How I wrote Whale Fall: Part 1

Published in

Whale-Fall

5 min readJul 29, 2018

Hey Whale Fall Fans,

I’ve been working on spreading the word about Whale Fall since the book was released last month on Amazon. During that time I’ve been asked a few times, “How did you write Whale Fall?”

At first, I interpreted the question as “What program did you use?” Which, I would initially reply with, “iBooks Author.” But, more often than not, the questioner would follow up with, “no, I mean how did you write the book, like what was your process?”

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
― Aristotle

There’s a short answer, a slightly less short answer, and a long answer.

The short answer is:

I learned something new about myself and put it on paper.

The slightly less short answer is:

New Idea and/or Emotional Experience
I started with a personal experience that was inspired by a profound emotional mystery
Structure
I figured out an initial process that helped me organize my thoughts
Motivation
I continued to tailor the process and explored new, or existing reasons for me to keep writing
Discovery
I learned something new about myself after finishing the initial draft and refined the book to reflect that self-actualization

The long answer is:

New Idea and/or Emotional Experience

I’ve struggled with understanding my emotions for my entire life. There is a more in-depth story here that goes beyond publishing Whale Fall but suffice it to say there’s trauma involved, and in many ways, I’m exploring emotions that should have likely been more obvious at a younger age. Coping mechanisms aside, I experienced a new, profound sense of grief after a volunteer experience that I never experienced before. I was utterly unequipped to deal with who I was in that moment, and it left me scared and a little excited.

IMO new Ideas and/or emotions are more like mushrooms, than flowers.

It was like a whale-sized treasure spontaneously landed in a previously barren part of my identity… get it? (you should really read my book if you don’t)

Needless to say, I had my new idea and/or emotional experience… grief.

More specifically, why isn’t this universal emotional experience a more integral part of our emotional development? How did I get through almost three decades of life before I had to confront death and loss in a meaningful way? (For more on the “Why” behind Whale Fall)

Structure

Most of us were awake during some portion of our formal education, but not me. After deciding to write a book, I was immediately reminded that my high school English notebooks were mostly filled with doodles.

The first thing I naturally Googled was “How do I write a book?” which led me to lengthy articles with assertions that I should set daily writing goals, write in the same place, and spend time thinking about my audience. So what you’re telling me is that the best way to write a book is to spend a significant amount of time NOT WRITING THE BOOK? Brilliant.

FACT: This picture is AS USEFUL as my initial Google Search

Here’s the actual structure I eventually landed on:

Who, Where, Why.

That’s right after I came up with the idea of the book and the overall structure (each chapter touches on a different stage of grief) all I had to do was figure out who the characters were, where the environment was going to be, and why any of that mattered. Rather than go with one character going through multiple settings, I was going to keep it simple and stick with one character, one place, and one central conflict for each chapter.

Motivation

I threw a lot of shade at the articles Google serves you when you search for “how to write a book” but there is one consistent suggestion that I found to be true — find your own motivation. At first, my motivation was this idea of sharing my personal emotional discovery with others, and empowering them to engage in conversations that I thought I missed out on (how selfless of me 🙄).

*You* are infinitely more inspiring than anything someone could write on a wall.

However, as I got into the third and fourth chapters of the book my motivation became more self-centered and therefore, more sincere. I realized that this project was more than writing for the benefit of others. I would spontaneously erupt in crying fits at Starbucks. I would write a passage about Atlantic Cyprine sinking beneath the sand in suicidal defeat, and my eyes would start to get an unfamiliar soreness. Writing Whale Fall became my own, personal form of therapy. I began to feel the things that I was writing about, it was almost like I was journaling vicariously through the characters I was creating.

Discovery

Once I realized I was writing about my own journey, finishing the book became a lot easier. This isn’t to say that it didn’t take a lot of time, but I felt more like the time I spent editing, re-editing, paying for copy-editing, and getting everything online was much more worth-wild and intuitive. In fact, since I’ve learned something about myself, it’s much easier for me to concisely express what the book is about and who my prospective audience is.

So if you’re sitting there and thinking, how do I write a book? I challenge you to first learn something new about yourself. That will kick off a journey that will lead to the answer that’s right for you and your story.