Hello Steemians,
I'm Ezra
I just wanted to introduce myself. Though I've been posting on Steemit for awhile, I just recently noticed others posting introductions, I guess I missed the welcome instructions. Duh!
I also had 
ask me to explain my process for what I've been doing on Steemit, which is writing a novel, live On-Air, no net, on Steemit. I thought this could do double duty since what I'm doing, how I'm doing it is really a good introduction to me.
If you want to skip the historical stuff about me, my system of the writing process is about halfway down the page. Titled: My writing system. I tend to write in bulk.. I can't seem to do any other. So, make it to the end, ring the bell and get a prize! ;)
Who I am
I don't know who I am, but I can tell you what I do. I am currently 'trying' to work full time as a singer/songwriter. I have been at it (again) for the last 5 years. I say again because, In my younger life, I got one of those coveted Music Development deals, then got dumped later.
A mock cover for one of my other novels, 'Possession of stars'. I don't publish or even share my work. It's just for me, my family and a circle of friends who like to read .. so far
I split my steemit.com blogs into two, one is 
My new, soon to be released album, 'You'. Music is my day-to-day. I'm just a blue collar working musician. I play regionally and go out of state every once in a while. Writing is my hobby.
I also enjoy oil painting as a hobby. My wife won't hang them in the house though.
My Social & Websites
Social
twitter.com/ezravancil
facebook.com/ezravancilmusic
instagram.com/ezravancil
youtube.com/ezravancil
www.ezravancil.com
and yes.. I do link to steemit from my home page footer.
MUSIC STREAMING
Some interviews, reviews & podcasts etc
10 Questions with Ezra Vancil
Ezra Vancil in the spark chamber interview
Ezra interviewing Grammy Nominee Mark Hallman
Ezra & Eric Steuer Wired Magazine
album review for promise land
Which brings us to this
The book that got me suspended
One night I had watched a horror film; one which no kid should see at that age. The next day I started writing one of my stapled together books, it was inspired by what I had seen. Which was very gruesome. I took copies to school and showed it off. I ended up selling a few copies to other kids. Long story short, I was suspended from school. What I had written frightened the living hell out of my parents and teachers. As it probably should. So, from then, I went on to music and art and stayed there.
I wrote my first novel after a... let's call it a 'breakdown'. I went into what I guess... let's call it a 'mental institution', and it served as a good place to write my first novel. Nice and quiet! ...well. I actually just outlined it there and wrote a few chapters... but hey, the story is good. I'm very happy, normal and fine now, no worries.
After the first book was done—it seemed easy to write. I wrote four more and illustrated two children's books. All of my books deal with feeling like an odd person, a freak, abandoned but they are also sentimental and uplifting sometimes.
The steemit novel I'm writing now is a good 'case at hand'. It's called 'Handsome Freaks'.
Why I write
I love writing novels.
To write fiction, to me, is kind of like digging into my soul. It's very therapeutic, and I always pick subjects, characters, and themes that allow me to dig deep into my own consciousness; my own fears and childhood traumas. But they are not all dark, I also use the writing to dig into what I enjoy. Such as my worst habit: I love researching useless (to my day to day life) knowledge.
I don't care much about "having" the knowledge. I like the act of "getting it". Such as the novel I'm writing now on Steemit, I got to research Napoleón and the Siege of Valencia. That's not completely useless knowledge, but the fashion of 1800's is, that too I studied about and will use in a later chapter. As well as abortion practices in the 1800's which I learned a lot about and also have some future chapters that learning will land in.
I like the physical act of going to the bookstore, getting some coffee and studying this stuff. Writing gives me a good reason to do it.
For that reason, my books are usually placed in another time and historical places.
I really learned to write fiction/novels by reading a few books, which are still my favorite books on writing.
- On Writing - Stephen King
- The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
- (as well as) Turning Pro - Steven Pressfield
- Doing the Work - Steven Pressfield
- Writing popular Fiction - Dean Koontz
I'm not really a 'popular fiction' kinda reader. Though I love a tight plot. My favorite authors are
- W Somerset Maugham - (favorite of his, The Razor's Edge)
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Hemingway
- John Irving
And that's a good place to leave off and talk about what I've been doing here on Steemit.
