Everything gets easier with practice. This is as true for writing as it is for playing the piano, kicking a ball, or memorizing math facts. But most kids don’t have a tried-and-true method for practicing writing.
Just Write: Middle School Writing Prompts solves that problem. It provides 150 interesting prompts that are accompanied by gorgeous photographs. All a student has to do is sit down, open to the next prompt, and start writing. With each completed writing prompt, the student will gain confidence and find that writing isn’t so intimidating after all. In fact, writing can be fun! It’s a surefire way to sort through ideas and try out new vocabulary. It legitimizes the thoughts in your mind and helps you to clarify your reasoning. Writing gives voice to the creative ideas and intelligent reasoning that don’t always surface in conversation. Nearly 150 different photographers contributed to Just Write. These photographers come from all walks of life and from all around the world. Their perspectives give students all kinds of food for thought. Pick up a copy from Amazon and get your students writing every day. Start class with a writing prompt. It will probably take less than ten minutes, and your students will have thought deeply about a topic and organized their thoughts on paper. They may want to share their ideas, or they may want to keep them to themselves. The main idea is to write regularly. With practice, your students will speed up and become more comfortable with the writing process. Please leave a review on Amazon after you’ve used Just Write: Middle School Writing Prompts. If you’re a blogger who would like to review Just Write, please get in touch!
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The first public library I remember going to was the Mission Viejo Branch in the Aurora Public Library system. I'm sure it wasn't the first library I went to, but I don't remember much from before I was five.
Some clever soul created a huge (remember, I was five) paper mache dragon in the children's area, and I recall being slightly afraid of it by trying hard not to show it. This is where I was introduced to "Drummer Hoff fired it off," "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter!" (Sendak's The Night Kitchen), and "The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another..." Ah, those were the days. My love of libraries was cemented right there in the Mission Viejo Branch. They had everything: books on cassette, picture books, maps, encyclopedias, nice ladies who wanted to help me even though I was too shy to speak to them. If I remember correctly, they even had artwork you could check out and temporarily hang on your walls at home. The Mission Viejo Branch is also where I learned about swear words--they were etched into the bathroom walls. Do you have associations between the books you've read and the libraries where you found those books? I associate The Brothers Karamazov and The House of Mirth with the Stockton Public Library. 19th-century romantic poetry belongs to the Pantego Public Library. Mikhail Bulgakov goes with the Mamie Doud Eisenhower Public Library in Broomfield. And the Handmaid's Tale goes with the Golden Public Library. Anyhow, since those days, the public library is one of the first locations I track down when I move to a new city. I don't feel I've truly landed in a place until I've scoped out the library, learned where the restrooms are, figured out where the fiction and non-fiction lives, and spent a few solid hours soaking up the ambience. That's what I'm doing today in Leeds, UK. Just in case you're wondering, this library has been around since the 1870's, and there was a swanky party when it was first decorated. The architect gave the mayor a golden key that fit in the door, and then everyone toasted their good fortune at having such a library. As well they should! This place is amazing. While it's seen better days (a good once over of plaster and paint wouldn't hurt), this library is a wonder. It has soaring ceilings, columned arches, tile and wood mosaics, massive stairways, and loads and loads of really old books, as well as some new ones, too. It's going to be a privilege to read and write in this building for the next 10 or so months. It's also going to be entertaining. You never know what you're going to see in a public library. One of thirteen children, Velma Wallis was born in a remote Alaskan village near Fort Yukon, accessible only by dogsled, snowmobile, airplane, or riverboat. Her father passed away when she was just 13 years old, and she stopped going to school so she could help her mother raise the rest of her family. At some point in her adolescence, Velma decided to go live by herself in a small cabin in the wilderness. Her father had built the cabin, which was located about 12 miles outside her village, and he used it for hunting and trapping. While living at the cabin, Velma learned all kinds of skills, including fishing, hunting, and trapping. Her mother joined her for a summer and taught her more of the traditional survival skills her Gwich'in Athabascan ancestors had perfected. These skills, along with her experiences in the cabin, found their way into her first book, Two Old Women. Wallis always loved stories, both in the books that she read and in the stories her mother would tell her. In fact, Two Old Women comes from a legend her mother shared. It's about two old women (75 and 80 years old) who are left behind by their tribe when they can no longer contribute to the group's welfare. Although Wallis never finished high school (she received her GED), her brother recognized her talent and encouraged her to write Two Old Women. He also helped her to get it published, and his instincts were right. Two Old Women became the most popular book of its