Figure It Out Yourself...

...My Self Guided Tour on How to Become a Best Selling Author

In those nether-moments between reading fiction, I like to cleanse the pallet by taking in some non-fiction.  Lately it's been lots and lots of How To Write types of books.  The Kindle app on my phone is a tempting mistress.  I can't seem to resist her.  I'll be reading a How To book, minding my own business when the author suddenly recommends another book.  Curiosity gets the best of me and I flip on over to the Kindle app and three little clicks later another five or ten or twenty (and once, fifty) dollar debit will appear on the credit card.  It's a slow leak that happens weekly if not daily.  But there are a limited number of hours in the day with which to read these books, so eventually I'll settle down and make a renewed commitment to not buy anything for awhile.

Below are the books I've been reading most recently.  Most are great.  I do manage to take some time before those fateful clicks to make sure each purchase is properly researched.  I've gotten something helpful out of these and maybe you can too.  Happy How To-ing!



Do It Yourself Masters of Fine Arts Degree

Well maybe it's not quite an acknowledged degree program, but I've been conducting my own personal study course with the following books. 

• Elements of Fiction Writing: Conflict and Suspense by James Scott Bell
• Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
• GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction by Debra Dixon
• Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver
• Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Dave King and Renni Browne
• The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner
• Writing Fiction for Dummies by Ray Ingermanson and Peter Economy
• How to Write Best Selling Fiction by Dean Koontz
• How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James M. Frey
• The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi

I'm also reading about publishing and have found these books to be helpful

• The 4 Hour Publisher-Why, When and How to Publish on Kindle... by Suzanna Stinnett
• Building Your Book for Kindle by Kindle Direct Publishing
• Self-Publishing Attack! The 5 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws for Creating Steady Income Publishing Your Own Books by James Scott Bell
• How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! by John Locke

And I've found these works on freelancing, marketing and copy writing to be great as well

• The Renegade Writer's Ultimate Guide to Marketing Your Freelance Writing by Linda Formichelli
• Are You There Blog? It's Me, Writer by Kristen Lamb
• We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media by Kristen Lamb
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott

Books I've Loved

I have loved the world of books since I was eight years old.  Well that was the first I can remember actually falling in love with reading anyway.  Before that I remember my mom would read me Aesop's Fables before bedtime and my imagination would run wild as I listened to her voice reading about the animals and crazy characters of the world of Aesop.

Then when my parents were going through their separation and divorce when I was eight, I dove headfirst into the world of Beverly Cleary as she wrote about memorable characters like Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, Beezus and her sister Ramona and Otis Spofford.  I read Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew.  I read Robert McCloskey's Homer Price and John D. Fitsgerald's Great Brain series.  I was crazy about the Great Brain series.  The descriptions were so vivid to me.  Part of their appeal I'm sure was the excellent cover art.  That seems to be a vital part of the total book experience to this day.  I will be researching sources of amazing cover art in this whole new process of creating a fun, exciting story to tell, you can be sure.

When I was a little older I ventured carefully into the scary worlds of Stephen King.  My very first mega novel was his book, It.  Clowns were never the same to me after that.  It was in that book that I noticed the importance of inner dialogue and how important it is to the reader to be able to relate to the characters.

I enjoyed classic works as well. Of Mice and Men was one I enjoyed.  Moll Flanders, not so much.  Lord of the Flies was awesome--I love a good deserted island story.  I can't wait to write my own soon.

These books got me through childhood and young adulthood.  They are precious to me.  I am so thankful for the impact they had and the escape route they provided so that I could step out from this world for just a few hours and let my mind soar.  I truly pray that I can create books that give readers this same kind of experience.

Suspension of Disbelief...

In some of my very favorite stories, I could just read about daily life in those worlds and still happy.  I hardly even need "conflict" or "catastrophe" or "plot twists" at all.  Now most readers would probably get bored pretty fast without these necessary elements of a good book, and maybe I would too, but it feels like I wouldn't sometimes--if the story is good enough. 

More of my favorite books include stories about the end of the world. I dearly love the concept of the apocalypse.  Some horrible event that ends life on this planet as we know it and a small group of survivors have to pick up the pieces and move on.  The Stand was memorable to me in that genre.  I also enjoy the "survive this game to win your life and probably financial riches too" motif.  Stephen King's The Long Walk spoke to me in that particular tale.

I've read Steinbeck's The Pearl and The Red Pony and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as well as books from the myriad of works by Dean Koontz and John Grisham and Michael Crichton.

Somewhere along the way I started trying to guess where the story was going.  I wanted to see if I could make up the next part and if it would be as good as the author's version.  I found myself thinking of different ideas for a story as I lived my daily life in school and then in my career and at church and on dates and while playing guitar.

