Here’s a helpful rule of thumb for novelists: Read 100 novels in the genre that you want to write in. You can choose any novels you like, but include recent novels, good books written within the last 10 years. Read the classic novels from this genre, too — just so you get a bird’s eye view of how the genre has changed over time
Now with the Alphasmart, my writing routine often includes waking up in the middle of the night and writing stuff in the dark, as I am now. I’ll put this under the covers on my lap so the tapping of the keys doesn’t disturb my husband, and I’ll write until I fall asleep. Or I’ll wake up in the morning and spend a few minutes typing on a story.
This class will introduce you the zany world of self-publishing. We’ll talk about publishing options in the indie world, how to put your books out as ebooks and paperbacks, ways to build a newsletter and an audience, how to keep self-publishing costs down while doing quality work, best practices for success, and much more.
Wherein it behooves me to fix writing.
When I worked as a municipal horticulturist, I took care of twelve high-maintenance gardens, and a number of smaller ones, over I-don’t-know-how-many square miles of city, plus several hundred small trees, an insane number of shrubs, a greenhouse, and whatever else the bosses threw at me. I had to find a way to stay organized besides waking up at 3 a.m. to make extensive lists. My solution: keep a garden journal.
In 1995, I sent out my first novel and got my first rejection. I was a bright-eyed college student of 25 years, just married, and a writing hotshot. I read a lot of classic literature and I’d been churning out stories since grade school. “You must want to enough,” Phyllis …
My favorite books are those where the characters spout wisecracks that make me laugh aloud, or those that capture the tiny details of life so clearly that I feel like I’m actually there with the main character, seeing those details. I want to write books like that. But then I …