My Writing System & Writing A Novel Online
My Writing Tools
After I experienced the incredible mess of writing my first few books. I decided I needed a really good tool. The mess was little notes here and there.. notes in books.. 20 drafts of a chapter, with parts in each draft that I wanted to keep; maps on the wall, .DOCX, and plot charts all over the living-world etc.
StoryMill
It was a huge mess. Every time I sat down to edit those books, It took me an hour just to figure out how I had organized my writing documents. So I researched 'writing tools'; purchased a few that I was quickly unhappy with, but finally settled on my favorite writing app.. and I love it still. It's called StoryMill by Mariner Software.
I for sure don't use all of the features it has, I should use more. For an experiment like writing a novel online, it is an indispensable tool. Because notes and timelines are important when you have to finalize a chapter before the book is done.
StoryMill
StoryMill lets me make 'scenes' and then compile those scenes into a 'chapter'. I like this workflow because I can really dig in on a scene in 'scene mode' and not get lost in the broader chapter. Once that scene is tasty, I'll compile it into the chapter folder.
I also love the location, timeline and Character notes section. When I make a character note, I can attach it to the relevant chapters, so everything is tied in and easy to find when you need it.
My favorite function though is the inline linked notes. I can highlight a sentence and append a note to just those few words. I use this a lot when I need to research a location or character... I'll highlight it and put a note on the words to look at later. It shows up as a blue hyperlink. I also use it for ideas to expand the scene. I use this feature more than anything. When writing, when I get ideas for the future chapters or past chapters. With the linking notes tool, I'll open up the scene and drop a note of the idea on the sentence and it lets me rest my mind and go on with where I am in the story. The blue link is not a note that will get forgotten... you see it everytime you open the scene or chapter.
stroy mill
It has a cool 'visual timeline' tool that looks pretty complex. I have not used that yet. But might look at it as this story is becoming more complex with multiple the timelines of characters.
story mill timeline
Writing A Novel Online
When I returned to music full time—my schedules became pure chaos. Not in a bad way, I kinda like it. But there really is no such thing as downtime or scheduling regular events.
I had been a semi-steady morning writer (on and off), but now, there are no consistent mornings because I might be at a venue until 3 am. Writing my 5th novel online was really a mechanism to 'force my hand' to finish this one idea for a book which I just could not seem to get to.
I didn't really know what 'Steem' was or 'cryptocurrency' when I got here. I knew you could be rewarded with these 'Steem' coins, but, at first—I thought they were like coins you could use to boost your posts, use in the gift shop so to say.. haha. I learned more after a short time.
At the time, Steemit seemed like a good community to try this idea of writing a book online. I had this idea called 'Handsome Freaks' that had been boring a hole in my head.
As hard as I tried I could not get into writing it with the new chaos schedule. So, the idea was to make it public, have a little reward system with Steem, and get the damn thing done!
My System of writing
My process is a hybrid of what the above writer's books suggested. What I do, I call 'creative outlining'. It takes the idea of a traditional outline and bulks it up into more of a framework story.
- The way it looks is: I just 'go at it' for the first round.
I don't allow myself to edit or second guess anything during that first sprint. No research allowed after I start. I basically want to get inside the world and live there for a few weeks in my morning writing hours.
As I go, I start to understand the initial idea I had. I meet the characters and we just play for about 30-50 'VERY BRIEF' chapters. I always stop about three-quarters of the way through—what I think—is the story. What I'm left with is basically a mix of a 3 quarters summery outline draft.
Each chapter, in that first creative outline, may only have a few paragraphs. My point is to not lose steam in creating the plot. I feel like storytelling needs to be spontaneous, and the characters need to tell me where to go.
But, I stop three-quarters of the way in because I also want to be a 'craftsman' and play a role in creating something that is meaningful and technically 'works'.
