Ken Fite

October 2019

Hello from Orlando! And Happy Halloween!

My boys are excited for tonight and are getting ready to go trick-or-treating in a few minutes. Meanwhile, dad has just finished the third and final draft of Blake Jordan #6.

I’m so excited to be done! Now I’m just wrapping up some line edits and plan to send the final manuscript to my editor next week. I hope to have the changes a few days later, then I plan to have the story in your hands ready to read by the end of November.

The theme of the new book is how life requires sacrifice and how that often means we must let go of what we want in order to get what we need. Because saying yes to one thing often means saying no to something else. Want to get in shape? You’ll have to say no to Dunkin’ and start saying yes to the gym and healthier foods. Want to write a novel? That means saying no to sleeping in and other things you might want to do.

This book took me a little longer than usual to finish than other stories have taken me in the past. But I’m okay with that. Because I balanced time working on it with spending time with my family… with going to the gym… with doing a lot of other things.

It’s interesting how the theme in the books I write are intertwined with the things I struggle with while I’m writing them. Exploring the idea of sacrifice this year really hit home for me and I loved writing this story. I can’t wait for you to read it in just a few weeks as soon as these line edits are done and my editor does her magic.

For now, it’s time to have some fun collecting chocolatey treats from our neighbors.

But the trick’s on my boys—dad tax on candy is 50% this year.

Keep your eyes peeled over the next month… I’ll keep you updated on book #6. -Ken

September 2019

Hello from St. Pete Beach!

If you’ve received my newsletter for a while, you may remember that last summer I went to New York City and attended ThrillerFest. It was a great conference for writers. And I really enjoyed rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lee Child, George R. R. Martin, and many others. The sessions on writing were good. But I felt a bit out of place there.

Then I found out about NINC (Novelists, Inc.). I learned they had a conference just two hours west of my home in Orlando and, while it also had a lot of information for traditionally published writers, their indie membership and workshops were growing.

It seemed like a good mix of both sides of the writing world. I was in!

I arrived on Wednesday and have met a lot of really great people. The sessions I’ve attended have mostly been on how to advertise on Amazon, Facebook, and BookBub and have been really useful. And the conversations I’ve had with other writers about what’s working for them were helpful, too. As an introvert, I of course felt anxious about coming, but it’s amazing what can happen if you step out of your comfort zone. 

And best of all, my wife drove the boys over after school on Friday and were able to enjoy the TradeWinds Resort while I learned about the business side of writing.

Win-win, so I’m really glad I came.

If you’re trying to grow and get better, you have to do things that are uncomfortable. And be brave. Because great things never came from staying in our comfort zones.

A quick update on Blake Jordan #6:

I finished the second draft last week, but I’m going to have to do a third draft, which I plan on starting soon. Next week, I have to travel to Omaha for a few days. That’ll throw off my routine a bit, like this week did. But I’m determined to finish this book.

I’ll keep you updated and hope to have more progress to share next month. -Ken

August 2019

We’ve stockpiled our pantry with enough food and water to last us a while. We’ve brought in all of the lawn chairs and anything else Hurricane Dorian could use as a deadly projectile. The only thing left to do now is go to Disney World and take advantage of the shorter lines! So that’s what my family and I will be doing today as we try to get a little bit of fun in before the weather turns bad and we have to hunker down.

A quick update on Blake Jordan #6:

The good news is I’m continuing to make progress on the second draft.

The bad news is I’m only about 75% through. And I’m going to have to do a third draft, but I know it’s going to make the story better. I can’t wait to be done so you can read it.

This has been a busy season for me. I’ve prioritized a lot of things ahead of my writing. Sleep, exercise, spending more time with family. I don’t regret any of it.

Sometimes I wish I had more time so I could do more. I once told that to someone. Their response has always stuck with me: “Ken, there’s never enough time to do everything in life… but there’s always enough time to do the most important things.”

I’m excited to keep working on the story so I can finish it in the next few weeks.

But I’m just as excited to spend time doing the most important things, the things that really matter, so I have a reason to keep writing. Thanks for your continued support and I’ll update you on the new story next month. I know you’re going to love it.

July 2019

A quick update on Blake Jordan #6… I’m making good progress on the second draft. Right now I’m about a third of the way in and trying to work through one chapter a day. That’s not my usual pace. In the past, I’ve been able to do about two chapters a day. But it’s been a really busy summer this year with a lot going on and I keep reminding myself about the importance of consistency and how it has a compounding effect.

