Polish and Publish: The Indispensable Toolkit for Creative Writers is nearly ready for prime time. (Seems like I’ve been saying that for months!) It’s in its final stages of design and layout now, and I plan to have it here on my website in a matter of weeks.
More people than I would ever have imagined have asked me how I wrote the book—how I got the idea for it, did the research, decided what to include (and alternatively, what to leave out), and how I actually wrote it.
The first answer is short. Many times, when people hear I’m a writer, they say they’ve always wanted to write, but didn’t know how to get started. A local librarian told me that she hears similar a similar plaint (as in “cry of sorrow or grief”). Patrons tell her they want to know the best resources for writers.
It was this librarian, Catherine, who told me to “teach this stuff” when I rattled off books and websites in response to her questions about writing and publishing poetry and screenplays.
I’d been consulting a lot of books and websites for my own writing and for the creative writing courses I teach. That was the research. So, I already had a stock of the “best of . . . .” I’d listed a lot of them in the articles I write for Examiner.com.
In my next post, I’ll discuss how I decided what to include and what to leave out of the booklet.
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