I basically 'use' my characters and my ability to live in their world to give me the confidence to take over and 'craft' the book. They (The characters and intuition) show me generally where they want to go, but they are messy as hell... So, I then take it from their hands in a more skilled manner flesh it out into a true plotted narrative.
At the end of this 'inspirational creative outline' stage, I might have 30,000 in what will be a 120,000-word novel. Each chapter is sometimes only a few paragraphs.
In the case of Handsome Freaks
In the case of Handsome freaks, I had much less to start with when I started writing online. I had one fully formulated first chapter, which read like a short story; and then 20 chapters of the very slim creative outline.
The creative outlines serve as a template. As well does going three quarters in—basically I stop on act 3.
This gives me a templated chapter for each full chapter up until act 3. This way, I know in a broad way where the story is going, by having 20 or so chapter roughly outlined ahead of time, plus, I know where each chapter needs to start and end to get me there. The 'middle' and the messaging of the beginning and end is what I write for each Steemit post.
Doing these outlines 'Creatively' meaning, letting them be good narratives, and stylish, allows me to do something traditional outlining did not. I can get a feel for the voice while making these outlines in a creative way.
So to reiterate, I started with a slim creative outline of about 20,000 words before even posting my first chapter on Steemit.
The End
I don't like to mess with the ending too much until I'm closer. The outline I'm talking about barley has any plot, it's very loose and just works as a guide. As I get deeper into the work I'll start fleshing out the ending. I started with at least an idea of what I think needs to happen in the end, and I do know how the third act needs to play ou just in my head, but the story up until that point will dictate the true ending scenes.
Getting the Chapter(s) on Steemit
Before the chapter goes live
What it looks like at the beginning of the process of getting one chapter live and finalized on steemit, is:
I skim the finalized chapters I have already posted on Steemit to Re-Remeber details of the plot and character; this is so all the characters keep the same 'arc' have the same hair color, and voice etc.. throughout the book. (I also keep notes on this I talked about in 'Tools').
This part of 're-reading' before each progressive chapter, is important for me; mainly because I'm not always doing this every week... a few weeks in between, and I have forgotten a lot of details.. plus I need to be inside the characters head again.. need to be in the feel of the voice. So skimming up to where I'm about to start, is just a preparation for writing.
Research
I'll usually fiddle with the outlined chapter for an hour, clean it up and read my notes on the scene, location, and character. The previous chapters in all the cases, so far in this experiment, have REALLY changed the direction of the story outline. Sometimes slightly, or sometimes have even opened up to a brand new plot or Character.
In my first run through of the creative outlined chapter, I play with it for an hour or so and get a feeling for where it needs to go. Usually, something sparks, and then I go either into mad writer mode or mad researcher mode. It's 'writer-mode' if I know exactly how it needs to go to tie in with previous chapters and the future outline.
Mad researcher mode: if there is a new location or character that my intuition or the outline has specified.
For instance, in Chapter 8 - The Ghost Pig In my outline were ideas of Geraldo James having a 'father' issue.. 'trying to live up to a standard'... I had written it very sloppy short in the outline, it just said something like: 'his father had been a soldier, and he was trying to live up to a man he could never be' That's it. Now, the finalized version, the part is around 1500 words of the chapter.
For that, I knew it was a time for research. I kinda knew this story fell in the aftermath of Napoleón. But had not put much thought into the details.
What were battles going on in my time-frame and location? What kind of soldier was Arthur James? What were the locations and situations of that era.. and finally how do we get from Arthur James (The high standard father) to the overachieving Geraldo James without it all feeling like a painful flashback.
Through my research, I found the ''. So I got a few books & blogs and researched it. I ended up researching for hours the Spanish legal and political system(s) of the 1800's also... much of that did not make the final cut, but it still goes to giving me some confidence in writing that chapter.
The actual fleshing out of the chapter takes about 4-8 hours of constant writing. I then go through it about 20 times fixing things, plot breaks etc.. I also then fix any grammatical stuff I find. And then finally—I either lay it down to publish the next day or if I still have energy, I start the publishing process to Steemit.
