Three Phases of Becoming a Master Author

Image via Kristin Nador WANA Commons

Professional authors make our job look easy. That is the mark of a good storyteller. The work flows, pulls us in, and appears seamless. Many of us decided to become writers because we grew up loving books. Because good storytellers are masters of what they do, we can easily fall into a misguided notion that “writing is easy.” Granted there are a rare few exceptions, but most of us will go through three stages in this career.

Neophyte

This is when we are brand new. We’ve never read a craft book and the words flow. We never run out of words to put on a page because we are like a kid banging away on a piano having fun and making up “music.” We aren’t held back or hindered by any structure or rules and we have amazing energy and passion.

Woodleywonderworks Flikr Creative Commons

But then we go to our first critique and hear words like “POV” and “narrative structure.” We learn that maybe we don’t know as much as we think we do and that we need to do some training.

Apprentice

The apprentice phase comes next. This is where we read craft books, take classes, go to conferences and listen to lectures. During the early parts of this phase, books likely will no longer be fun. Neither will movies. In fact, most of your family will likely ban you from “Movie Night.” Everything now becomes part of our training. We no longer look at stories the same way.

The apprentice phase is tough, and for many of us, it takes the fun out of writing. The apprentice phase is our Act II. It’s the looooongest and filled with the most change. It’s the span of suck before the breakthrough.

Image via KcdsTM Flikr Creative Commons

It’s like when I first started learning clarinet and I had to think of SO MANY THINGS AT THE SAME TIME. I was new at reading music, and I had to tap my foot to keep the beat at the same time I keyed notes (which I keyed incorrectly more times than not). I had to hold my mouth a certain way, blow air with just the right force, pay attention to the conductor…and most of the time I needed a nap afterwards.

WHY did I want to play clarinet? I wondered this a lot.

But as we move through the apprentice phase and we train ourselves to execute all these moves together—POV, structure, conflict, tension, setting, description, dialogue, plot arc, character arc—it eventually becomes easier. In fact, a good sign we are at the latter part of the apprentice phase is when the rules become so ingrained we rarely think about them.

We just write.

We’ve read so much fiction, watched (and studied) so many movies, read so many craft books, heard so many lectures, and practiced so much writing that all the “rules” are now becoming instinct and, by feel, we are starting to know where and how to break rules.

Writing is now starting to become fun again, much like it was in the beginning when we were banging away on the piano keyboard. Like the clarinetist whose fingers now naturally go to the right keys without conscious thought, we now find more and more of the “right” words and timing without bursting brain cells.

The trick is sticking it through the apprentice phase long enough to engrain the fundamentals into the subconscious.

Master

This is where we all want to be. In fact, we all want this on Day One, but sadly, I believe this is reserved for only a handful of literary savants. Mastery is when we return to that childlike beginning. We write with abandon and joy and, since the elements of fiction are deeply engrained, what we produce isn’t the off-key clanging of a neophyte, it’s actually a real story worth reading. Granted, it isn’t all kittens and rainbows. Masters have a lot of pressure to be perpetual geniuses.

Portrait by Yosuf Karsh via Wikimedia Creative Commons

I believe most of us, if we stick to this long enough, will always be vacillating between the Advanced Apprentice Phase and the Mastery Phase. We have to to keep growing. The best writers still pick up craft books, refresh themselves in certain areas, read other authors they enjoy and admire to see if they can grow in some new area. Masters seek to always add new and fresh elements to the fiction.

The key to doing well in this business is to:

1. Not Despise the Day of Small Beginnings (thanks, Joyce Meyer)—Starting is often the hardest part. Enjoy being new. Enjoy that feeling because you will reconnect with it later because you recognize it.

2. Understand We All Have an Apprentice Phase—We will all be Early, Intermediate, then Advanced Apprentices. How quickly we move through these will be dictated by dedication, hard work and, to a degree, natural talent.

3. No One Begins a Master and Few Remain Permanent Masters—Every NYTBSA was once a newbie, too. When we understand this career has a process, it’s easier to lighten up and give ourselves permission to be imperfect, to not know everything. Many writers get discouraged and give up too soon because they don’t understand there is a process, and they believe they should be “Masters” right away.

