Category Archives: Kevin Ikenberry

When Disaster Strikes – Getting My Momentum Back

I’ve blogged on the Fictorians before about the infection that nearly killed me in 2014. What I may not have mentioned that outside of that scary situation and hospital stay, it really wrecked my writing momentum. This was February 2014. If we rewind back to mid-2013, I went into the most productive period of my writing at that point. From July 2013 to January 14, I wrote two novels. I wrote what became my debut novel SLEEPER PROTOCOL and another shorter novel that’s my tribute to Elmore Leonard called SUPER SYNC. In that six month period, I also wrote a few short stories and my overall total of words written was probably somewhere near 180,000. This was an incredible time and I really felt like I was getting into a higher gear when everything came crashing down.

After my illness, I barely wrote anything new for a year. Yes, I sold and went through subsequent edits on both SLEEPER PROTOCOL and an earlier novel RUNS IN THE FAMILY, so I was “writing” but I wasn’t writing anything new, which we all know are two entirely different things. But, in that period from April 2015 to January 2016 came the impetus for the sequel VENDETTA PROTOCOL and I decided to try my hand at a prequel to RUNS IN THE FAMILY. Writing was slow and arduous. There were several times when I wanted to simply give up. I was going to publish a novel, after all. I ultimately decided that I wasn’t going to be happy with one book on that shelf by my deathbed. It was time to write more, so in January 2016, I decided that it was time to get off my ass and write. I’d been incredibly productive before then, and I believed I could get back to, or surpass, my productivity. It just required self-discipline to get into the chair and write and a little faith that I would get better, both mentally and physically.

It was slow going at first, but I outlined an alternate history novel. From there, I went into the draft of VENDETTA PROTOCOL with the goal of writing it in three months. SLEEPER PROTOCOL took me 7 weeks and I figured I would need about double the time. Turns out, I wrote VENDETTA PROTOCOL in 9 weeks. Because I could feel myself getting faster and I trusted myself as a writer. Was it perfect? Hell, no. But I was getting it out of my head. I turned around from that draft and wrote a novella LANCER ONE. After that, I was asked to submit to a military science fiction anthology, so I wrote a 9,000 word story “Stand On It.” At the end of 2016, I started work on the alternate history novel I’d outlined in February-March. I worked on that draft into February of 2017.

Not long after I finished that project, my military science fiction anthology story turned into a novel titled PEACEMAKER. I wrote that novel in less than three months. During that time, I was asked on short notice to provide a story for the upcoming X-PRIZE: Avatars anthology. I had to turn it around in two weeks – I did it in a week. All of that “new writing” ended back in June of this year. I’ve been editing ever since. The results are crazy.

PEACEMAKER get worldwide release on August 25th. VENDETTA PROTOCOL gets an ebook release on September 13th and a print version following. The novella LANCER ONE is due out in October. The first anthology A FISTFUL OF CREDITS was released in June and is selling like hotcakes. The X-PRIZE anthology is due later this year.

Two weeks ago, I turned in the alternate history project to my editor/mentor. It’s the most difficult book I’ve written to date. I’ve now laid out a plan for the rest of 2017 and it’s ambitious as hell. I can get it done, though. My momentum is back. How did I do it?

Go back a few paragraphs. For me, it’s about putting my butt in the chair and writing. Yes, I plot and outline, but I’m also thinking about the books and projects all the time. I take a lot of notes. Some of them work, others don’t. The best ideas I don’t have to write down because they stay with me. Once I’m committed to writing the project, I let go of my inner critic – that little bastard that likes to click the backspace button more than he types. I write because I know that I can fix it later. I get the story out of my head. If it comes in short or over the desired word count, I go back and fix it. All of that is faith in myself. Will I make mistakes? Yes. Can I fix them? Yes. I’ve taken very strongly to the belief that I can fix anything in editing. The result is my productivity is higher than ever.

Let go. Have faith. Write.

Home As Setting and Theme

When my debut novel, Sleeper Protocol, was released in 2016, many of my childhood friends, family, and even my teachers commented about my use of “home.” Where I call home is a long way from where I live now, but every time I’m there the feeling of peace is as palpable as wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. I was born and raised in upper east Tennessee in an area called the Tri-Cities. My family actually lived very near a small community known as Midway – it was Midway between Johnson City and Tennessee’s Oldest City, Jonesborough. The Appalachian mountains filled the eastern horizon, running in a roughly southwest to northeast line. It’s a beautiful place.

