From Kayak to Keyboard: How I Wrote My First Novel

I’m an introvert. An off the charts, strong introvert. That means I need a frequent source for quiet and reflection. My kayak, and the chance to get out on the water, usually in the early morning hours, is my source for drawing internal energy and one of the places where I draw inspiration, creativity, and resolve story challenges. After leaving the military, not too long after returning from Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, I felt a story percolating in my head. It was time spent on the water in a kayak where I found a rhythm of life that slows enough to provide ample opportunities to just think and create.

The story began to take shape from my military experiences. When deployed to Operation Desert Shield and Storm, I was part of an infantry company in which every officer (all five) was a graduate of Officer Candidate School (OCS). No ring knockers (West Point grads) or inexperienced graduates of the various ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) programs at universities. Each member of our officer group was a graduate of OCS and we had significant years of experience as non-commissioned officers between us. That also meant we were extremely close. So, the idea began to gel about a story that featured the importance of that connection among soldiers deployed overseas in an unforgiving environment, not to mention combat.

Over the years, the story developed in my head, a section at a time. It changed, and changed, and changed some more. I finally sat down and just started writing from what was in my head. The broad brush strokes were there, but I just let the writing take me to where I felt the story needed to go. This process surprised me as I always thought I was a plotter. I would need to identify the specific points of the plot and build out from there. But for this first novel, I just let the story go on the trajectory it wanted. The time spent thinking on the kayak was pivotal to keeping the creative juices flowing.

Don’t get me wrong. Early readers of the novel made some really good suggestions on the story’s plot and the various arcs among and between characters. I revised. And revised. And revised some more. I was revising even to the point of getting it in the right format for publishing.

So, what process is best? For me, writing by the seat of my pants (thank you, Stephen King) is how the basic story evolved as I wrote. Now that I am writing my second novel in the series, I am still writing by the seat of my pants, but … I grudgingly admit … I have written down some broad ideas for the ground it needs to cover. Only time will tell whether I remain a “pantser” or become more of a “plotter.”