NOVELIST

Hello,

On some unassuming Monday in early 2020 I got a little, ambitious twinge of excitement to post something along the lines of “Hello. My name is Shelby Oberg. I’m an aspiring Novelist.” It was a twinge because two seconds later my mind followed up with reasonable counterpoints regarding me. “Oh, yeah… I’m an introvert. And I’m not confident I have anything useful or amusing to blog.” For which argument, I got to say, I was convinced and relieved that I could put off the terror of stumbling through a witty first Hello. Phew, dodged disaster on that one.

It’s a year and a half later on another unassuming Monday, and I might be tentatively leaning towards being not entirely certain I have zero confidence. Maybe something more like 47% confidence, give or take 47%. But don’t worry, lacking confidence every now and again isn’t a bad thing to me. It’s just a feeling. With a strikingly useful side effect.

I get particularly motivated, though sometimes not in fitting domains of my life. I actually sat down last Monday, but- well, taking an impromptu trip to the beach, designing a board game/pool/dining table, building a vertical strawberry garden, weeding all that the light touches, drinking my body weight in tea, aimlessly staring at my computer a bit, and making a cheesecake later… Here we are again back to my usual sedentary self… but this time I’m confident enough to say that I’m a tad too anxious to do a blog, but I want to say hello.

In the last year and a half, most of my motivation went into writing. I’ve been described as a “Pantser,” which is basically someone who free writes their drafts to their heart’s content without an outline. Then they go back and edit the story structure and finer details. For me, this works really well for three main reasons.

First, my stories and characters come from dreams I’ve had, and as I write it’s like the dreams keep going. My unconscious is still telling me the story weeks into writing. It’s fun and I stubbornly don’t want to read the last page first, though I generally know how things end.

Second, I can’t hold an entire story in my head until after I have written it down. My dyslexic brain doesn’t like holding onto nuances for too long. I even forget my own character’s names occasionally. Names in general are my Bane… and the current date, and sentence structure, and grammar, and spelling… This list sounds challenging for a writer, but I love that my brain forms sentences in unusual ways. So, my first draft is always written as if I’m going to be the only reader. I don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed of how or what I’m writing, I can Pantser the heck out the first draft.

The third reason Pantser writing works for me is that when I spontaneously get writer’s block or low motivation I can simply jump to another project and come back with a whole new mindset that doesn’t need to fit a mold.

I have eight open projects right now. Including two tentatively finished books. I say ‘tentatively’ because it’s not really finished until it’s on a bookshelf somewhere, digital or otherwise. Until then, I strive for minor improvements of clarity and grammar. Editing kind of sucked at first. I had to come up with strategies that worked with my mind, not against, but I saw the improvement between the alpha readers critiques and the beta readers critiques. I was so dang proud of myself. It was worth the soul cringes… the many soul cringes… Hence the 47% spring in confidence.

I love writing, and I think I’ll still love writing even if only a couple people like my stories. I write fantasy in worlds that are like ours with hidden depths in culture and people. Often, there is something forgotten that needs to be remembered, or something that shouldn’t require being hidden. And every story has a contemporary romance thrown into the mix, because I’m a sucker for a love story in the background. I like action-based stories, but I want that irresistible urge to keep reading to come from knowing the characters. So, I have a soft lean towards literary in hopes that the characters shine through.

They are humans with special abilities, witches, human-equivalent species, demi-gods, and gods. They are LGBTQQIP2SAA+. In moments, they are bold, weak, strongly independent, stubborn, shameless, anxious, angry, sad, and everything in between. I hope they are just people. Vastly different and yet the same. Doing the best that they can to be themselves in the situations they have been given. Striving for something better or maintaining what they have in worlds that, hopefully will, pull you into their adventures.

I’m sorry nothing is published yet, but I’ll keep the Book Status tab up to date and post news on Twitter. Stuff like; an agent takes a second looks at my query, a draft is done, a sequel is being edited, etc. I’ll also attempt confidence-based posts like if my vertical strawberry garden falls down, or my pool table collapses on my fiancé. Stuff like that.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day and find amazing adventures!