I love writing fiction and stories. Like every author I dream about my stories being read for hundreds of years, being turned into films and stage masterpieces causing the audiences to be brought to tears. I dream about people generations from now relating to the struggles of my characters and crying, cheering for them.

Besides writing and revising, there is much more to writing than meets the eye. Here are 10 of my opinions on the difficulties of writing.

I'm the published author of The Insurrectionists available on Amazon USA and Europe.

1. Should take less than a year!

Actually, it took me six. Six years of looking at my characters differently. Years of trying to perfect scenes. Writing scenes in the middle of the night expecting them to be wonderfully tear-jerking but only to see them the next morning and be like "well this is corny!" and revise. Writing takes years, many years. Even when you think you are done- you may want to change again.

My published story isn't the first story I wrote, but its the first one I've published. It also went through so many changes. It was tricky to write the American Revolution taking place in the 21st century. Of course, reviewers asked "is this Obama?" or "is this Mitt Romney?" Nope, neither of them were in "The Insurrectionists".

Most of my characters are original or loosely inspired by historical figures. But I stayed away from current US Politics as "The Insurrectionists" takes place in the future. It is funny, however, looking back I can see some characters who could easily be a Donald Trump or an Elizabeth Warren! That I will leave up to you readers to discover.

2. Naming characters is fun and easy!

For me, I love packing in symbolism, like Rascumparati my communist police chief's name actually is Romanian for "redemption." Zakon, my other police chief's name means "the law." Rascumparati is a dynamic character, I hope his name foreshadows who he is.

Sometimes I'll use a name like Marianne (the symbolic figure of France). Other times if you have a foreign character from a place like Poland or Russia, their naming follows a very specific set of rules and you can't have as much latitude. They also may be tricky if you have no concept of Slavic languages.

My Polish revolutionary leader, Lech Wałzyński (Vulh-chin-ski) I originally named "Rewolucja" (revolution) but people weren't falling for it. Wałzyński does have a charming ring to it though! People are like "why didn't you choose something easier?" I don't think it would be very believable taking a name from my country to name a Polish character unless of course, he is an American immigrant living in Poland. Actually, those could make for some cool characters.

3. The awkward google searches

No, I'm not doing anything illegal I promise! Also, I'm not pregnant- I just have to Google names for symbolism you know??

I haven't written any crime novels, but those authors have even worse google searches.

However when you are writing an allegory based on history be prepared for "how rebellions start", "justifications for communism", "list of authoritarian ideologies", "text to The Prince," etc.

I'm completely against authoritarianism but trying to write authoritarian regimes (especially in the chapters focusing on dictators) can get weird fast. "Most effective rebellions against authority" has also graced my Google search.

Google probably thinks that I'm a hypochondriac who is sick with tuberculosis, the number of times I had to Google TB symptoms for my poor characters who get sent to the gulag.

4. No, we aren't Madame Defarge.

You are not that person I just sent to the guillotine I promise!!!

So Madame Defarge from Tale of Two Cities infamously knitted the names of those she sought revenge against in her stories. There are jokes "if you annoy an author she will kill you in a story" and this isn't always true. At least not for me- some authors may be more Defargeish.

People seem to be under the impression that all villains are people the author knows personally. No, most of the time (at least for me) my "villains" aren't even villains, they are good people who are misled by power and money. If anything is the villain in my novels it is usually wealth and power.

But no, please be assured that you aren't in my story. Sometimes friends of mine may inspire a character or a character's appearance. But my villains are either based on historical villains or personifications of wealth and greed. Take for example Leninska from "The Insurrectionists"- she isn't evil! Monarchy, her ideology, might be evil (I'll leave that for the reader to decide) but I don't know any Leninska in real life. I do know a few people who I think could play an epic Leninska on stage, though.

5. You stick with one story line

"The Insurrectionists" it is an allegory of a mixture of US and World History taking place in the 21st century. Originally though, the entire post-Civil War era wasn't included. There was no Lech Walzynski tearing down the Berlin Wall, no Marianne Moulin gathering La Resistance against the Nazis, no Leninska trying to unite the world with monarchy.

Just the United States repeating early American history up to the Civil War. I ended it with the close of the Civil War. That was my very first draft. Then a certain "Lech" tugged on my heart. I was taking a class on the Cold War, and the idea of a young dissident from Eastern Europe breaking the world free from Communism tugged on my creative mind. This person who I first named "Rewolucja" was somewhat comparable to Enjolras from "Les Miserables"- he was the ideal of the republic. Lech Wałęsa's true backstory served as research help for my Lech Wałzyński. A young resistance fighter who I originally named "Lady Liberty" until I came up with a less obvious name became Marianne (France's personification of liberty.)

