The main question I get asked as a novelist is: How does the creative process work for me?

It is a great question. It is a very open-ended musing. And there is an interesting story behind it . . .

For me it comes together like a puzzle, only the first piece is the most interesting part of the story and is usually smack dab in the center. You know how you usually work on a puzzle from the side pieces all around the edges before you get a good idea of what the central image is? Ideally you have a starting point and it spreads one step at a time from beginning to end. Unfortunately, novels in my mind do not naturally unravel to my view in this way. Neither do puzzles for most. It is a little different for each person. Can you picture how it works for you?

My first novel attempt was complete fiction and started with one poignant scene. I immediately wondered why I could not think of ever seeing that moment in a movie or the pages of a book. As I thought about it I decided it was too good not to write down. The problem is that this was only one piece of the puzzle. But I am a problem solver. All writers are. We create problems to solve. Our lives are the story within the story and we are constantly in conflict with how to resolve whatever story we are working on.

My second novel attempt had more of an outline. I feared this would take away from the creative process. Could I even stay interested in my own writing long enough to make it interesting for someone else? I realized there was a balance of seeing the whole picture but not too much to eliminate the intrigue of the connecting details.

If you have ever put together a puzzle you can probably guess where I am going with this blog post. Puzzles have structure, and patterns, and pictures, and they all come together in a certain order, but not a consecutive order. Writing is like that. You try to find pieces that connect one to another. It all should fit within the same framework. You create a skeletal outline, you group together like parts, and you write everything down. Soon the grand picture starts forming and sections, or chapters, take shape. This is how it comes together for me. If I have a great idea I write it down and then I let my mind think of how to use all the important parts or elements of novel writing: beginning, middle, end, point of view, setting, plot, conflict, resolution and what not. The ideas get drawn out in panoramic detail. I outline it and separate the ideas accordingly. I dedicate time specifically to writing it down and manipulating it until everything fits just right. The details take plenty of finesse and fine tuning. All and all, the puzzle comes together.

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Marketing Sterling Bridge is in full swing. I’ve got to get the word out about a great read to anyone interested. I wouldn’t want anyone who could benefit from this story to miss out. BYU Magazine will be mentioning me in its alumni section this Summer. The next few days I will post other outlets I have submitted to that might want to share my breakthrough:

BYU Humanities story (for their 50th year anniversary)*

As an undergraduate I began writing “Sterling Bridge,” an historical fiction film novel. It is based on the family history research of Don Norton, a retired English Professor at BYU. It is largely based on the true story of Sterling Harris, who is credited for bridging the bias between the Mormon Settlers of Tooele and the Catholic Mining immigrants thrust into their community right before the Great Depression, when jobs were at a premium.

I was tutored by Dennis Packard, Film and Philosophy professor, in the art of writing novels that could readily be converted to screenplays. He is a visionary, and at the time he was kindly assisting similar to how a book agent would and we had interest from publishers out of New York. I was devoting one night a week to writing through the night and my grades were suffering because of it. That’s when I met Brandon Mull, an aspiring author.

He was a counselor in the bishopric of my ward, as well as a student when his days with Divine Comedy were in full swing. We commiserated about the hard work it takes to breakthrough with our writing goals and dreams. On this occasion he had a lot of questions of me about writing and the path to authorship. Roles soon reversed, however, when Brandon’s Fablehaven series took off and he became a New York Times bestselling author. Now, of course, I was the one with all of the questions.

My project still had several historical questions to work out and it was put on hold for the next decade, as I crafted other stories, but I am happy to announce that “Sterling Bridge” will finally see the light of day. My circuitous path has brought me back to BYU to work as a Manager in the Harold B. Lee Library. And so, maybe it was fate, but I decided it was time to revisit and revive what once was dead. “Sterling Bridge” is set to be published by Cedar Fort Publishing on November 10th this year.