Finally one day I just started writing things down.  I learned quickly to respect the art form.  It's not as easy to write something worth reading as it is to read it.  That is a brilliant insight, I know.  But I found that in many of the books I read, especially during times in my life when I was just trying to escape reality, I enjoyed the world of the book whether or not anything exciting was taking place or not.  I just liked being somewhere else for awhile.  Now I realize that that will not last for very long for the typical reader.  Stuff HAS to happen.  And bad stuff is what makes it all interesting.  So I'm careful to not linger too long in my stories.  I want them to be page turners. I want my readers to lose sleep and risk their jobs and their grades because they cannot put my stories down.  Well, not really...but sort of.  I think you know what I mean.

I am just so thankful for all the writers who entertained and inspired me during tough times in my life that I pray that I can be such an author for others.  I want to help people escape the pain and/or boredom of their lives and if they can possibly even be inspired by something I've written, that would be the highest honor I could imagine.  Sure I want to be a best selling author, but first I want to be an author who speaks to people's hearts.

I could go on but this is already probably way to long for a blog post. If you are still reading this, thank you.  I look forward to keeping you posted about my writing process as it continues. I will post about that soon.  Now go jump into a good book even if just for a little while today!  Go on.... Headfirst like a big boy or girl... 1, 2, 3 Jump!

Amanda Hocking Has Unleashed a Monster Within Me

I have been consumed with the Amanda Hocking phenomenon.  I'm reading her blog posts and I have her Kindle versions of Switched and My Blood Approves.  I think it's awesome to read her early blog posts from two years ago when she was just starting out.  She has inspired me to do something I have always wanted to do but never thought I could.  Being able to put my work into the hands of the public without the traditional methods of publishing is mind numbing.  I have nothing against publishing houses.  I hope to partner with one someday.  But the idea of not having to wait for that day before getting in front of readers is so very exciting.

I just want to Write Write Write...

Now all I have to do is create some things to offer people to read.  That's the easy part, right?  Maybe not so easy.  But it's already very satisfying.  I want to hurry up and have a finished product to publish.  To think of developing a following of people who are entertained and inspired by something I've written seems like a dream that is just too good to be true.

But having the example of Amanda and other successful self-published authors gives me hope.  I can't help feeling I'm sort of late to the party, but it's still amazing to think of the potential for being widely read by the world.

So for now I will continue to write as fast as I can while maintaining the integrity and quality of my book.  I take this very seriously, so I want to provide a quality experience for my readers.

In related news...

I read The Hunger Games last year.  I thought they did alright with the movie.  It seemed to flow pretty well and the casting and set design was close to my imagination.  They filmed the indoor scenes in my hometown at an old cigarette manufacturing plant, Philip Morris in Concord, NC.  That was cool.  I wish I could have seen all that up close.  Maybe for the sequels...

Bye for now!

How It Starts...

The Snowflake Method

I've been reading lots of "How To's" on writing.  I don't remember when I first found out about the Snowflake Method for constructing a novel, but I rediscovered it a couple of weeks ago and purchased the software that walks you through the various stages of writing from character development to writing a storyline to plot outlining.  This method was created by Randy Ingermanson and I've found it to be very helpful.  Randy offers his software at a discount if you purchase his book, Writing Fiction for Dummies. 

I did so and I've been reading said book like its water to a man in the desert dying of thirst.  In this book Randy talks about four methods of writing and I've found myself to be a combination of a "seat of the pants" method and the Snowflake Method.  I like to set up some structure to see where I'm going and predict if the story has a life but then when I get down to the actual narrative, dialogue and action, I like to sort of let the characters take me along for the ride.

I don't know if this will work in the long run, but it has worked pretty well so far.  I got an idea for a story and then hashed out some possibilities.  I wrote some small scenes that came to mind and then added to my outline.  Then I let the whole thing sit for a day or so while I read more of the Dummies book and purchased about a dozen books on Kindle that were recommended to me through various sites I've been visiting.

I went back to the outline and changed it around again.  Then I was inspired with an idea for a beginning to the book and wrote that scene.  That led me to what seemed like a natural course of events to follow.

Right now I have several plot ideas and I feel like I just have to connect them together in a smooth and interesting way.  I am eager to finish the first draft so I can begin editing the whole thing.  I have found myself editing some various scenes a few times over and they seem better for it.

I am excited to see where this story will take me.  I want the end result to be entertaining and surprising with some helpful insight on the issues I'm dealing with thrown in for good measure (without being preachy).
I'll keep you posted!