Tag Archives: author

Writer Wednesday—How to Write a Book


Here you go, the handy dandy guide to writing that book you were always planning:

  1. Have a story
  2. Write it down
  3. Check for plot consistency
  4. Check for mechanical errors
  5. Let someone read it.
  6. Make any necessary changes

Simple, right?

Everyone has a story, their own story; some people come up with other stories—which are really just big what-ifs. What if this happened, or that, and how would it progress, and how would it end? Ideas can come from anywhere at all: dreams, real-life occurrences, and just plain daydreaming.

Now for the hard part—writing it down. You don’t have to write a certain number of words each day, and you don’t have to write every day, and you don’t have to write at the same time every day. However, if you skip more than a day or two, you run the risk of getting out of the habit of writing, and while that won’t necessarily preclude your finishing the book, it will extend the time it takes.

You might want to also make notes, or a timeline, as you go or even before you start.

After you’ve finished, and I don’t care what NaNoWriMo says, a novel is NOT 50K words, it’s almost twice that, at minimum, read it back over again to make sure you wound up all the loose ends and didn’t change someone’s name or description in the middle.

Make sure it’s believeable, as any good story is, and be sure you haven’t inadvertently used some colloquialism or slang term specific to your region, your family, or your business. Historical facts and actual places should, to a point, be accurate insofar as general readership is concerned.

Once you’ve made any changes, read it over again to check for mechanical errors: spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. Fix them.

Now you can send it to someone to read—or several someones. Make notes of their feedback, and decide if you want to change anything.

There you go—you’re finished. You wrote a book. Congrats!

 

Prep Monday—Mental Prep


Based on the events of the last few months, I’m starting to wonder if I’m mentally tough enough to handle SHTF. Three months of protests, some violence, lots of rumors. Rumors perpetuated by the media, hell, even started by them . . .

I’ve written a lot of articles on stress and its effects, and let me tell you—I’ve lived it, too.

But Robin, someone will say, you don’t live in Ferguson!

Nope, but my son goes to school very, very near those city limits and the whole thing is happening about eight miles from our house. As the crow flies, but who thinks a mob would limit themselves to the highways?

Social media doesn’t help. Back in the old days, we’d watch the evening news and shake our heads, probably getting a little tense, and have some discussion. Maybe burn up the phone lines. Now, with Twitter and Facebook, et al, we hear everyone’s thoughts, opinions, news stories, and flat-out made-up crap. Repeatedly.

It’s enough to drive me to drink. Wait, that’s a good idea. Hang on a sec.

Disclaimer—I’m writing this Saturday evening, not at 6:00 a.m. when you’ll be reading this.

And “the” media, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc. I’ve often decried the state of journalism, and this holds true. They simply cannot get their acts together. At all. None of them. And it’s a constant barrage of crap.

Okay, enough ranting. For now.

But seriously, you have to get a grip when SHTF. You can be prepared, yes, that’s good. Great. Wonderful. But you’ve seen that cartoon about the little old lady, right, the one where she tells the officer that she has all these guns in her car and he asks what she’s afraid of? She answers, “Not a damn thing!”

So if you’ve prepped, you’ve got no worries, right? We have food and water; we have weapons; we have a plan to stay and a plan to go. No problem, right?

Wrong.

It’s the waiting, the not knowing, that’ll kill you. Well, maybe not literally, but the mental stress and emotional angst will certainly lower your physical defenses. You might be tempted to sit around, doing nothing, reading the news, wandering from room to room, napping. Drinking. Ahem.

But this is a mistake. You need to eat right, and rest enough, and keep your mind occupied. Sure, keep up on what’s happening, you have to, that’s part of it all. But don’t obsess and take a break now and then.

I have to tell myself to back off, shut it down, and go do something. Preferably something physical to burn off all that extra adrenaline. Because you produce that stuff by the metric ton when you’re stressed and waiting and anticipating, and you need some physical activity to get rid of the excess.

Of course, when you stop to take a breather and check the news again, that’s when something new and worrisome crops up. It’s a vicious cycle.

You have to regain your focus, you have to discipline yourself. Over and over. And then again.