*Any BYU Humanities Alumni interested in sharing a story for the celebration should contact humanities.byu.edu

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Marketing Sterling Bridge is in full swing. I’ve got to get the word out about a great read to anyone interested. I wouldn’t want anyone who could benefit from this story to miss out. BYU Magazine will be mentioning me in its alumni section this Summer. The next few days I will post other outlets I have submitted to that might want to share my breakthrough:

BYU Alumni Rise stories*

Chad Robert Parker is publishing his first book, an historical fiction film novel, which he started writing as a student project while he was an undergraduate at BYU in 2003. Cedar Fort has set the release date for November 10th, 2015. “Sterling Bridge” is about a larger than life man, Sterling Harris, who brings together a Catholic mining community with Mormon settlers in Tooele, UT through high school football, when they were disputing over jobs right as the Great Depression hit.

Chad Robert Parker loves writing stories, but briefly tried out marketing, in the form of rotating billboard advertisements along I-15, before he returned to his alma mater where he loves rubbing shoulders with BYU students in his work as a manager in the Harold B. Lee Library. He looks forward to doing an author reading in the auditorium in the near future.

* Any BYU Alumni out there interested in sharing your story should contact rise.byu.edu

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One of the first things I realized about writing was that there was no way I could write a good idea down fast enough. While my mind thinks in longer formats, my attention span is about as long as the length of a movie. (And that is only if the story is well constructed and engaging). Here I was picturing the scenes of a story never before captured and I could not get it all down on paper.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not to say that if only I could keep pen to page that I would have cranked out my first book in one sitting. Quite the contrary. At least for me writing a book is not stream of consciousness, or even like writing this blog post. What actually was occurring, I quickly found out, is that I was imagining interesting scenes, but I struggled to connect the pieces. The story was not coming together. It seemed so clear in my head but the nitty-gritty was going to take some doing. I had information overload. Many ideas did not start out great. Many ideas did not even stay on topic.

People always ask me if I ever run out of ideas. When you let yourself be creative I have determined that there is no such thing as running out of ideas. Making those ideas meet or exceed what you have envisioned for a project? Now that is another question.

You would think I would have learned to outline better. But I felt too good for that. Or more accurately, I was too impatient. I was hoping this great idea playing through my mind could be drawn out on the page for me to see and enjoy with perfect flow, form and function. Writing, however, is work and it takes a lot more sticking to it at all costs to see it through. I soon realized that if I wanted my story to come to life I needed a lot more determination. Even after the blueprints were drawn up it was going to take hardwork, brick by brick. Part of me still thinks that there are a number of ways to divide my time and maybe it is just as well to let others create, through sweat and tears, for me to enjoy and consume. Except there is one problem. I caught the fire for writing that I cannot extinguish. Ideas kept coming. And no matter how I look for others to write the idea that is in my head, with every twist and turn that comes in a story I would not expect another would write it in the way I would choose to engage with the story. No matter what I have enjoyed through the years a great story waiting to come to light relentlessly begs for my attention.

If I thought of a great idea for the work at hand I stopped what I was doing and wrote it out. It could have been in the middle of the night, but I slept through it enough times to know that I would not remember a good idea if I didn’t wake up from a good slumber and jot it down. If I thought of a great idea for another work, I stopped what I was doing and wrote it down. Before I knew it I was sitting in mounds of papers and sticky notes with various thoughts. These soon got input into my computer until I had a multiplicity of files that spelled confusion. Years and years went by with various ventures coming and going, but I always returned to writing projects that just would not leave me alone. Often every spare moment was taken by the trade. Alas, I am a writer!

It took me far too long to realize the importance of an outline. I suppose part of that is the fear of stomping out creativity. There is a point to that. It is not easy to keep interested in a book you will end up reading through numerous times especially when you know the beginning from the end before you start. Still, some kind of skeleton structure is the best advice I can give to new writers before they get carried away in tangents without realizing it. Learn not only the rise and fall of climax within a plot, but the beginning, middle, and end of every chapter becoming its own story within a story and leading smoothly from one compelling tale to the next.

An author friend of mine gave me advice that unless I was certain I was willing to give writing the time it would require that I should think twice about becoming a writer. I guess I was not able to avoid the itch. The ideas beg me to write them down, first as a note, then as an outline, and then as novels. If you have a great idea, whether it is writing or another craft, learn how to outline your project before you get to work. As you get better you can go off script a little more, but even then projects without instructions often become missing parts. If you have a passion to see an idea through, don’t let your ideas get lost in the oblivion. Write the gist of it down, and go to work!

