Introduction to my blog series "Many Hands Make Write Work"
Hi guys!
As promised, today is the day that I begin my new blog series, Many Hands Make Write Work.
You know, I have always loved writing and creating stories from a very young age. My mother Judy, who is a retired 3rd-grade school-teacher, had me reading by the time I was four.
Dick and Jane didn't do it for me, no but I began reading books from Stephen King and V.C. Andrews by the time I was eight or so. But I also read Roald Dahl, Judy Blume, and my beloved hardcover Nancy Drew Mysteries. I eventually evolved to high-fantasy novels such as Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series and David Eddings' series of books, The Elenium, The Belgariad and The Mallorean. I actually have a high-fantasy novel that I wrote back in the early '90s that I am planning to release under a pen-name someday. So, who knows? While reading on an adult-level, I would carry a pocket dictionary with me so I could look up any words I didn't understand. Yes, I was a book-NERD! lol
But I was also trapped in countless worlds where anything could happen, so I began to feed my need to read from then on. I'd even read encyclopedias just because they were there.(nerd!) I was so captivated by reading that from a young age I tried to emulate 'real' authors and write my own stories. And by the way, there is no such thing as a 'real' author. If you have written a story, poem, whatever you ARE an author. Maybe not a well-KNOWN one(working on that)but definitely an AUTHOR.
Fun fact: I actually wrote my first 'book' when I was only nine. Sure, it was some typewritten pages banged out on my Grandma's old Smith-Corona but I made my world come to life for others to get into by reading the words forged from my over-active imagination. I still remember how I would hunt and peck my way around that loud typeset keyboard and how much I loved the sounds of my story being made. I have since lost a lot of my hearing(partially deaf) but I do remember those clacking keys as if it were just yesterday.
My fourth-grade classmates at the private, Lutheran school I attended from grades 1-8 didn't know what hit them when I not only wrote a story about a deranged man stalking a young woman, but I had created the hand-drawn and colored book cover(with help from another student) and had a third student act as editor and proofread the 'book' before I distributed it.
To this day I can't for the life of me figure out what happened to it, but I am sure it's around somewhere. After 72 years of living in the same house and in the process of downsizing my elderly mother from it, I am sure that it will turn up. Or perhaps it was confiscated, which was normal for me since I always had notes sent home for bringing 'inappropriate reading material' to school.
So now that we've got the introduction out of the way, here's a little bit about what I am planning.
I want to bring you into my world so you can get an inside look at what it takes for me to create a book. From beginning to end. What goes into planning and outlining a story, character creation(you may even get an exclusive sneak peek at a few character bios),beta readers and how important they are, cover creation and execution and more! I will share some insider secrets with you and may even ask you for some advice throughout the process. It'll be fun, so stay with me!
Hope to see you next month for episode 2
Erica ;-)
As promised, today is the day that I begin my new blog series, Many Hands Make Write Work.
You know, I have always loved writing and creating stories from a very young age. My mother Judy, who is a retired 3rd-grade school-teacher, had me reading by the time I was four.
Dick and Jane didn't do it for me, no but I began reading books from Stephen King and V.C. Andrews by the time I was eight or so. But I also read Roald Dahl, Judy Blume, and my beloved hardcover Nancy Drew Mysteries. I eventually evolved to high-fantasy novels such as Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series and David Eddings' series of books, The Elenium, The Belgariad and The Mallorean. I actually have a high-fantasy novel that I wrote back in the early '90s that I am planning to release under a pen-name someday. So, who knows? While reading on an adult-level, I would carry a pocket dictionary with me so I could look up any words I didn't understand. Yes, I was a book-NERD! lol
But I was also trapped in countless worlds where anything could happen, so I began to feed my need to read from then on. I'd even read encyclopedias just because they were there.(nerd!) I was so captivated by reading that from a young age I tried to emulate 'real' authors and write my own stories. And by the way, there is no such thing as a 'real' author. If you have written a story, poem, whatever you ARE an author. Maybe not a well-KNOWN one(working on that)but definitely an AUTHOR.
Fun fact: I actually wrote my first 'book' when I was only nine. Sure, it was some typewritten pages banged out on my Grandma's old Smith-Corona but I made my world come to life for others to get into by reading the words forged from my over-active imagination. I still remember how I would hunt and peck my way around that loud typeset keyboard and how much I loved the sounds of my story being made. I have since lost a lot of my hearing(partially deaf) but I do remember those clacking keys as if it were just yesterday.
My fourth-grade classmates at the private, Lutheran school I attended from grades 1-8 didn't know what hit them when I not only wrote a story about a deranged man stalking a young woman, but I had created the hand-drawn and colored book cover(with help from another student) and had a third student act as editor and proofread the 'book' before I distributed it.
To this day I can't for the life of me figure out what happened to it, but I am sure it's around somewhere. After 72 years of living in the same house and in the process of downsizing my elderly mother from it, I am sure that it will turn up. Or perhaps it was confiscated, which was normal for me since I always had notes sent home for bringing 'inappropriate reading material' to school.
So now that we've got the introduction out of the way, here's a little bit about what I am planning.
I want to bring you into my world so you can get an inside look at what it takes for me to create a book. From beginning to end. What goes into planning and outlining a story, character creation(you may even get an exclusive sneak peek at a few character bios),beta readers and how important they are, cover creation and execution and more! I will share some insider secrets with you and may even ask you for some advice throughout the process. It'll be fun, so stay with me!
Hope to see you next month for episode 2
Erica ;-)
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