There’s a lot to keep track of as a writer if you want to be a success. Gone are the days where you could just grow a writer’s beard and sit in your study and daydream and write. There’s advertising you have to constantly be monitoring and adjusting. There’s email from readers (which I love!) you need to reply promptly to (which I am bad at!). And when you find time, there’s that new novel you’re trying to put out into the world.

I have to remind myself that the most important thing is the novel. That should be #1.

And I have to remember it’s not about what we do-it’s about what we consistently do.

Excellence isn’t a one time event. I don’t want to just write a good book. I want to write a book that you will love… a story that will mean something to you. One you’ll remember for a long time. The only way to do that is to be intentional every single day.

A few weeks back, I joined a gym. I’ve tried to go at least three times a week. There’s a trainer I work with named Gil and he says if I want to see results, I really can’t go less than that. I thought differently after the first day and my body was sore for seven days.

But consistency is key, he says. Along with eating better, which I’m trying to work on.

Because our overall health is the accumulation of all of the decisions we’ve made, good or bad, over time. And I think the trick is making better choices and letting them compound as the days pass. It’s hard to make the gym a priority. Just like sometimes it’s hard to focus on my new book with so many other things I really need to work on.

The truth is, if we have a goal and we’re persistent, we will get it.

But if we’re consistent, we will keep it.

My goal is to release Blake Jordan #6 by the end of September and by now, you know how I am with goals. So here’s to eight weeks of being persistent and consistent so I can deliver a story I hope you will love. 

June 2019

Hello from Indian Rocks Beach!

Missy and I are away on vacation, celebrating our wedding anniversary while grandma’s at the house watching the boys this weekend and doing whatever grandmas do whenever mom and dad are away (probably something involving lots of sweets). While our anniversary was last month, we needed to wait until school was out and sports activities were all done before we could finally get away for a kid-free weekend.

But today, I’m also celebrating finishing the first draft of Blake Jordan #6 on Friday!

First drafts are tricky things. Nobody has ever read one of mine… mostly because they’re terrible. They’re so bad that if God forbid anything ever happened to me before I could write a second draft, I’d hope Missy would find the file in my computer and delete it before it could ever see the light of day. Stephen King calls first drafts “writing with the door closed.” The story is just for the writer. First drafts require nothing more than being willing to write something bad so you can rewrite the story into something better.

So now I’m on phase two. I said what I wanted to say, and now with the next two rewrites, I need to say what I mean and make it into a story that will be remembered.

This story was so hard to write. If you read my last couple of newsletters, you probably could sense that I was struggling. You’d think the writing would get easier, but it doesn’t. And if I’m honest with you, the thing I was really struggling with was perfection.

I’m a recovering perfectionist. And it bleeds into every single part of my life. When Missy hangs a new picture on the wall, the first thing I check is if the frame is straight. When I work in my office, I have to have everything perfectly centered and symmetric.

And when I write a novel, I feel that same pull for everything to be perfect the first time.

But it never is. And it never should be. That’s The Lie we all deal with when trying to do something meaningful. We think it has to be perfect. We waste a lot of time making it so. But The Truth is the first draft of anything is never perfect. Even the final draft has its flaws. But you can’t get to a final draft if you’re not willing to write a bad first draft.

Last month, I was barely past the midpoint of my story. But I came to a realization while I was working: to stop aiming for perfection and instead, to try to get some perspective.

Because when you’re writing a novel, you don’t know if your story is going off the rails until you get to the end. You don’t know how things are going to connect until you’re finished and you can step back, take a good, hard look at the thing, and then judge it.

As soon as I decided to aim for perspective instead of perfection, everything changed.

The first draft is done. Now I know how to make the story better. I have perspective. I’ve won the battle against the dreaded first draft and I’m resting so I can win the war.

If you’re a recovering perfectionist, like me, try looking for perspective instead of perfection. It just might give you what you need to finish whatever you’re working on.

May 2019

I have a confession to make. Recently, I’ve come down with a really bad case of comparisonitis. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s often caught by scrolling through your Facebook feed and compulsively comparing your accomplishments to someone else’s.

A little backstory…

I’ve been a member of a number of Facebook groups for writers over the years. When you don’t know too many other writers in real life (this is mostly a solitary job after all) it’s great to be a part of a community to get feedback and pick up some tips to improve.

Writers share what writing programs they use, how to get more words in per day. They share advertising ideas and strategies, cover design tips, and let everyone know when they accomplish a really big goal like finishing a book so we can celebrate with them.