kind in the history of Alaska, selling more than 1.5 million copies. Sadly, Wallis' brother died of AIDS years ago, but his encouragement lives on. Wallis recently published another, different kind of story, Raising Ourselves, which confronts the alcoholism and cultural struggles faced by many residents of rural Alaska. In an interview in Frontiersman, Velma Wallis said, "Even though I put myself out there for a lot of criticism...I had to do it. Number one because I had to heal, I had to find a way out of this darkness that descended upon me after my brother died." Her courage has helped other Native Alaskans to deal with their own experiences as well. Wallis believes that alcoholism is a crippling disease that has caused immense struggles for her community, and she's interested in the growing interest she sees in ancestry and the traditional lifestyle of the Gwich'in. Her writing, both in addressing current problems and highlighting the strengths of the Gwich'in cultural traditions, help both herself and others to heal and move forward. In addition to Two Old Women and Raising Ourselves, Wallis has also written another book based on Athabaskan legend, Bird Girl and the Man who Followed the Sun. Tolman Hall has produced a literature unit study for Two Old Women that addresses themes of independence, forgiveness, and respect for the elderly. It's appropriate for grades 5-10 and includes vocabulary lists, reading comprehension quizzes, essay prompts, and a variety of cross-subject projects. For more information about Velma Wallis and her writing, check out the following articles: "'Two Old Women' Author Publishes Memoir" by Eowyn LeMay Ivey Kirkus Review of Two Old Women "From One Young Woman to Two Old Women" by Caroline Williams Get your copy of Tolman Hall's Two Old Women literature study guide in paperback at Amazon or in ebook format from the following sellers:
Amazon Smashwords Barnes & Noble Kobo Scribd What are your plans for literature curriculum for the coming school year?
If you’ve ever thought about combining literature with history or other academic subjects, give unit studies a try. Literature and history go hand in hand, as Susan Wise Bauer of The Well-Trained Mind reminds us. It’s nearly impossible to study a piece of literature without at least wondering about the time period it’s set in, and if you really dive in, you can explore all kinds of facets of the historical period. Take Number the Stars, for example. This Newbery-winning novel by Lois Lowry is set in Europe during World War II. Readers learn about key facts surrounding the war just by reading the book. But the novel does more than explain facts. It also serves as an invitation to learn more, and this is one of the great benefits of teaching literature via unit studies. A student might learn while reading Number the Stars that she’s very interested in the Holocaust, and given the time and freedom necessary, she might expand her knowledge by reading Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, watching a documentary or interview on YouTube, or even writing a story of her own. You could have your students work on timelines of the events leading up to the war or maps of the many parts of the world involved in the war. When a unit study is approached from multiple facets, students gain a greater understanding of the material and have a better chance of placing the newly gained information in a cohesive framework in their brains. This will help them next time they encounter information about Europe, World War II, or the Holocaust. They’ll already have some key information at the ready, and they’ll be able to build on this information and use it to think thoroughly and critically. When considering unit studies for your curriculum, look for unit studies that include the following items: Reading Comprehension Does the unit study have reading quizzes so you can quickly assess the depth of students’ comprehension? Reading quizzes give you feedback regarding students’ understanding. If you notice misunderstandings or gaps, you can address them before moving on. Writing Any good literature unit should include opportunities to write. Students will learn more when writing prompts are meaningful and thought-provoking. Also, it’s helpful if unit studies offer different kinds of writing assignments: short and long essays, creative writing, and even research projects. Vocabulary and Spelling The study of literature should lead to a larger vocabulary and a solid understanding of grammar and spelling. Does your unit study give lists of words that students may not already be familiar with? Explain these words and offer spelling tests to help students improve their understanding of the English language. Projects Science class is fun because it’s easy to create hands-on labs for students to “do science.” But science doesn’t have anything on literature when you incorporate projects into your unit studies. Tolman Hall unit studies include projects that reach into science, history, cartography, art, quilting, creative writing, film-making, and more. Tap into your students’ creativity with projects that allow them to spread their wings and own literature. Learn more about Tolman Hall unit studies by visiting the website or by picking up a copy at Amazon or other retailers. You can find them in paperback and ebook formats. Recently, the kids and I read a few of The Canterbury Tales. We talked about the idea of frame stories. The Princess Bride is a good example of a frame story. There’s the whole narrative about Buttercup and Wesley, but there’s the outside story of the grandfather visiting his grandson while he’s sick. In The Canterbury Tales, there are a whole bunch of stories told within the frame story of a group of diverse people going together on a pilgrimage.
