I released a new novel a month or so ago, called Russet. It’s my fourth book of fiction; all my prior titles have been about technology, history, photography, writing, sound recording, biography, and a few other genres. Anyway, Russet’s doing well, especially given the fact that I haven’t done much since its release to market or promote it. It’s my first science fiction book, and I had a blast writing it.

For the last six weeks or so, pretty much since Russet hit the shelves, I’ve been getting an unusual number of emails and messages from people, asking me how to write a book. Actually, they’re asking more than that. Many feel like they have a book inside them begging to be written, and want to know how to let it out, how to get it from mind to paper. Or, they have an idea that they think would make a good book, but don’t know how to bridge the gap between their idea and a finished work. And others want to know how I manage to jump between genres in my writing. It’s true—I write about a lot of different things.

First, to the question of how to write a book. When people learn that I’m a writer, their first question is always, “What do you write?” And my response is, always, “Words, mostly.” I know—it’s snarky.  But it’s true. As a writer, my job is to assemble letters into words and then string the words into thoughts that become sentences, and then string the sentences into paragraphs that represent vignettes, and then string the paragraphs into chapters that represent movement, and then string the chapters into a book that tells a story. It’s the story that matters. When I hear people say that they have a book inside them wanting to get published, I believe that what they’re actually saying is that they have a story inside them that wants to be told. We’re wired, you see, to naturally conclude that the story we want to share should be in the form of a book. And while that MAY be the best way to present a particular story, it’s not the ONLY one. Here’s an example. 

In 1987 (yep, you heard right—almost 38 years ago!) I started writing a book called Whatever Happened to Mister Duncan, a collection of essays about childhood games that were mostly played outside and that didn’t require anything other than our imaginations to play—okay, some of them required a pocket knife or a Popsicle stick, but that was pretty much it. No batteries, no screens, no keyboard or joystick. I had a hard time finishing the book; along the way I interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands, of people, asking them about their own memories of childhood, and what their favorite games and activities were. I then sat down and designed the book, laying out the logical sections and creating chapters. But every time I thought I’d finished it, I’d get a call from somebody who wanted to share a long-forgotten memory, or a toy, or an experience that was so rich that it had to be in the book. So, I’d go back and do yet another rewrite. Because they were right—it HAD to be in the book.

The manuscript at which I finally called a halt to the process was the 318th complete rewrite of the book. I ended it by adding a paragraph that acknowledges the fact that the book will never actually be finished, but that I’ll include new material in later editions. 

So: 319 versions, by the time I finally had a complete, polished, nine-chapter, fully illustrated, 300-some-odd page book manuscript.

Which I have now decided should not be a book at all—at least, not exclusively.

This is a book about childhood. It’s experiential. I want it to evoke poignant memories of the period in our lives that created who we all are, before we had to start the odious task of adulting. You see, during those 38 years between the time that I first got the idea to write the book and when it finally emerged from its literary chrysalis, I did, as I said, hundreds of interviews; collected at least that many sound effects; and watched dozens and dozens of adults revert to childhood for the briefest periods during our conversations to show me something, before reverting back to boring, well-behaved adults. In other words, Duncan (my shorthand title for Whatever Happened to Mister Duncan) is a multiple media experience of sounds and different voices, none of which can adequately be presented between the pages of a book. Sure, I can transcribe the interviews, and I probably will, eventually, but what’s more fun: me writing down a list of all the different kinds of marbles that are out there, or listening to people struggle to remember the names of marbles as they dredge the murky depths of their own childhood memories?

So: the decision was easy. This has to be an audio book.

But that brought me to another important point. I’ve already mentioned that most people who say that they have a book inside that needs to get published are actually saying that they have a story that needs telling. Truthfully, most would-be authors I speak with, whether during casual conversation or as participants in my writing workshops, are more interested in getting published than they are in writing a book. One of my favorite authors, Ann Lamott, who wrote the bestselling book about writing called Bird by Bird, says the same thing. People don’t typically buy books because they’re beautifully published. They buy them because they’re creatively written. The creativity is the hard part—and the author’s job. The publishing is the presentation part, a process that’s more mechanical than it is creative. 

So: do you want to write a book to tell a story, or to get published? Because here’s the thing: you can’t get published until you’ve written a book, and if you write a book, the goal is to tell the book’s story. Publishing comes after the fact. Without a good story, what is there to publish?

Which brings us back to Duncan. Not too long ago, I took stock of the activities that give me pleasure, beyond the obvious ones—family, chasing grandkids, recording nature. I love to write; I love to interview people so that I can learn about them and then tell their story on my Podcast; I love to teach; I love photography; and I love field recording. When I analyze all of those, I find that they all have one thing in common: they’re all different ways to tell stories. I’m a storyteller—plain and simple. I don’t write to publish a book; I write to tell a story. Here’s a little secret for you: I only publish about 30 percent of what I write. And what I mean by that is that I only TRY to publish about 30 percent.

So, Duncan: I’ve decided to give it away, because the material is too good, too precious, too human to sell. It belongs to everybody, which is why it will soon emerge as a nine-chapter audio book as a gift to my listeners on the Natural Curiosity Project. I think you’ll like it—I really do. And check it out: just like that, my creative project is published. Who cares if I published it myself? The joy comes from sharing it and engaging with those who choose to write or call me about it.

I think that takes care of the first two questions, which leaves the issue of genre-jumping. There, I invented a term.

It’s true. My very first book was called Commotion in the Ocean, and it was a professional SCUBA diving manual. I wrote it because there wasn’t a particularly good book on the market, and at the time, that was what I did for a living—I was a SCUBA instructor. I then wrote a book called Managing Cross-Cultural Transition, about my experiences living in different countries and therefore cultures and offering advice to expats about the challenges they would face, not when they moved overseas, but when they moved back to their home country.

