Being Practical

Happy New Year! I know a lot of us seem to be happy to see 2016 come to an end, as it was a difficult year from all over the world.  The first day of the year always brings a renewed feeling for better times, and I do wish that for everyone for 2017.

I mentioned in my last post that I would let you know more about my latest project, The Practical Writer.  If you have been reading my blog from the start, then you know about my first project, The Practical MT. I taught medical transcription for 13 years, and most of what I dealt with as far as questions and instruction were issues regarding grammar and punctuation, not medical questions. Once I got into self-publishing and reading other indie authors, I was finding a lot of great stories, but many lacking in quality—not with the storyline, but with errors in grammar, punctuation, missing words or run-on sentences, and so on. I’m not saying that everything I read was showing too many errors, but enough that I thought it would be helpful to especially new authors to create a reference that would focus on quality.

You won’t find how to run a contest, do give-aways, or tips on writing a novel in 90 days. There are plenty of articles and books on how to accomplish those things. But I found very little written about how to make sure the quality of your story is as good as the story itself!  I know for myself, I thought I was pretty good at grammar and punctuation, but I was amazed at how much I did forget once I started teaching medical transcription and getting questions from my students.  Oh, I knew the basics. I had to because I did write a lot of articles and was even editor of a newsletter for the local chapter of my professional organization in the 90s. There was still a lot I didn’t know or had forgotten. So in a way, I was relearning all those old rules and guidelines right along with my students.

This isn’t a long book, a tad over 100 pages. It would probably take you only a few hours at most to read it front to back. My hope is that this isn’t going to be a book that you will read through once and put it aside or pass it on. My hope is that you will refer back to it over and over again. With many of the chapters, I provided a blank page at the end for “My Notes,” so you can add things I might not have addressed or perhaps add new details. Even if you have the E-version, you can add your own notes in a notebook or electronically. So both the print and E‑versions will work either way. 

 

You might ask why I wrote this reference. It’s for a couple of reasons. One is that I do love to mentor. When I was teaching MT, I felt more like a mentor than instructor. Maybe because the course I taught was more a self-teaching course, and I was there to answer questions and helping students find and improve upon their weaknesses, build on their strengths. Secondly, I want to help better our industry. Self-publishing has become huge, but despite our growing numbers, we do have an uphill battle in not only getting our stories out there, but also showing our readers that our novels are as good, in some cases if not better, than traditional publishing house novels. This reference guide can help make sure of that!  

Look for The Practical Writer later this month!  Enjoy your day and thanks for hanging out.

Making a Move

I can’t believe it’s been over two months since my last post. I like to add to my blog at least once a month, so I’m not sure where the time has gone. I have been very busy finishing up The Practical Writer, and right now I’m in the proofing part of that project, which always seems to take forever, but it’s definitely an important part of the process. I’ll tell you more about that project in a later entry.

Even though I do like to post at least once a month, it can be difficult to figure out a topic. This blog started out about my medical transcription career and has now morphed into my writing career. I have written a lot about my first two novels, even including some chapters from both books. I’m not quite ready to post any chapters from my next novel, but I can share with you a sort of funny story about leaving my home in Ohio.  I say “sort of” funny because my husband did think it was, but to this day, I feel bad about my reaction.

On a quick side note, in case you don’t know, my third novel is about my life with my husband, with the characters fictionalized, but the events are true.  We were married in 1977, and about 1990 we both came to the realization that “Andy” was going to have to look for a new job. That meant more than likely we would be leaving Ohio, which meant not only leaving our childhood home, but also leaving behind family and friends—an entire life.

One of the first places Andy was going to apply was in Minneapolis. My response was to tear up and utter ever so pathetically “bleak!” That’s all I could say. He never did apply for that job, and I still feel bad about that. It could have been a great job! I have actually been to Minneapolis and loved the city. It’s just that at the time of the job opportunity, I simply wasn’t  ready to face the fact we were going to be moving.  At that particular moment, I wasn’t  sure I would ever be ready for such a life-changing event.

As it turns out, it took about two years for the job offer to come along. A lot happened during those two years, which will be a part of my novel. We would wind up going much farther than Minneapolis, and I moved into a home that my husband bought without my seeing it first. If that’s not trust in a husband, I don’t know what is! 

 

I’m very excited about getting back to work on this third novel about my life. It’s not so much that our life together has been unique. I am sure there are couples who have gone through much more than I have with my best friend and partner, but I want to share how we handled all the many curve balls that have been thrown our way over our almost 40 years of marriage. Our path has changed so many times, I have lost count, but hopefully I’ll have a better idea of that once the third and final chapter of the “Life” series has been completed. I’m targeting very early in the New Year for that to happen. In the meantime, I’ll be posting about my latest project, The Practical Writer, in a few weeks. Until then, thanks for stopping by and always remember to enjoy your day. Merry Christmas!