It’s an interesting literary device, and I’ve been thinking about how I can use it in my own writing. Now I’m reading Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, and he seems to take the frame story to a more sophisticated level. The first couple hundred pages of the book cover about 16 hours, but there are so many stories told in conversations that the content seems to cover years (and in some ways, it actually does). I’m working on the sequel to Six Floors from Somewhere, and I’ve been thinking about ways to use frame stories to introduce some back story. For example, our good friend Harriet hasn’t always been a little old lady. Maybe a little frame story could help us not only to understand Harriet a little better but also to introduce some variety. Some well-known frame stories:
Frame stories are interesting literary devices, both for the readers and for the writers. Have you tried using them in your own writing? By any measure, Mildred D. Taylor is a successful author. Her nine novels have earned her a slew of impressive awards such as the Newbery Medal, Coretta Scott King Award, NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, Outstanding Book of the Year Citation from The New York Times, Notable Book Citation from the American Library Association, and much more. She published her first book, Song of the Trees, in 1975, and her last, The Land, was published in 2001. What’s unusual about Taylor’s books is that all nine of them make up a single series, and the series is based on her own family history. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, but raised in Ohio, Taylor visited her extended family in Mississippi every summer. Because she spent each school year far away from her roots, she likely saw her family in a different light than all of her cousins did. Although she was part of the family, her own experiences were different, and this perception probably gave her an interesting and curious perspective. Taylor grew up in the newly-integrated town of Toledo, Ohio, and at school she was the only black child in her class. Her opportunities for learning were great, and she earned an English degree at the University of Toledo and went on to earn a Master of Arts degree at the University of Colorado. After leaving Colorado, Taylor moved to Los Angeles, where she wrote novel after novel about the Logan family from rural Mississippi. Though she had traveled far and wide and lived in Ohio and Colorado and then California, Taylor continued to write vividly about the place of her roots. Aside from her vacations to visit, she only lived in Mississippi for the first three months of her life. What is it about family history that has such a pull on our hearts and souls? And how can authors tap into that richness with their writing?
All of us have deep roots, whether or not we have taken the time to learn about our families’ histories. And oftentimes, these stories are not fully fleshed out. Maybe we’ve heard a story about how great-grandpa Frank flew an airplane in World War II, but that’s all we know. We don’t know if he left a girlfriend back home or lost his best friend in the war or anything else. This leaves plenty of room for imagination, longing, healing, and adventure. Some authors feel squeamish about using family for inspiration, but as we see with Mildred D. Taylor’s novels, writing can be cathartic. It can be a way to make sense of tragedy or to find triumph in trials. You don’t have to explain how much of a story relates directly to your family and how much is fiction. In fact, in many cases, authors probably don’t know where family legend ends and newly-created fiction begins. Characters can be made up, names can be changed, and stories can even be transported to new settings. But setting, it seems, can be one of the richest gifts of family history. Taylor’s Logan family series has so much to offer to its readers. The family relationships are solid and healthy. The plots are riveting. The themes and conflicts are realistic and applicable to events happening in the world in 2017. Tolman Hall will be releasing a literature study unit for one of the books in this series, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry before the end of 2017. Consider including this unit study in your students’ literature curriculum this year. It’s funny. Even for writers of books, the digital age has taken its toll on old-fashioned, book-length reading, and I really believe the toll can be significant.
