Authors Electric

  The hard part, at last, was over: the years spent researching and writing the book; revising and editing; concocting a 1-sentence and then a 1-paragraph elevator pitch; and then, Lord help me, coming up with an outline that won a thumbs up from a trusted reader. I was ready to go with a ms. formatted according to industry standards. And I had a plan I liked: to submit my work to three agents before putting the book up on Kindle.  I've written queries in the past and several won me big agents. But times and query styles have changed, along with my circumstances. So here was where I found myself beginning to clear my throat, tempted to justify my book's 60K word length; to apologize for past mistakes; to make a case for my experience and age.  But no, no. The hell with that. When it's showtime, just man up and belt out the blues. If I've only got 300 words, there's no time for lard or blubber. Stick the landing with line one: a razzle dazzle hook that dares an agent...

Oh, the joy of being a writer! The journey of shaping a story, of bringing our characters to life and watching them dance across the pages. At times the writing is frustrating, other times it is motivating. Writing is a process custom-made for our creative brains and the visions we translate into language and words. After our manuscript is complete, we dive into the process of creating a cover design. Finding the perfect artwork or a photograph, choosing fonts and colors... This can be frustrating, but it can also be so much fun! Watching thoughts take form and materialize into the real world.  Holding our newly released novel in our hands for the first time as our creative process comes to fruition – Isn't that what really sparks our creative soul to life? At the heart of what we do as writers is CREATE. The dictionary defines 'create' as something "to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary proc...