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My journey to publication began with a road trip. I had not much thought about writing before. It seemed like one of those dreams that was not likely worth dreaming. But as I watched from the window of our mini-van when we passed by countless dotted white lines, my mind inevitably wandered.

It was 1999 and I had just returned from my mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Cebu Philippines Mission. Best mission in the world, co-incidentally, as all of them are in reality. My focus had shifted from helping others to see a greater vision for their lives to thinking about what I was going to do with my own. Back then I didn’t know what interesting paths my future would take.

My family helped to sign me up for classes that would start soon, but for now we were on our way to Palmyra, New York to see the sacred grove where a prophet came to be, with his vision of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Certainly if this truly happened as I believe and feel with all of my heart it did–given the countless experiences I have had to test those feelings of the Holy Spirit, letting me know of the truth of God’s dealings with man–then it is the greatest news that I can share to the world. I am grateful for the two years of missionary service dedicated to passing along that good word to at least a few of God’s children on the isles of the sea. But that’s not where my mind was on this occasion.

Neither had I fully immersed my mind into the world of academia. No, I was considering what it would be like to get back into another love of mine–soccer. Before going to the Philippines I had high hopes of trying out as a walk-on for the Brigham Young University soccer team. I heard rumors that the first day of practice would consist of strenuous drills intended to weed people out. If I could not run from the practice fields to the “Y” fixed high enough on the side of a mountain for the whole valley to see and come back in the front third of the group, I would not make the team. Or so I had heard. I don’t know how true that was and what other drills would be expected of a tryout in that tired state. But having just missed tryouts my freshman year before my mission I had already put myself to that test. I played soccer nearly everyday my freshman year and built up stamina just to see if I could run to the “Y” and back. I am happy to report that I made that feat, only stopping to rest for about 10 minutes at the top. There was no way I could do that now after proselyting for two years (mentally taxing work but walking around in the heat was not nearly as physically taxing as college sports would require). I was out of shape. I thought about how I would risk injury. And that is when I started thinking of living out the story vicariously. A story began to peal to my view as though the scenes of a film.

Granted I had not envisioned writing being anything more than my baseball dream as a kid–a fun pastime but rare to make a living by. I only saw this as a fun way to distract my mind with a story not yet available for others to view. I began writing a story about a soccer player trying to play through injury. He had a history of concussions and was downplaying how bad those instances were. I think many athletes were doing this at that time, and for many years before the 1990’s, for that matter. Today I think that book would have a good audience. I’m thinking about revisiting it. But on my family’s road trip typing out that initial scene I didn’t realize I was playing out a scene that would become common to me as my own life story unfolds, and that is me spending all sorts of time writing and now blogging for not just my entertainment, but hopefully for yours as well.

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My goal is to write short blog posts each week about being an author on this website, ChadRobertParker.com, about my company and writing services at Writcreate.com, and about random short stories (or memories) as I contribute to the contest held on Anecdoting.com. First, however, I need to update all three websites. But stay tuned. The fun of it for me is in the writing because content is king after all. It’s coming soon!

Here I would like to give readers a “behind the scenes” look at my work, and more specifically, at this time, how Sterling Bridge came to be. I think it is fitting because Sterling Bridge is a film novel and what better way to start off than with a theme for my new author website that represents my first publication. That’s right, a film novel, meaning there is a screenplay already written for this book. That is not to say, however, that I am set on following the script to the “T.” Sterling Bridge—the novel–is just getting into the editing phase, itself, after all.

One thing I am going to like about writing this blog is that it will be more free flowing. Forgive me if you expected an author to be more nit-picky about edits. But I am getting ahead of myself. This post is just to introduce you to the idea that my blog will largely focus on the long journey it has been to bring my first published work to the shelves (15 years in the making). And yes, I will like to keep you apprised of the latest happenings, as well, as we continue the journey toward November 10th.

There is much to do ahead of a book launch party. I hope you can come along for the ride and enjoy this journey with me. Having worked in a library the past 7 years I can truly appreciate how much book lovers are involved in bringing a great story to the shelves. With your interest and support I hope I will be able author many more great books to come!

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Ever notice how the best stories are often true? Stories are the essence of any society–memories passed down from generation to generation. That’s how stories become folklore, larger than life, even legends. Come read, share, and compete each week to see who has the best story from everyday life. Enter to win! (See rules)

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