And I never intended for my story to go there.

As the story of a cloned soldier trying to find his identity unwound from my brain to the keyboard, I initially struggled with “What’s the point?” or even Eric Flint’s famous guidance of “Who gives a $^#@?” I needed something to make the character’s emotional struggle hit home and that’s where the inspiration hit. So, I took my character home. In the third act, he descends Cherokee Mountain, crosses the Nolichucky River, and ends up on a small knoll where a farmhouse once stood. All of those are real places and the knoll is where my family’s homestead still stands. My cousins own “The Farm” as we call it, and it’s wonderful to know that it’s still there and open for my family to visit any time we want. That openness and warmth led me to bringing my character to an very different emotional level. I gave him a sense of place, a sense of a home that he’d once had and was very different than the future one, but a place he could identify with fully and embrace his identity. Once I’d opened that door, I proceeded to move him further along the path by having him stand over his own gravesite in the Mountain Home National Cemetery.

The journey to find his “home” was really the key to unlocking his identity. My first ideas to bring him through familiar territory to help with my description and emotional resonance gave way to something else entirely: a theme I’d never intended. Our sense of home is a large part pf our identity. Even our home nation, or state, or municipality is much more than a common bond to our neighbors. We identify ourselves to that place forever. No matter where I go, when I am asked where I’m from I always say that I’m from Tennessee and just happen to live elsewhere.

My point is this – write about your home or wherever you consider your home to be. Pull that emotion and identity into your own writing. Your voice will improve, your characters will seem more grounded and real, and your readers – especially those who claim the same sense of home – will keep asking for more. When you’re not writing about your home? Put that same warmth and emotion into the characters who are there. It makes a difference to the story and to your characters.

A Small Press With Big Accomplishments

When I prepared to submit my debut novel Sleeper Protocol for publication, I decided that I would look into small presses as well as larger more traditional ones. As I prepared my list of potential “candidates” a good friend and co-author of mine mentioned a publisher I’d never heard of before: Red Adept Publishing. I added them to the list of potential publishers that I would research. As soon as I looked closer, I realized that Red Adept would move to the top of the list.

At that time, in 2014, I discovered that Red Adept Publishing had already published a New York Times Bestselling novel. That was a huge plus for them on my scoresheet. I also discovered they were located in North Carolina and being from Tennessee, this was another plus. Not too shabby. When I checked the normal sources (Preditors and Editors, Author Beware), I found nothing negative to speak of and so when the time came, I sent them Sleeper Protocol and kept my fingers crossed.

One October afternoon, I had some scheduled writing time before I was to pick up our youngest child from daycare. I walked out of Starbucks, got into the car, and my phone rang with a North Carolina area code. I picked it up and so began my first conversation with Red Adept Publishing. Lynn McNamee and her amazing team go much farther above and beyond than most small presses I know. Not only was I told that Sleeper Protocol would get a copy edit and a line edit, a spectacular cover, and marketing assistance, I found myself folded into a group of authors across many genres (fantasy, romance, thriller, paranormal, science fiction) who support each other and really are one big, happy family. I could not have been happier to have signed a contract with them.

It’s fair to say now, though, that Red Adept was not the first small press I submitted to, nor was my contract on Sleeper Protocol the first small press contract I received. The first publisher has since gone out of business and their contract, which they touted as “negotiable,” was a learning experience in and of itself. When I look back and compare that publisher and Red Adept Publishing? Yeah, there’s no comparison at all. Why? Red Adept’s contract is very friendly to authors and the quality of work they’ve produced over the last several years stands for itself.

Since I signed with Red Adept, the publisher has seen another author hit the New York Times list and two authors hit the USA Today Bestsellers List. Those are tremendous accomplishments for any press, not just a small press. What sets them apart is very simple: they are the most professional, enthusiastic, and supportive team of authors and editors that I know and I’m thrilled to be a part of them going forward.

Just the other day, I received an email from my line editor that it was time for Vendetta Protocol to start its final march to publication. We already have an amazing cover and I was fortunate enough to have the same editing team from Sleeper Protocol sign on for the sequel. I’m looking forward to publishing more with Red Adept Publishing in the future. They certainly have changed my life. I’m very glad that I decided to go with a small publisher, but it matters most that I went with one of the right ones. They’re out there.