It’s especially fun to see posts from new writers who just finished their very first novel. It reminds me of the day I finished my first one… how I just stared at the screen, trying to decide if the story I’d just written with was any good or not. But I’ve recently noticed a new trend in these Facebook groups I’m in: writers finishing a novel in just a month.

***

It’s hard to believe them, sometimes. We fiction writers lie for a living, after all. Did it really only take a month to write? Or thirty days spread out over several months? Still, I often go out and check their books out. They’re pretty good. They often have several typos which makes me wonder about quality vs quantity, but overall, they’re very good.

The fastest I’ve ever written a book was the second in my Blake Jordan series, CREDIBLE THREAT. I wrote and published it in 120 days. That was fast for me. Since then, I’ve tried to write as fast, but just can’t do it. I’ve tried to improve my speed. I’ve bought the best keyboards money can buy. I’ve tried dictation. I’ve tried everything. Nothing worked. I was okay with that. Who wants to write a novel in a month, anyway?

***

Then Joe showed up… a new member in one of these Facebook writer’s groups I’m in.

He arrived like Jackson Storm arrives in Cars 3. In the movie, Jackson Storm is a new generation of high-tech racers and runs circles around all of the old timers out there on the track, including our hero, Lightning McQueen. In the same fashion, Joe is a different kind of writer. Forget about writing a new book a month. Joe posted how he was consistently cranking out a new novel every three weeks. Then three weeks became two and after a while, Joe started publishing a new novel every single week.

Last year, Joe put out a total of 50 novels. FIFTY. NOVELS. And so far this year, he’s on track to write a lot more. In the last two and a half weeks, Joe’s written six more.

That’s like a new novel every three days, people.

Every couple of days, when I see a new Facebook group post from Joe, my comparisonitis flares up. My eye starts twitching and I think about my goal for the year: to write two novels and a short story. Then I go and reread the many emails sitting in my inbox from readers asking when the next Blake Jordan novel will be done and then my other eye starts to twitch a little and I wonder about how different life would be if this writing thing could just come easier. If only I could be like Joe, I start to think…

***

Comparisonitis is highly contagious. In fact, you more than likely have some variation of it yourself. I’ve thought a lot about it recently and about going after goals in general. On my computer monitor, I have a yellow sticky note. Here’s what it says:

“The purpose of a goal isn’t to hit the goal. The purpose is to become the kind of person who pursues their dreams with an unwavering pursuit.”

Whenever Joe’s posts pop up, I feel the flare up coming on and my eyes starting to do their thing and I shift my focus to this yellow sticky note. I force myself to remember that this is a solitary job. I’m running a race, but there’s nobody else out there on the track with me. I can run faster if I want to or I can walk. Either way doesn’t really matter.

Because what really matters in the end is if I’m happy with the race I’m running.

I force myself to remember my own goals for the year: two novels and one short story. I make myself remember that Joe and I are on two entirely different tracks. He couldn’t write my stories the way I do, just like I couldn’t write his. Joe’s out on his own track somewhere wearing shiny new shoes with rocket boosters attached to them, I imagine.

And that’s great. There are many paths to success. Joe’s found his. I’ll find mine.

I’m out here on my own track with a couple of old sneakers that work just fine for me. Would I like to write faster? Of course I would. But I try to keep my focus on doing what I can with what I have, believing that the writing itself is the only reward I really need.

Because the purpose of a goal isn’t to hit the goal, but to become the kind of person who pursues their dreams with an unwavering pursuit… the only cure to comparisonitis.

April 2019

If you read last month’s newsletter, you may remember how I wrote about my oldest son. He was riding his bike and took a pretty hard fall. I was away from the house when it happened. When I got home, he was in a lot of pain. We decided to take him to the ER, worried he may have broken something.

I put our youngest to bed and waited anxiously, receiving updates from my wife every hour or so. They finally arrived back home at around midnight. After taking X-rays, doctors confirmed my son had a broken elbow. They wrapped it up in a splint and he was so uncomfortable, but we made a little bed on our couch and my wife slept next to him for a few days like she did with our youngest when he broke his collarbone in January.

My son was miserable all week. The splint was hot and uncomfortable. He was in pain. He’d broken his elbow, after all. The doctors said so. But he was most upset about not being able to play flag football after we’d practiced throwing the ball for months.

We went for a follow up a week later to see how long it would be until the break would heal. We figured six to eight weeks, probably. A different doctor came into the room holding the X-rays taken a week prior with a confused look on his face. “I don’t think your elbow is broken,” he said to them. “But we need to take more X-rays to make sure. So take it easy and come back next week.”

