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\nUnder cover<\/strong> Writing one’s first novel is often a secret, hidden act <\/p>\n
\nIt has been a long and eventful journey, Dear Reader. And over the course of the next few posts, I’d like to share it with you. During those many years, when my evenings and weekends of mad creation were kept wholly separate from my real life in the lab, I learned, of course, a lot about writing fiction. But I also stepped into an entirely new world of science in literature, with all the issues and struggles that this unusual mixture entails. I embraced the arduous task of finding an agent and a publisher who might believe enough in my work to take a risk on an uncategorizable subgenre. I’ve learned how to promote myself, how to nucleate like-minded people in the name of the cause, how to follow up every connection and opportunity that might bring my goal one step closer. I’ve met an amazing array of close friends and staunch allies along the way. And I’ve learned how to take harsh criticism and multiple rejection letters, until now I don’t even blink at negative feedback \u2013 I relish it, because it’s far more useful than praise. In the process, I learned that writing the first draft of the book is the easy part, a matter of a few months: it is the revising and the selling that takes the time. <\/p>\n
\nAll stories have a beginning, and I remember this one well. I was working as a group leader in a start-up biotech company in Leiden at the time and had returned home as usual on the 18:31 Intercity to Amsterdam Centraal. As I walked home from Weesperplein metro station along Centuurbaan, trams clanged their bells, the River Amstel glinted in the sunset and the boats and barges were just putting on their lights. My partner at the time was working late in the lab, so I had the flat to myself. I can still see the vase of tulips on the pine desk, their dusky orange-rose color in the blue glass vase seeming to harbor some indefinable sense of expectation. I’d sketched out a plan, and I knew, somehow, that it was time to start typing. The first chapter flowed effortlessly, and the rest followed. For three or so months, I lived in another world: my characters felt more real to me than the flesh-and-blood people around me. And in truth, it was a sort of part-time insanity, one that my colleagues and acquaintances had no idea was unfolding. It was, in fact, an awful lot like falling in love and having a secret affair \u2013 only far more intense and passionate.<\/p>\n
\nExperimental Heart<\/em> is my first novel. Since then, I’ve completed another, and have a third half penned. I am proud of Experimental Heart<\/em>, which was short-listed last year for the Dundee International Book Prize, the world’s largest contest for unpublished novels. But equally, I know that writing it was a necessary step towards improving in the craft, so in some ways it is almost painful for me to see it go live now, knowing what waits in the wings. I am assured by other authors that such squeamishness is an entirely normal reaction, and I am trying not to think too hard about how it might be received. It is enough just to know that I have finally made it.<\/p>\n \nI will write more about the interesting psychology and strategies required to incorporate science into fiction, and later still about my adventures in trying to sell the novel, along with all the hurdles that literature with a scientific bent seems to face. It is my hope that sharing what I have learned may help other authors who want to incorporate scientists and science into their fiction \u2013 because I am convinced there is still plenty of great lab lit<\/a> waiting to be written.<\/p>\n \nFor now, I would be honored if you would order my book.<\/p>\n \nLogistical note:<\/em> \nThe book will probably ship sometime in the end of November \u2013 I will keep you posted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is finally happening. Roughly seven years after I first sat down at the iMac in my airy flat in the Oud Zuid quarter of Amsterdam and typed the words “Chapter 1”, my first novel is about to be published. … Continue reading
\nIf you’re in America, you have a choice between purchasing directly from the publisher<\/a> or Amazon.com<\/a>. In the UK, you can order from Amazon.co.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n