The Civil War itself got changed a lot. Instead of making it "confederacy" versus "union," I set the allegory to "libertarian-ism/individualism" on one end, and "order/rule of law" on the other end to see how it would play out. The South in my story doesn't have much to do with the real South from history except in name.
Why is this? After the American Revolution, the political scene in my story changed so drastically I decided to make the second war an allegory of the raw issue of individualism vs rule of law.

Someday I'd love to write about the actual American Civil War, but this allegory fit my novel better.

Now for the 20th century, as much as I love history- I found this to be a very slow moving era. It was interesting but seemed to drag on a bit. So WW1/WW2 and the Cold War were merged. This is why Marianne and Lech are around the same age, Olivia (that little girl from the Civil War representing peace) is about 20 years older than them.

6. Characterization is easy

Caroline Camhouille, my personification of liberty (complete liberty) in my allegory of "Liberty, Equality, Justice" to show that all three need each other. She was wonderful in my mind, but when I wrote her on paper (at first) people were like "uhh she seems too good" or "where are her flaws?" Of course, she had flaws in my mind- but I had to show this audience a five-page snippet of "The Insurrectionists" (a 310-page book!).
I was really upset at first because my characters are my babies, I get really protective of them. After a conversation with a professor, he encouraged me to work more on inner dialogues. I also found out it takes a lot of time to build up a character.

For example- Sikorska, my somewhat eccentric Polish President. She first appeared in my novel in a brief outline dying dramatically in the arms of somebody. I didn't have much to her at first, but when I continued her- although she wasn't "evil" she had her own prejudices and struggles she had to overcome, she had a backstory full of sadness and rejection. Her prejudices were something she had to overcome.

Its tricky making personifications of the "ideal" which would be Camhouille, Marianne, Walzynski, J'lay (Equality), Ryan (Justice), Olivia (Peace) but it can be done- and I encourage authors to do it!

Sadly in real life, there were/are people who are evil just for the sake of evil. Yes, it is alright to include those characters as well, just don't make it too predictable (unless that is the point).

My "King George" was at first rather flat too until one of my friends pointed that out and we worked to give him motivations and a heart for doing the right thing. He wants to say the right thing but it always comes out wrong. Poor William Arnold!
Also, Van Fordley- the politician who always took bribes- her childhood circumstances led her to believe money was the key to a happy life.

Julia Rospierre- now I'd defend this character in front of anybody. It's the propaganda in the newspapers that make her appear like a villain because people are afraid of the revolution spreading.

7. Sometimes it's better to be quiet and let the reader speculate

As I mentioned the more you talk about a character and their backstory, the more the people are likely to sympathize with your babies. But sometimes it can be overdone. If in the beginning of World War II I spend 10 pages on each of the main leader's backstory the readers will lose track of the story and characters. Spend time interweaving the backstories. Lech, for example, is unaware of Marianne's backstory- she knows about him from stalking her research on various resistance members which involves intense google stories, but she can't let on that she knows he has been imprisoned in the gulag.

Give a backstory when it's appropriate, but don't go too long. It may be helpful to have a separate document (not your novel) where you write your own long drawn out backstories for your characters to better predict how they will respond.

8. Talk to yourself

"I'm Marianne Moulin, leader of the French Resistance. Torture me all you want Nazis but I will never reveal a single secret."

Seriously, read your character's lines out loud or they may sound kind of awkward.

Like my fanatic secessionist character Peter Saint-Just, it was kind of awkward to read some of his lines since it made me sound like a radical but the more I read them the more it became natural to write my character Saint-Just and predict what he should say next.
Or reading my Communist dictator, and it's like "disclaimer: I'm not communist. I'm a writer" but I was reading it in a quiet room.

Or reading my revenge obsessed resistance member who is more into revenge than the actual resistance, I had to carefully make sure he didn't sound like a cartoon from a children's movie. That is also very tempting if you don't read their lines. Read and imagine if they are film characters- what would you think?

Nothing wrong with sounding like a cartoon if you are writing a kid's book though!

9. Publishing is really hard

Not really these days, but advertising- that's a different story.

I self-published, and yes you have to pay attention. My formatting got messed up when I submitted it so I had to resubmit it. Its hard to set prices because at least on my publisher- I can't set it below $13 so be careful as to your page limit.

10. Advertising is easy: If it's a good book, it will sell.

Hahaha, no. You really have to push to get the word out there. It's hard to get people to buy books. I'm not familiar with advertising or marketing but I've been learning a lot and still haven't sold enough copies to make royalties. Advertising is an art and there are always more and new ways to do it.

In fact, I may be advertising right now ;) The easy way to do it is "Pleeaaassseee buy my book!!! I need money to live!!!!!!!!!" but that tends to steer people away, for advertising you have to be clever and strategic.
Like in my novel my resistance fighters at first come straight out "Vive la resistance!" and obviously don't make it, but after subtleness, they succeed.

Anyway, those are my opinions on the top 10 things I learned about writing.