We did and they confirmed there was no break and he got his splint off. The doctors at the ER had just misread the X-ray. He started playing football and is doing great!

Of course we prayed for healing (and I know many of you did as well… thank you!). And I’m sure that had a lot, if not everything to do with his healing. But the experience and my son’s reaction stuck with me because I’ve seen echoes of it throughout my life.

When I was twelve, my band director told me I wouldn’t be a good trumpet player and should play the trombone. The truth was, as I found out years later after deciding to switch to the trumpet anyway, he just simply had too many trumpet players at the time.

When I was eighteen, the local radio station said I didn’t stand a chance being a DJ. Five years later, I was working on the air for them at their radio station.

Last year, I went to New York for ThrillerFest and pitched my Blake Jordan series to agents and was rejected by all of them. I thought I had a chance when a junior agent from Writers House asked me to send him the first three chapters of THE SENATOR. But in the end, the series just wasn’t for him. He was more interested in taking on new science fiction writers as clients, which I can understand.

But I don’t give up on my dreams that easily… and if I listened to everyone who ever told me No, I’d never have seen any dream I’ve ever had come true, would I?

I know our mindset won’t fix everything. If my son’s elbow really had been broken, no amount of positive thinking would have changed that fact. But it was interesting to see the change in my son from thinking he’d be in a sling for up to two months to playing football two weeks later.

The thing is, people with authority will try to tell you who you are and often tell you what you’re not. Sometimes it’s a truth we can’t do anything about (a broken bone is a broken bone, after all). But sometimes it’s nothing more than just one person’s opinion.

Our job is to decide what we’re going to believe and if we’re going to let what others think of us define us. And if we have any say in it, deciding what we can do about it.

A quick update on Blake Jordan #6: I just wrote chapter 30 of 60, so I’m halfway done with the first draft and I’m planning on making more progress in May. I’m aiming to finish the first draft by the summer, then work on finishing the second draft so you can enjoy the story a few months after that. I’ll update you more in next month’s newsletter.

March 2019

It’s five o’clock in the morning as I write this. The house is quiet. My youngest is upstairs, fast asleep. My oldest is in the family room with my wife, on the couch after getting into a fight with his bicycle on Thursday and breaking his elbow (the bike won). They’re both asleep, too. So I crept past them, careful not to wake either of them up.

I’ve forgotten what this feels like. The silence. The darkness. The world being asleep.

Except for me.

For over four years, I had a routine. I’d wake up every day at five and write my books. It took a while for the hard work to pay off. Just like an athlete who goes to the gym and trains so they can one day be good enough to play and make a difference at the big game, I, too was training… I was getting my reps in. I was showing up, so I could win.

But then I stopped.

Six months ago, almost to the day, is when I stopped, actually. I had just finished writing my latest thriller, readers were telling me it was the best story I’ve ever written, and I thought I deserved a little rest. I’d been going at this pace for a long time, after all.

So one month became two. Two became four. Time waits for no man, especially those with big dreams. I tried writing the sixth installment of my thriller series. I’d wake up at six, sometimes six-thirty. I’d squeeze ten or twenty minutes of writing in when I could. I’d look for tricks to improve my productivity. Dictation, music to help get into the ‘flow.’

But now, six months later, I realize the truth: there’s no substitution for hard work.

Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that. I’d forgotten the secret to my success. And when I look to my left at my ‘Seinfeld calendar,’ as I call it, where I drew a big fat X over each day where I hit my word count, I realize I’ve been tracking the wrong thing.

Because the goal isn’t to write a certain number of words, regardless if they’re good or not. The goal isn’t to have a completed manuscript at the end of all this, written haphazardly in random pockets of time. That wouldn’t be fun to write or fun to read.

The goal’s to show up and follow a system that’s never failed me since I started all this. “You can’t control the outcome, but you can control the process,” someone once told me. “Don’t try and hit a home run. Just go out there and hit a single, every single day.”

Success requires sacrifice. Despite my hero I write about knowing this, somehow I forgot about it, too. It took six long months, but I think I finally get it now. My Xs on my calendar shouldn’t represent hitting a daily word count. They should represent keeping a promise I made to myself to wake up before the rest of the world and do what I love.

That leaves me with only one option, if I really want this: to recommit and begin again.

For those who are wondering, I’m close to halfway done on Blake Jordan #6 and just finished writing chapter 25 of 60. Thanks for all of your encouraging emails, I’m looking forward to getting back to my early morning routine to finish the story for you to enjoy.

