A- Accept that your first, third and more than likely your fourth draft will be crap, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be perfect, nor will it be.

B- Believe in yourself and your talents. If you don’t believe in yourself or your work, no one else will either.

C- Challenge yourself to write daily. Try to carve out at least 30 minutes to write. The more time you spend away from that paper and pencil (or computer) the easier it is to get out of the habit altogether.

D- Don’t give up.  Surge forward even when you feel like ditching a whole manuscript. Trust me, the time will come.

E- Editing. Need I say more? It’s a MUST. Don’t skimp on this one.

F- Forget the naysayers. They usually don’t have a clue.

G- Grammar is important. Know the difference between they’re, their and there if you want to be taken seriously.

Your humble host.

Many of you will be encouraged to make videos as part of your author platform, and there is a lot to know even if you just plan to talk into your Ipad. Today, friend of the blog Lucy Brazier (a.k.a. Porter Girl, from the wildly successful Diaries Of A Porter Girl) has offered to share a few tricks of the trade with us. It can be simpler and much less expensive than you think.

 “No kidding, the publishing world is changing rapidly, and it won’t be long until writers will be reading their works on YT (YouTube), and agents/publishers will be looking for writers who can write a good story and talk one as well.” -Molli Nickell, Editor and Publisher at Time life for 30 years (and friend of the blog, of course).

 So video may be a big component going forward, and friend…

Back in November, and last month in April, thousands of people participated in NaNoWriMo. Hopeful writers sat down and finally put words on a page to that story in their head.

 Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Thomas Edison

But writing the story is just the beginning.

If you’re like many writers, by the time you get to the end of your “fast” draft, it may not look anything like the rough draft you had in mind, or even the outline on which you spent many painstaking hours. Indeed, it may have taken so many rabbit trails it looks like the underbrush of the forest filled with game trails. Some paths may lay abandoned, half forged, grown over, some may be trod down to rock and dust.

Having a novel that doesn’t look anything like you anticipated is not a bad thing. It can be beneficial, for you could…

Image thanks to TMAB2003 via Flickr.com

There is so much out there about how to write a novel. It seems like that’s the hardest part of writing: the actual writing.

But is it?

As NaNoWriMo approaches (That’s National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated), there are a million how-to books, webpages, PDFs, ebooks, essays (you get the idea) out there. “How to write a novel in a month,” “How to finish that first novel,” “How to outline your novel,” “How to write a novel in 30 days,” etc, etc.

But my problem with these sources is that most merely encourage a person to finish the first draft.

Don’t get me wrong–without a first draft, you don’t have a second draft or a final draft. For me, however, the first draft doesn’t take me nearly as long as the second or third draft do. (Or fourth or fifth.)

Why?

Because so much more time, effort…

Hello, dear readers. It is my pleasure to present to you another amazing Rave Reviews Book Club Spotlight Author. Introducing  J. A. Stinger, author of Generations Beyond. Take it away, J.A.

We all want it, the validation that all our hard work… the blood, sweat, and tears have been worth it. For us, the writers and authors, it’s the reviews. We post our work online and wait for the words from our readers to start pouring in. We hit that refresh button and wait… and wait… and wait some more. After a while, frustration sets in. After that, self-doubt. Did we promote enough? Did we let enough people know? Was our platform solid enough? Was our work as good as we thought it was?

The cold, hard truth is this… everything worthwhile takes time. It’s true that we want everything good to happen the moment that we put our…