Next, I wrote a series of well-received books about various telecom technologies, two of which became bestsellers. Isn’t that insane? But here’s the secret. The reason they were so well-received was because they weren’t boring. Instead of trying to impress my readers with how much I knew about telecom standards and protocols and the inner workings of things, I told stories. What a concept! I talked about being present when the Internet first became available in a small African country, and watching as the kids in a small village connected their little One-Laptop-Per-Child laptops to the Web and started downloading music. I explained optical networking, arguably a very complicated topic, by telling the story of getting the opportunity in Singapore to spend several days aboard a cable-laying ship and watching how they did that. I talked about getting to watch surgeons remove a woman’s gall bladder in a rural African clinic, using a robotic surgery machine—noting that the surgeons were controlling the robot from Maryland, 8,000 miles away. And I wrote about the power of technology and how its complexities were what made education accessible for a large swath of the world’s population.

Stories. Always, stories. It’s what people want to hear; it’s what gets them to focus; and it’s what has to be wrapped around facts if those facts are to be absorbed and retained. No story? No context. No context? No understanding. It’s that simple.

So, by now you’ve probably figured out how I do genre-jumping. I don’t! My genre, you see, is storytelling. The details, the settings, the protagonists, the main characters, are secondary. Sometimes I tell stories about technology, sometimes about history, sometimes I tell stories for children, sometimes I tell stories about childhood games or write political or adventure or science fiction novels. Sometimes my heroes and villains are people, but sometimes they’re devices, or networks, or companies. But it’s always about the story.

And how do the stories come to me? Well, at the risk of sounding self-serving, the answer is curiosity. I seek out people and I have conversations with them, because everybody—and I mean everybody—has a story inside them that will light a spark. I read a lot, and I read a wide variety of genres. If you’ve swapped emails with me, then you know that one of my email signature lines is, “Writing is my craft; reading is my gym.” I really mean that. Reading is what makes me a better writer. That, and writing.

I also spend a lot of time thinking about adverbs. Let me explain.

I used to run leadership programs at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. Some of them were multi-week programs, which meant that I’d often be in LA over a weekend. Well, one weekend I had nothing to do, so I walked over to a local science museum because it was only a couple of blocks away and I love museums. I’d never been to this one.

The place was pretty cool: outside, on stands, they had an F104 Starfighter and an SR-71, both amazing aircraft. Inside they had a whole collection of satellites, along with the usual kid-oriented science displays. Then I walked down a hall and as I passed a doorway, I looked into a dimly lit room, and there, lined up in front of me, were a Mercury, a Gemini, and an Apollo capsule. Well, I’m a space geek, so I spent the next hour just walking around these things, peering inside, marveling at how—primitive they were. I kid you not, the seat the Mercury astronauts had to sit in was basically a lawn chair, made of braided leather straps. And based on the space inside, the astronaut couldn’t have been more than four feet tall. Gemini was no better. I’m exaggerating, but not by much. And Apollo? Bigger, but they also stuffed three people in there for the trip to the Moon. Here are the facts, according to NASA. The average length of a Mercury flight was 15 minutes. Gemini flights ranged from a few hours to one extreme endurance mission that lasted 14 days, But the average was three days. Apollo missions lasted an average of just over eight days. 

Let me interrupt myself with another story before finishing this one. As I was standing there, admiring these early space capsules, I realized how dark it was in the room. So, I looked up at the ceiling to see the lights. Except I couldn’t see the lights. Why? Well, because just over my head, between me and the ceiling, was the gigantic wing of the Space Shuttle Endeavor. The one that they pulled down the streets of LA to get it there. It was so massive and took up so much space in the room that I didn’t notice it, I was so focused on those little capsules hiding in the shadows underneath it. 

Yep—tears. Geek tears.

Anyway, adverbs. You remember—who, what, when, where, which, how, why.

My curiosity kicked in. There I was, looking at those capsules, thinking about how brave or crazy a person had to be to be bolted into one of those things, and how crowded it was, and how the Apollo astronauts basically just sat there in a space about the size of a VW Beetle for four days, one way, before turning around and doing it again in reverse. There was no bathroom, no privacy, no way to really get up and move around. Just shoot me now. 

And that got me thinking—and here’s where the adverbs came in. A trip to Mars is somewhere between four-and-a-half and six months, depending on timing. How in the world could we possibly convince a crew to crawl into a ship for a journey that long? Well, I figured it out—at least, I figured out ONE way. And I must be pretty accurate, because I got a call from a friend who works at our vaunted space agency, asking me after reading my book whether I had hacked their firewall. Gotta love that. Anyway, that’s how Russet got its start. It was all about asking, ‘hey, what if…?’ The power of adverbs, especially how and why. Those two little words define curiosity. And when curiosity and storytelling are combined? Wow. 

It’s why I started The Natural Curiosity Project Podcast. Dorothy Parker once wrote that curiosity is the cure for boredom, but that there is no cure for curiosity. Thank goodness. Curiosity is what keeps the world moving forward. Want to see the Dark Ages again, the period that Bill Bryson describes in his book, “The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way” as “a period when history blends with myth and proof grows scant”? It’s easy: stop being curious. Does Bryson’s description of the Dark Ages sound alarming, given current events? Does it strike a bit close to home? Good. So, get out there. Be curious. Share ideas, and don’t just blindly trust what you read or hear—question everything. It should be the law. Oh wait—it IS the law. My bad.