Category Archives: Writing

Steps for Writing a Book

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I’ve written three books now and am negotiating with myself on what No. 4 should be about.

If you are curious about what that involves, or perhaps you’re planning to engage in this insanity yourself, I recommend two primers to get your started.

Melissa Donovan, writing on the Writing Forward blog, identifies these 10 steps is a brief, succinct post.

Stefanie Newell, over on The Write One Blog, rounds up nine steps but provides more depth and detail in her All The Necessary Steps To Write A Book For Newbies!

There is obviously overlap.

And for the record, I’m still looking to publish any of the first three. Just wanted to be clear that writing, as satisfying as that can be, is not publishing, which I suspect is thoroughly unsatisfying until it happens.

Writer’s Group: Into the Prop

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Every writer needs an editor.

I’ve said it and believed since I got into journalism … a few years ago.

Feedback from loving family and kind friends does not constitute editing. Those wonderful people tend to look too kindly upon your flaws.

Mike Theiss, FineArtAmerica, http://fineartamerica.com/featured/view-of-a-spinning-propeller-mike-theiss.htmlSo I’m really pleased that Ken Lawrence – a Springfield writer whom I met over breakfast at ThrillerFest – invited me to join a new writer’s group that he and a half-dozen other northern Virginians started at the beginning of the year.

After watching them in action, I’m confident that I’ll get the editing I seek. To be clear, I really want the editing; that’s not to say I expect to enjoy it.

John Gilstrap, a published writer who lives down the Parkway in Burke, Virginia, told me recently that submitting your writing for criticism is like walking face-first into a moving propeller.

My flight leaves in mid-September.

Elmore Leonard: Godfather of Writers

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Based on the number of times speakers at ThrillerFest quoted Elmore Leonard, I figure he has to be the godfather of all thriller writers.

And everyone’s favorite quotation is his Rule #10:

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.