February 2019

Hello from Orlando! For this month’s newsletter, I’m not going to bore you with the details on my progress with the next Blake Jordan novel. Just know it is coming along nicely and I’ll go into a little more detail next month on where I am with the new story.

Today, I want to write about my friend Peggy.

She first emailed me about two years ago. Like many emails I’ve received from new subscribers and fans, she let me know how much she enjoyed my Jordan novels. Peggy also gave me a little bit of feedback that I honestly did not see coming…

“You need an editor,” she wrote.

I reread her email and scratched my head. “I have an editor,” I wrote back.

“Well, then you need to get a new one,” she replied. “Ken, you have promise as a writer, but you use the word ‘that’ too often. And you use it wrong. When the subject is human, use ‘who’ not ‘that,'” she wrote along with several other nuggets of wisdom learned from someone who spent her life writing her own novels in her free time…

Things I probably should’ve learned in high school English class, but I must’ve been too busy goofing around with friends to care much about all of that grammar nonsense.

Over the years, Peggy has helped me often. I’ll bounce ideas off her for feedback. She’ll encourage me to not just use ‘Peg’s list,’ as I call my notes of what she’s taught me to fix my writing, but to learn what she’s shared so I can become a better writer.

I was so excited for her to read my latest novel, but she still found one small mistake.

“But only one,” she wrote, encouraging me and telling me how much I’ve improved.

When I asked how she was doing recently, she let me know she wasn’t doing too well.

I found out that Peggy experienced severe bone loss in her jawbone along with a few other issues. Everything can be repaired, but the copay will be $10,000 to $15,000.

Then Peggy sent me a link to a Go Fund Me page and I did what I could to help.

But after I saw how far she still had to go to meet her goal, I got to thinking about my 3,000 newsletter subscribers and the power of many people coming together to help.

I’m no math major (remember, I goofed off a lot in high school), but I realized that if my readers were so inclined to donate as little as $5, maybe Peg’s goal could be reached.

If you’ve enjoyed reading Blake Jordan’s adventures as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them, know that Peggy had a lot to do with it. There’s nothing like a gaping grammatical error in a book to take you out of the dreamlike spell the author put you in.

Thanks to Peggy, I’ve had fewer errors and learned a lot about how to write better.

Click here to read Peggy’s story and to help make her whole again. -Ken

January 2019

I’m not ready.

I’ve had plenty of time since the last novel to relax… to enjoy the holidays with the family… to work on advertising and think up the plot for the next story I want to write. Too much time, really. I released THE HOMELAND, Blake Jordan #5, in September. Looking back, I should have started #6 in October. I should have, but I didn’t…

Taking a break in between projects is important. It gives you perspective. It gives you inspiration. It lets you refill the creative well so you can dip back into it and (hopefully) come back with something just as good if not better than the last creative thing you did.

So tomorrow’s when I’m supposed to start writing again. But like I said, I’m not ready…

I’ve had this feeling before. The night before I took the SAT. The night before I took the GMAT. The night before a big job interview. I needed just a little more time to get ready.

The truth is, we’re never really ready. We could always use one more day to prepare.

People say that writer’s block isn’t real. They say that people don’t get talker’s block. Or plumber’s block. You can’t call your boss and say you won’t be in because you have a bad case of worker’s block. But I’m here to tell you, writer’s block is real and it’s alive and well… it’s more of a mental block, convincing yourself that you can’t do something.

But to make any dream come true, we have to ignore The Lie and listen for The Truth.

Because The Lie is that everything has to be perfect before I can begin. That fancy new keyboard I just ordered this week that won’t be here until sometime next month… The Lie is I have to wait for that to arrive before I can start. But The Truth is, any old keyboard that works is good enough for me to use. The Lie is I have to have my new story completely planned before I start. But The Truth is my best work comes when I write into the dark and even surprise myself with the ideas I come up with as I write. The Lie is I need more time, maybe another month or two to outline an amazing story. The truth is if I wait, it will be harder to start and I’ll get behind on my goals for the year.

I have big plans for 2019. I want to write two novels and my first short story this year. January 31st is when most people give up on their dreams and vow to try again next year. But I can’t do that. Because I planned to start on 2/1 and finish by the summer.

And you know how I am with goals.

So tomorrow when I wake up, I’m starting. I’m not ready. But I’m starting, anyway.

Because even though The Lie is telling me I ‘need more’ before I can start my work… The Truth is, just like you, I have everything I need to work on my dream right now.