With Twitter notifications, emails coming and going, and websites to update (in theory), it seems hard to settle down with a long book and slowly turn the pages. I find myself listening to e-books on my phone more often than I sit down and make my eyes scan the letters that create sentences and paragraphs and entire threads of narrative. Listening to books has its appeal. I can listen to books while I walk the dog or fold a load of laundry or weed the garden. It’s multi-tasking at its best. Strange things happen to my brain, however. For instance, I’ve been listening to a wonderful book by Sara Tuvel Bernstein, The Seamstress, and as I think back to certain parts of the book, I simultaneously remember where I was and what I was doing when I listened to those parts. I was driving on 40th Street when I read about the American soldiers carrying Seren's 40-pound body to the hospital, and I was weeding my kitchen garden (specifically, I was pulling purslane out from around the bok choy) when I read about Seren's teacher’s wife brushing her hair on the way to the academic competition in Bucharest. Are these associations distracting my brain from making more meaningful connections? Anyway, I’m also reading a paperback right now, Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons. I’m enjoying this book immensely as well, but I feel like it’s sinking deeper than The Seamstress, and maybe it’s because I can’t pull weeds as I read. Maybe it’s because my eyes see the letters and have to process the letters into words. Maybe it’s partially because I invest more when I focus all of my brain power on one task at a time. It’s time to make a change. While I won’t stop listening to e-books while I fold laundry and weed the garden, I plan to always have an old-fashioned, book-length work at my fingertips because I don’t like the trend I’m seeing. And I have evidence of the trend. See, I’ve kept a spreadsheet of everything I’ve read since 1996. Compulsive? Yes. I’ve tracked dates, titles, authors, dates published, category, rating, and page numbers. My memory is terrible, so the spreadsheet helps me to look up titles and authors when I’m recommending books to friends. It helps me to see my interests over time. And now it helps me to see that I need to step up my game. The evidence is clear. Here are total page numbers per year. 1996: 12717 1997: 11813 1998: 11127 1999: 10710 2000: 12539 2001: 10879 2002: 12195 2003: 7411 2004: 7247 2005: 7460 2006: 7517 2007: 5552 2008: 6753 2009: 8762 2010: 9531 2011: 11106 2012: 8149 2013: 9485 2014: 7368 2015: 3619 2016: 6963 2017 (first half): 5980 Yikes, 2015 was awful (it was the year I ran for school board), but you can see the downward general trend. This year is looking up, and I’m hoping to keep it that way. Life is richer when reading is a priority, and I feel that my writing is better and my reasoning is fairer and more measured when I have the thoughts of greater minds bouncing around in my head. Does old-fashioned, book-length reading help if you stick to one genre? I think so, although I like to vary it as much as I can. For instance, here are some of the authors on my spreadsheet for the first half of 2017: Lois Lowry, Sophocles, Ayn Rand, Lisa Graff, Sarah Wilson, Ernest Hemingway, Andrea Di Robilant, Aristophanes, Anne Tyler, Patrice Kindl, Dan Brown, Shonda Rhimes, Robert Massie, David McCullough, Pearl Buck, and Khaled Hosseini. When I think of the privilege it is to read the intimate thoughts of people as interesting and thoughtful as these, I feel immense gratitude. What would life be like without reading? They say you’re more likely to achieve a goal when you write it down, so here’s my goal: 12,000 pages by the end of 2017. Hold me to it. I'm not sure why it took me so long to finish reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Maybe it's because there's no real plot, or maybe it's because Hemingway himself doesn't seem to get too excited about anything. But even though it moves along like a lazy river, it's fascinating for readers and writers. And here's why. Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley lived in Paris in the 1920s with their young son Bumby. They were poor, but their lives were as rich as any artist or writer could hope for. They regularly spent time with some of the best known writers of the 20th century, and Hemingway's observations of them are mesmerizing. Using descriptions of people in the book (below), see how Hemingway uses metaphors, sounds, imagery, and creative adjectives to paint pictures of his friends. On Gertrude Stein: "Miss Stein was very big but not tall and was heavily built like a peasant woman. She had beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face that also could have been Friulano and she reminded me of a northern Italian peasant woman with her clothes, her mobile face and her lovely, thick, alive immigrant hair which she wore put up in the same way she had probably worn it in college." "In the three or four years that we were good friends I cannot remember Gertrude Stein ever speaking well of any writer who had not written favorably about her work or done something to advance her career except for Ronald Firbank and, later, Scott Fitzgerald." On Sylvia Beach (owner of the rental library of Shakespeare & Company: "Sylvia had a lively, sharply sculpted face, brown eyes that were as alive as a small animal's and as gay as a young girl's, and wavy brown hair that was brushed back from her fine forehead and cut thick below her ears and at the line of the collar of the brown velvet jacket she wore. She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one that I ever knew was nicer to me." On Ford Madox Ford: "It was Ford Madox Ford, as he called himself then, and he was breathing heavily through a heavy, stained mustache and holding himself as upright as an ambulatory, well clothed, up-ended hogshead