Hey, I did.

We need to give ourselves permission to grow. If we love and respect our craft, we will always be learning, so we will continue to dip back into “Apprentice” to refine our art even further.

While I am a huge fan of social media and authors having a platform, I will tell you that mastery will only come with writing. Focus less on marketing and more on writing books. That’s what will make the difference, not some algorithm or Facebook ad.

Does this make you feel better to know this career has a process? Are you in the Act II span of suck and getting weary? What are you doing to remain focused? Which part has you the most discouraged?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of April, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of April I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Note: Due to Easter holiday/anniversary…okay video game marathon, I will be choosing March’s winner later in the week, so stay tuned.

How Boxing Can Make Us Better Writers–Lesson Two ENDURANCE

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Fort Worth MMA and BJJ

Yesterday we talked about how important it is to learn to take a hit. We grow, get tougher, get stronger, and we learn where we’re weak. Sometimes those weaknesses are what keep us from moving forward professionally, so it’s good to find them and strengthen them.

We have to learn to take hits because the world is full of petty, nasty people who will go for the TKO. We might even be related to more than a few.

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Anamorphic Mike.

I’ve written over 512 blogs over the past four years. Let’s say my blogs are 1,000 words long (which is on the low end for anyone who’s followed me for very long, ). That’s over a half a million words just in blogs. This doesn’t count my books or guest blogs.

I blog for my city and am a featured blogger for SocialIn (with completely different content). My blogs reach hundreds of thousands of people in 26 major cities. Though I’ve easily written close to a million words in just blogs, I still have people infer I’m not a “real” expert/writer. Likely always will, too. Goes with the territory *shrugs*

And $20? It will happen to you, too.

Prepare for the:

“Well, you’re not a real writer because you didn’t traditionally publish.”

“Oh, you aren’t a best-seller so you aren’t a real writer.’”

“You haven’t made the NYT List, so who are you?”

“You don’t yet make your living writing full-time, so you’re not a real writer.”

Okay you win. You’re better than me. Um, I’ve got writing to do *checks watch*. Fun chatting, though .

Roll with the punches and press on. Keep pressing and those people can just eat your dust later …which leads me to today’s lesson.

Endurance Matters

Why we need to learn to toughen up is this—thick skin is vital for us to keep pressing even when we’re bloody, wounded or discouraged. Being a career writer isn’t a sprint. It’s a mega-marathon-mountain-climbing-Iron-Man. Many writers will fail not because of lack of talent, rather lack of staying power.

Appreciate that Training Often Involves “Other” Activities

Join a boxing gym and just expect to do a lot of jumping rope, running, sprinting, bag work, and you’ll get hit with a medicine ball…a lot.

Yet, at no time during my tenure “boxing” was I ever attacked by a jump rope or a medicine ball. Those “other activities” weren’t actual fighting, but they trained fighters for the endurance necessary to win in the ring.

Winning is frequently tied to staying power. Writing is no exception. Your mind, fingers and muse strengthen with focus, time, training and pain.

We’ll do a lot of things (I.e. blogging) that might not directly have anything to do with writing fiction…but it trains us to 1) meet self-imposed deadlines 2) build an audience with our writing voice 3) hook early 4) ENDURE.

I blogged for almost two years before I passed 50 hits a day. I blogged even when it felt like no one was listening, because I viewed it as part of my author training. Even if no one EVER listened, I was a better, faster, cleaner, more disciplined writer and I was investing in the long-term.

New Writers are Vulnerable

A boxer who’s been in the game for ten years, has a wall of title belts, has already been through the fire and gotten outside validation? It’s easier for that guy to jump in the ring. There’s a psychological advantage this guy earned with blood, time and pain.

For the newbies? Everyone thinks we’re nuts. They forget that even that title champ was a once a green pea tripping over the jump rope, too.

Becoming a writer is easy. Staying a writer is another matter entirely.