How I’ll Remember 2016

So, we’ve come to the end of December and the end of 2016. To say that 2016 has been a difficult and challenging year, one so closely aligned with the loss of larger-than-life personalities and rampant disagreement, would be an understatement. As for me, 2016 has been a year of change and a recognition that I’d crossed the line from aspiring author to author.

While riding the wave from the release of my first novel, I was retired from my service in the Army Reserve. I spent the last third of my career on active duty and after surviving a necrotizing fasciitis, the demands of service were deemed to be too much for me. After almost 24 years in uniform, my life experienced a huge change to say the least.

Over the following months, my writing career gained steam. In April, I qualified for full Active Membership in the Science Fiction Writers of America. I had an unexpected email from David Brin that complimented my writing ability and my book. In June, Sleeper Protocol was featured in a BookBub ad. The resulting promotions shot my novel into the top #115 books on all of Amazon and #1 in three categories. It sold over 2,000 copies that month alone. One of my friends, Aaron Michael Ritchey, told me point blank that I was no longer an aspiring author. Halfway through 2016, I had no idea the biggest moment of my year was still to come.

When I was an ROTC instructor, teaching the next generation of Army officers at a small university in Indiana, I frequently recommended two books to my cadets. Twenty years earlier, as a cadet myself, I’d first read Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein while in the midst of my junior year. That year, called the MS3 year, is arguably the worst for a cadet as it culminates in a summer training program designed to rank all cadets in the country from 1-n for assignments in the Army post-graduation. My junior year was not great by any means, but Starship Troopers stuck with me. As an MS4, a senior, I first read another book that would change my perception of military service. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman was equally important to my development as an officer. Starship Troopers taught me how, if necessary, to go to war. The Forever War taught me how to stay human and how to come home. They are the two most influential books I’ve ever read and they occupy a shared space on the bookshelf next to my desk. I’ve never been a real “fan boy” but I think I came really close in August.

I made the decision to attend WorldCon in Kansas City at the last possible moment. There were two major factors: my wife put off a foot surgery that opened the possibility, and then my friend Lou Berger made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It went something like this – “How’d you like to go to lunch with Joe Haldeman?”

I couldn’t say yes fast enough.

So, we went to lunch with Joe and Gay Haldeman. During the course of lunch, I actually got a chance to tell Joe how much The Forever War had meant to me as a young cadet. We had an incredible conversation about it, his upcoming works, and then my book. Gay asked to see it, so I got a copy out of my pack and handed it to them. At that exact moment, Greg Bear and his wife stopped by. Greg patted Joe on the shoulder and then pointed at my book.

“That’s a great cover!” he said.

I started to shake. Gay and Joe had to run to a panel, but they told me they’d find me at the WordFire booth the next day. Leaving lunch, I couldn’t thank Lou enough. I hoped to see the Haldemans again, but I knew how crazy WorldCon was and tried to just bask in the conversation we’d had and my personal time with Joe.

The next day, they came by the WordFire booth where I’d spent my time camped out next to Chuck Gannon, Larry Dixon, and Mercedes Lackey (which was incredible to say the least). Gay walked up, gave me a hug, and said “We want your book.”

With shaking hands, and vision blurred from threatening tears, I signed a copy of Sleeper Protocol to Joe and Gay Haldeman. We then took pictures together and both of them hugged me before they went on their way. We’ve even since maintained email contact, which is mind-blowing. To say that meeting one of my inspirations was the highlight of 2016 would be a gross understatement. I left there energized and ready for the remainder of the year.

Since WorldCon, I’ve completed the edits for Vendetta Protocol and been hard at work on an alternate-history novel that’s been a real ass kicker. It’s a moment of change for me as it diverges from everything I’ve written up to this point. But, there’s also been a recognition that this is part of that whole writing “thing.” Challenge is always out there. We’re fortunate that so many of our inspirations and our favorite authors are approachable and willing to help – sometimes they even go to lunch with you. For that, I’ll be forever grateful.

I hope you have enjoyed our December “Year In Review” posts. From here, I transfer things over to the amazing Sean Golden for next month’s theme: Starting Over.

Happy New Year!