On Ezra Pound: "Ezra was kinder and more Christian about people than I was. His own writing, when he would hit it right, was so perfect, and he was so sincere in his mistakes and so enamored of his errors, and so kind to people that I always thought of him as a sort of saint. He was also irascible but so perhaps have been many saints." On Ernest Walsh: Ernest Walsh was dark, intense, faultlessly Irish, poetic and clearly marked for death as a character is marked for death in a motion picture. He was talking to Ezra and I talked with the girls who asked me if I had read Mr. Walsh's poems. I had not and one of them brought out a green-covered copy of Harriet Monroe's Poetry, A Magazine of Verse and showed me poems by Walsh in it." On Scott Fitzgerald: Scott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have been the mouth of a beauty. His chin was well built and he had good ears and a handsome, almost beautiful unmarked nose. This should not have added up to a pretty face, but that came from the coloring, the very fair hair and the mouth. The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more." On Dunc Chaplin (baseball player): "I had not followed Princeton baseball and had never heard of Dunc Chaplin but he was extraordinarily nice, unworried, relaxed and friendly and I much preferred him to Scott." On Zelda Fitzgerald: "Zelda had hawk's eyes and a thin mouth and deep-south manners and accent. Watching her face you could see her mind leave the table and go to the night's party and return with her eyes blank as a cat's and then pleased, and the pleasure would show along the thin line of her lips and then be gone." "She was smiling, the sun on her lovely face tanned by the snow and sun, beautifully built, her hair red gold in the sun, grown out all winter awkwardly and beautifully, and Mr. Bumby standing with her, blond and chunky and with winter cheeks looking like a good Vorarlberg boy." As you can see, Hemingway's powers of observation are immense. He wrote A Moveable Feast in the late 50s, just before his tragic death. That means there were 30-40 years between these actual experiences and when he turned them into a book. You would never guess from the vividness of the descriptions that the encounters hadn't happened five minutes ago.
Did he keep a journal or notes of all of these encounters and then go back and use them later? Did his imagination play on them for years until the people became caricatures of their real selves? It doesn't really matter. Reading such descriptions make you see the world differently and respect words for their inherent power. Thanks, Hem (as his friends would say). Tom's limp body was dragged around the barn to the pasture where the cows were standing.
Why, you wonder, does the author take so long in getting Tom's limp body from here to there? Does she dread the cow pasture? Should I? Will the rest of the story take as long as this first sentence? Passive voice can slow your fiction down to a dreary standstill. And that's why it's so important to recognize the passive voice and kill it before it kills your story. In the above sentence, the action has been stamped out by a "was" and a "were." The verbs, though dormant, exist in this sentence: "drag" and “stand." But the author hasn't allowed them to take the action. We would find ourselves much more involved with the action if we read, The girl dragged Tom's limp body around the barn to the pasture where the cows stood. Not only is the action closer to the beginning of the sentence but the author has also been forced to insert a dragger, the girl. The immediacy of the action draws us in and makes us wonder what will happen next. In the active voice, a doer exists to execute the action. In the passive voice, the subject is acted upon. Or, worse yet, the subject disappears from the scene altogether, as the girl in the above example. Because of fiction’s character-driven nature, the subjects need to be as active as possible. So don’t relegate them to victim material, and please don’t leave them out. Downfalls of the Passive VoicePassive voice makes for wordy writing. Extra, meaningless words can swamp your writing. We get into the trap of writing in the passive voice for several reasons. First, writing with active verbs takes more forethought. Our language provides plenty of gutsy, strong verbs, but our brains usually first think of the same sentence constructs we use day after day. Reading exciting prose on a regular basis can help bring these strong verbs to the forefront of your vocabulary. Instead of writing, “She was walking briskly to the hut,” you’ll say, “She raced to the hut.” As you watch a squirrel scamper across the park bench, a van swerve to a screeching halt, a speck of dust descend to its final resting place, think of multiple active verbs that could describe the action. Practice thinking in verbs. Secondly, most of us habitually speak in the passive voice, so it takes some practiced discrimination even to recognize those tiny, sneaky “be” verbs. When trying to adopt a “natural” voice in our writing, we tend to write exactly as we would speak. But all those extra, insignificant words that dissolve into the phone line as we converse with friends turn ugly when they show up in black and white. Just as readers don’t want to read all of the “ums,” “ers,” and “ya knows,” they don’t want to read “be” verb after “be verb.” Get Rid of the Passive The easiest way to identify the passive voice in your writing is to sit down with a pen—preferably a red pen if you’re serious about gutting your writing--and circle all the forms of the verb “be” (be, am, is, are, was, were, being, and been). These “be” verbs lack vigor because they convey no action. This exercise opens your eyes to the “be” addict within. Once you have circled all those wimpy “be” verbs, examine a sentence: A decision was reached by the committee. Who prompts