Book Writing 101

Start with an idea: a short organized method for writing essays.

Add teaching the essay for five years.

Mix in a healthy dose of university composition as explained and discussed with husband who teaches freshman composition. Substitute teach and learn much.

Read and reread the freshman college text and realize that you have a lot to learn about essay writing and so work on learning it for five years.

Test ideas on real human beings. Modify ideas.

Plagiarize the best ideas and then realize you are plagiarizing and have to start from scratch.

Scrap project and eat chocolate for three years.

Return to project when fans and clients start hounding your inbox with requests for promised high school book that is only overdue by three years... what's the big deal? Oh your kids are heading off to college without it? Oops.

Start grad school to avoid writing book.

Write long papers.

Learn critical personal experience observations about academic writing while in grad school (iow, write papers while crying... very helpful insights into the pain of academic writing).

Finally face the truth: essay book is long overdue and must be written.

Write.

Write.

Write.

Revise.

Write.

Lay out. (hubby's job)

Write.

Revise.

Lay out again (first version wrong).

Revise.

Revise.

Enter copyedits (copy editors deserve a special place in paradise - they are saints)

Publish into PDF format.

THE END!!!

It's done. All 176 pages of it. My second full length book. I have the scars and dementia to prove it.

Incidentally, I did all this revising and rewriting this month while I'm working on that NaNoWriMo novel of the month. I'm at 33,330 words right now. Think I'm sick of typing WORDS?

Okay, off to celebrate. Have some chocolate on me.

P.S. I was asked recently to explain my business on this blog. I'll do that in the next few days. I'm too tired to think straight.