these together into a workbook or a PDF version of the course and have that as a separate product, too. That's a good idea.” So it was in the back of my head that this could be a book, but at the time, it was just going to be a companion to the course.

In the interim, I realized I had to update my site. I took a webinar about all the legal policies for online businesses, and I realized I needed to prioritize this. My website initially was just my story posts, but I had added links to my store and things. I want to be as responsible as possible because I want to sustain this for the rest of my life. I prioritized updating my website, which included the legal stuff, and it was a bigger project.

I revisited the course and took some training about figuring out the marketing part. And I thought, “Well, I still want to do my book, so let me take the course and learn how to do that.” And I'm glad I did. I needed help with the marketing and promotion piece. I think I have good stuff, and there are people out there who would like my stories and products, but getting in front of them is such a challenge. I realized I needed to pivot and focus on this book. It makes more sense for me right now, and it also makes me feel excited because I'm like, “Oh, this is what I've wanted to do: publish books.” It's unexpected that it's a nonfiction book instead of a novel or collection of stories. But at the same time, it kind of makes sense.

This feels right, and that feeling comes from all of the stuff that's come before, all of the history and the journey. I don't know if I would have written this book if it wasn't for the course.

What’s next for you, creatively?

I have to see what happens with this book! It's not just the text. I'm going to include line art in the book and figure out the cover design. Once I have learned that whole process, I'll know better how to make decisions when I want to publish my next book. I definitely don't want this to be the last one. I want to see if this is a viable way to share my work and publish. I expect to make mistakes and stumble, but if I learn the overall process, I want to publish more books.

More than one person has said, “Why don't you collect some of your stories into an anthology and publish them?” That might be the next step. The artwork on the site is in color, but it would be fun to have a short story anthology and line art. Maybe reach out to a couple of people in my family who are artists and see if they want to collaborate. That's on the horizon.

What excites me is that once I learn this, if it works for me, I can keep going. I read your interview with Amelia Hruby, and she said she was glad she went through the whole traditional publishing process early in her life because she might have longed for it and been like, “Oh, maybe I'd prefer self-publishing.” Just having that experience was good for her. That was my favorite part of that interview. It's good to hear about another author’s experience. I don't feel like I need to do it this way or that way. If this works, I have a lot more control. I'm already in that space of thinking in terms of a business and doing my own marketing and promotion.

A lot of things that I used to want when I was 14 or 24 or whatever, I don't really care so much now. I have my site where I'm sharing my writing. Of course, we want people to read our work, but at the same time, I also want to fly under the radar and have my group of people who like my work. I don't want to become so big that you get the nasty part of the internet.

I've heard people say the best part of writing is when it's done, and I don't ever want to feel that way. It's work, and sometimes you're tired, but I don’t want to feel that the hours and hours and hours you spent, you're like, miserable, miserable, miserable, and it's only when the book comes out that you're like, “This is the fun part.” If you're someone who wants to write and make a living, I hope that you enjoy the process. But sometimes the joy is sucked out of it. I've heard people say the joy got sucked out of it when they had to monetize the work and answer to all these external forces. I've learned from other people's experiences and made sure that there's a part of what I do that I protect from those things

What advice would you give another writer?

I’m not going to think of it as advice, but maybe as a challenge to someone who wants to write. I don't know the level of priority that writing has for different people and what your goals are. Everybody has different goals with their writing. Everybody wants to write different things.

I would challenge people to ask why they want to write. It can be easy for external factors to get in there and influence your reason, and maybe you lose track of it. Maybe you start off with this passion, “Oh my God, I want to write stories. It's so fun.” Of course, it's not wrong for any of us to have the goal of wanting to sell our work or to have accolades like the Hugo Award or the Nebula or being on the New York Times bestseller list. Those are totally valid and worthy goals.

But it's important to keep track of the core reason you want to write. Is it for other people? For me, if the core reason were other than something within me, it wouldn't work. I wouldn't be able to sustain it. It's that asking why? Why do you want to write? What part of that drive is coming from inside you? Would you do it if no one paid you or paid attention to your work? For me, the answer is yes.

This question could help you balance your expectations of yourself as a writer and the time and energy you spend writing. I hope that everyone who wants to write has the opportunity to do so. Think about your why, especially when you start getting bogged down. If things start feeling bad, that's something you can go back to.

I think creative expression is important for everybody. I hear about how the arts are being removed from school curricula and how people are pushing back. I think people recognize that they need creative expression, and so that's why there are adult coloring books, classes, and activities that people can take on their own. Some kind of creative expression is vital for all of us. Whether it’s writing, cooking, gardening, or nurturing something, it is vital.

I really hope that creativity doesn't become a luxury that people have no room for because they've got to do all these other things. I hope that we as a group, as a society, can course correct and be like, “No, we actually need this.” We need to keep libraries because libraries are magical and wonderful. I'm amazed at the existence of libraries. We need to keep arts programs—they’re not enrichment, they’re not optional, they’re not extra, they’re not a luxury. I think they’re a necessity.

What is the best book that you've read recently?

I think I have a new favorite author. Earlier this year, I started reading Becky Chambers’s Wayfarer series. I'm on the last book right now. I started with the first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (*affiliate link), and I loved it because one of my ongoing genre shows that I love is Star Trek. I love stories about a small crew of people in space doing things. I've written a lot of those stories, too. The first book in the series is about that.

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I was so glad to chat with Nila about her 11-year story-writing streak, her book, and Becky Chambers (who is also one of my favorite authors)!

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