The beginning is a delicate time. It’s easy to get discouraged, but remember this:

Every NYTBSA, every Pulitzer-winner, every literary legend was once just an unpaid amateur with a dream, too.

Learn to keep going no matter what, and you cannot imagine the edge you’ll have in this profession (ANY profession).

Keep training. Keep blogging. Keep writing books, even bad books. Keep reading. Keep studying. Learn from everyone you can. It’s how we grow. How we learn. We can’t learn from the sidelines. We need to get into the fray even when we know it’s going to hurt because that’s what gives us staying power. And, as the great coach Vince Lombardi said, Quitters never win and winners never quit  .

Have you dealt with nasty people who tried to undermine your dream? What activities do you use to train as a writer-artist? What area do you need help? Where do you feel you’re weak? What’s your plan for strengthening that area? What activities do you think might help writers with endurance training?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

How Boxing Can Make Us Better Writers—Lesson One

Image via Flikr Creative Commons courtesy of familymwr

Many, many moons ago I was in martial arts (I started Tae Kwon Do when I was 13). Because I’d had roughly eight years of dance, I tended to rely a bit too much on kicks when sparring, and I knew this was a weakness (especially since I was the only female competitor back in those days).

In short, I wanted to get better with my hands. So, when I was 19, I joined a boxing gym. This was 20 years ago, but the lessons learned in the boxing ring are useful for anyone in a creative profession, but particularly writers.

Toughen Your Soft Underbelly

Our profession, by its very nature, is delicate and connected to our soft underbelly (our ego and feelings). Our soft underbelly is exactly where critics will seek to strike.

Think of this job like boxing. We’re in the ring. Outside (and even internal) critics are going to seek to gut-punch and knock the wind out of us. Their objective is to drop us to our knees and make us give up.

These opponents might be nasty reviewers, mean critique group members, jealous people with too much free time, or even family members who will tell you you aren’t a “real writer.”

As a NF expert, I just know to expect the “you are really just a poseur fake and not a ‘real’ expert” jab.

Now, I am human. My first instinct is to raise my shield (my resume, my list of credentials in fiction and social media, my Mom’s sworn testimony that I’m awesome, cute and adorable), but we have to move beyond that and just learn to take the hit and keep moving.

“Roll with the punches,” so to speak.

I recall my first time doing an exercise with the medicine ball. My teammate, a giant black man who was apparently fathered by a Mack truck, stood over me. His job was to toss this “ball” at my stomach as I did my sit-ups. Of course, I just saw a ball, and didn’t put two and two together that this “tiny ball” WAS TWELVE FREAKING POUNDS.

Wasn’t pretty.

I curled over on my side gasping like a goldfish out of its tank, all the while wondering why I didn’t take Jazzercise instead.

Yet, after a few months of this, I swear someone could have hit me in the stomach with a crowbar and it wouldn’t have phased me. It’s because those exercises (which hurt, btw) toughened me up. In short, I learned to take a hit.

In this business, we must learn to take a hit.

Hits Can Reveal Weakness

If someone strikes, and it hurts? That might be an area of weakness we need to actively strengthen. Clearly, if I’d possessed abs of steel when I began this boxing class, the medicine ball wouldn’t have rendered me into a weeping ball of wimpy. Thing was, I hadn’t trained and strengthened that area. 

When I was in critique and received a brutal punch to my WIP? It showed my weaknesses. When I was a new writer, I was notorious for overwriting. I never met a metaphor I didn’t love. What did I do? Cry like a sissy little girl?

Yes.

But then I started writing flash fiction to train myself how to employ economy. I wrote flash fiction until I started winning awards and being published in flash fiction. Being forced to cram an entire story into 500 words or less trained me to appreciate that less is often more.

When I wrote my first novel and was bashed by my beta readers for lack of structure? I started reading every book I could find. Scene & Structure, Plot & Structure, Story Engineering, Save the Cat, and The Writer’s Journey are all must-haves. I started working as a line-editor first, then later as a content editor. I’ve critiqued hundreds of plots. I also kept writing until I finally had two novels win major contests.