Publishing process to Steemit
This takes a lot of time. It is the 'final edit', the 'line edit'; checking for consistency and voice. I seem to do this better by pasting the chapter into the steemit text box along with my header and footer templates for this book and then formatting it a bit. (I created a simple template using Stackedit so I don't have to re-write all the chapter index, intro etc.)
Seeing it on the page, formatted, helps me get in editor mode. I'll usually sweep through it several times finding grammatical errors. I also might double check character details, plot details, make sure the voice feels the same etc.. by opening previous chapters in other tabs and comparing details. I do all this quickly.
The error I find in this part of the process is usually location inconstancy. Where two chapters earlier, I had the character in this scene, now, somehow, they are in a different part of town. i.e. Pio in chapter 8, had escaped to Sierra de Dos Aguas Mountains. In chapter nine, I realize I have the hunters looking for him in the wrong place.. oops. That's the kinda stuff that is hard to catch.
This is also the time, pre-posting, that I 'kill my babies' as writers say. I go through and mercilessly chop all the fat I can of the narrative. I want it to have a rhythm, a movement, and to glide through the chapter for the reader without too many bumps, or bloviating. In the end, at this point, I probably chop 10% of what I have written away and throw it in the trash before I publish it. I also do this at the last stage because it doesn't give me a lot of time to sit and ponder... it's just instinctual cuts—Like a haircut.
Publishing The Chapter
Sure enough, after I post it live on Steemit; while skimming it again I find more problems. I don't know why it is, but no matter how many times I go through it, there are some things I just can't see until it's published. So I usually do more clean up about 30 minutes after publishing.
The After Thought
This is just something that has happened every time. After I publish it. I start getting floods of ideas of how certain new little plot points I had created in that chapter could tie in beautifully with a future event. I want to take advantage of these inspirations. If I think I'm going to forget them I make notes in my outline tool.
Sometimes I realize that in order for this super cool A-Ha future moment to work, that something needs to be different in the chapter I just published. So even in the few days that the Steemit is still editable, I might be making a few minor adjustments to the story.
For instance; in chapter nine I had a great inspiration for what is now, my 20th chapter in the outline... of how the events of Chapter nine could tie so nicely to this future event. But.. oh no! I realized that one small detail needed to be different in the chapter I just posted on steemit. Luckily I have days before the final 'pay-out'; after the pay-out, the post is locked in the blockchain forever!!!
To avoid any lost chances, I will usually open up the next chapter I'm about to write, and read again further in my outline to make sure no good ideas of tying it all together are lost when the blockchain clocks down. This is done in my head mostly, just while going about my day.
The creative outline really helps for blockchain chapters
If you decide to write a novel online, 'LIVE' as I call it. You will soon run into the issues that this 'Creative outline' will solve. For one, my books can be complicated in locations, plots and Character Arcs.
I'm basically creating a final draft on steemit, because, as you may know... you can't go back and edit it later after the pay-out (as I've said) I want everything to tie in very tightly to plot revelations much later in the book. This outline allows me to understand the broader picture as I create each final draft chapter.
Though, I know, in the end, If I publish this to kindle or something, I'll have to do edits again.. but I'm really shooting for creating a final product on Steemit.. so that forces me to be extra meticulous.
TimeLines
I thought it be helpful to look at how much time this takes. The initial creative draft (which once again is an outline of about 3 quarters of the book) took about three weeks of my morning writing. My morning writings, when I practice them, are about 2-3 hours long each morning.
Each chapter finalized for steemit, plus re-editing and cutting the fat takes somewhere between 6 man hours, all the way to 10 man hours on the heavily researched chapters. During the writing of this book, I have done both a spreading those hours out over weeks, with an hour here and there—and also, just binging it out in half a day depending on my schedule.
That was probably overkilling the introduction. Still, glad to be here.. really enjoy the community and the content I find here. Have a great 2018!