the action in this sentence? The committee. Bump the committee up to the beginning: The committee reached a decision. You’ve knocked out two superfluous words and given the committee some real power. When you begin ridding your writing of passive verbs, you’ll find that unruly prepositional phrases fall by the wayside as well. Read the following sentence, a prepositional wasteland: The costumes for the school play were designed on Friday by the students from Mrs. Jacob’s fourth period art class. This sentence never ends. The author has added so many prepositional phrases that we the readers lose sight of the sentence’s direction and meaning. Try, On Friday, Mrs. Jacob’s fourth period art class designed the costumes for the school play. Not only has the sentence lost five unnecessary words, we get the details about the subjects and the time period (Friday) up at the front of the sentence. We’re not so weary by the time we find out the purpose of the action. As you make your way through another red-lined sentence, and another, and through a paragraph, you’ll find that sometimes a “be” ought to be. The forms of “be” work well when you want to link a subject to a noun that clearly renames it or to an adjective that describes it. Trying to meddle with a “be” verb with one of these functions might just alter the meaning of your sentence or add an action when one truly doesn’t exist. For example, Advertising is legalized lying. Any attempt at getting rid of the “is” in this sentence makes for a wordy, confusing statement. So don’t be too rigid about eliminating every single “be” verb in sight, but do examine your motives in using the verbs you choose. A conscious decision to use a “be” verb may be just what you need. Just don’t use them ignorantly. This “be”-verb elimination process seems tedious, and it truly is the first time you try it, but you’ll begin to notice patterns in your own writing and ways to fix those passive patterns. Soon, you can avoid the red pen therapy because you begin writing more actively in your rough drafts. You’ll think in terms of verbs instead of nouns, and your writing will gain intensity and verve. It takes work and lots of red ink, but abolishing the passive voice can only bring rewards. Good luck, and, hey, maybe I’ll see you sometime at the office supply store in the red pen aisle. There are probably a million reasons to write a book. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to stop the injustice of slavery. Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight to capture a dream she had one night. Dale Carnegie wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People to help people overcome their fear of public speaking. Behind every book in every library is an author who had a reason for investing a lot of time and energy into that project.
If you've ever considered writing a book, you have reasons of your own, and they're probably very good reasons. The following 5 reasons are universal, I believe. Do they apply to you? Are you ready to take the plunge? 1. You Have Something to Say Admit it. You know a lot about something—so much that other people ask you advice about it and care what you have to say. It might be something relatively obscure like growing lucious peaches or drawing still lifes. Or it might be something more common like setting up small business accounting systems or teaching kids how to swim. Whatever it is, there are people out there who would like to learn what you already know. And they just might pay you to explain it to them. 2. You’d Like to Publish Something There’s never been a better time to get into publishing. Just a few years ago, you couldn’t publish a book without going through a series of gatekeepers: agents, editors, publishers. Today, thanks to some amazing innovations and print-on-demand technology, you can publish a book by yourself and market it to practically the whole world. The indie publishing process is incredibly satisfying, and holding your published book in your hand is pretty satisfying, too. 3. You Want to Learn Something New If you’re into lifelong learning, indie publishing is definitely for you. Not only will you continually be learning about writing, thinking, and communicating, but you’ll learn all kinds of fascinating skills along the way. You’ll learn about design as you work through your book covers and interior setup. You’ll learn how to use complicated software like Gimp or Photoshop. You’ll learn about inbound marketing and social media. You’ll meet interesting people and step out of your comfort zone. With each new book you publish you’ll learn something new. It’s endlessly rewarding. 4. You Want to Give Back Most authors started out as dedicated readers. At some point, after devouring book after delicious book, most readers have a desire to give back and add to the conversation. One of my favorite college professors told me that reading and writing are just different parts of the same conversation. If you’re ready to reciprocate start writing. Your voice is important to the great conversation of ideas and stories. 5. You Want to Stretch Yourself Anyone can write a blog post. Take 400-600 words, add an image or two, and bam. Published. But writing a book is different. It requires you to take one idea and explore it in depth. For a long time. It requires you to pace yourself, to discipline yourself, and to stick with something until it’s done. You’ll get sick of it. It will nag you and be a permanent resident on your to-do list. When you finally finish that sucker, though, you will feel the elation that comes from accomplishing something difficult. You will have climbed a very tall mountain. And from the top of that mountain you will see things you couldn’t see before. And it will make you want to climb the next mountain. So what are you going to write about? |
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