Even then, I had more to learn. I won because of good stories and witty dialogue, but judges kept telling me that I wasn’t hooking early enough. This led me to Les Edgerton’s Hooked. I started studying beginnings in books and movies. I took classes and soaked up every bit of knowledge possible.

I’m still learning and growing and always will be. My next challenge is to publish my novels. Winning contests is great, but I want that next challenge.

Hits are Valuable

Yes, getting hit sucks and can even make us suck wind; but hits that hurt show us where we need to focus. Hits weed out the uncommitted, those who are in this writing business for the wrong reasons. Hits save time and help ramp us up to the professional level faster. People who can’t take a hit, won’t grow. They won’t know where they are weak and they won’t possess the toughness to endure this profession.

So the next time someone hits you where it hurts? Walk it off and just remember.

It’s all part of going pro .

Has someone hit you where it hurt? What did you do? How did it make you stronger? Did you nearly give up? Why didn’t you?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Enemy of the Art Part 6—The Land of Good Enough

They don’t even know they’re dead….

Countless people aspire to be successful writers (The Many), but of all of those, only a small percentage will make it (The Few). Why won’t The Many make it? They get side-tracked and wander in circles in The Land of Good Enough. One of the largest problems with The Many? The Many believe in “Safety, first.” They trade short-term thrills for long-term happiness. They are often depressed, overweight, stressed because, on some level, they feel in their souls that they sold out.

And they would be correct.

I’m not judging The Many. I spent over a third of my life among them in the Land of Good Enough. The Land of Good Enough is an easy place to end up. In fact, most of us live there at least a time or two in life.

It’s the breaking free that’s the trick.

The Land of Good Enough is the realm of paycheck-to-paycheck living, dead end jobs that suck away our souls, routine, safety and predictability. It’s a place where we settle when we are too scared to step onto our sacred path and dare to see if we have what it takes to be a real artist.

Most people aren’t even aware they live in The Land of Good Enough. They dull the pain with food, TV, addiction and drama. They need all kinds of artificial stimulation because they have traded authentic passion for the Devil’s shill. It makes me think of a C.S. Lewis quote:

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Of course, when I use the term “Hell” I’m not referring to a fiery inferno where bad people go to be stabbed for all eternity with pitchforks. I am referring to the very real hell many people live in, the hell I barley escaped and that I still must guard against every day. Most of us don’t even realize we’ve landed in hell until we are already there.

And that is the scary part.

When I was in sales, I had to pull over every day to throw up. I hated my job THAT much. But become a writer? Are you nuts?

Really? Just, really Kristen. Because puking every day because of stress was so awesome. NOT.

Many of us follow the rules and listen to our teachers and what Madison Avenue tells us and we don’t realize that the landscape is sloping gently downward and the temperature is slowly rising.

In this type of Hell, The Many die even while they’re still breathing. They become the walking dead, those who go through the motions, not yet dead but never really living. They are caffeinated, medicated zombies who have traded safety for their very soul. The Land of Good Enough makes me think of the line from The Sixth Sense:

I see dead people. Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead. All the time. They’re everywhere.

The Many live in a delusion, they don’t know they’re dead. In their minds, they are practical, safe, and normal (and have a great job in sales *head desk*).

Creatives seem to be particularly vulnerable to getting stuck in The Land of Good Enough and that is why it is on my list of Enemies of the Art. We face different hurdles that other professions and I feel our journey from amateur hobbyist to professional is more fraught with danger than any other field. The price is also higher. Yes, many people will settle in The Land of Good Enough, and it is a personal purgatory. But, for Creatives, the Land of Good Enough is far more insidious.

True artists don’t create because we can, but because we must. When we are disconnected from the muse, we die a deeper death than most, and what makes us different is that when we die, we are not the only ones who suffer. The world suffers. The world our unspoken art failed to change.

Embrace the Resistance!

The Land of Good Enough is an easy place to get lost. This is why we must fight. Write goals, revise goals. Have friends that will send in the flying monkeys if we don’t hold to deadlines. Press. Keep pressing and understand the pressing never ever stops. That’s what we sign up for when we strive to be excellent in out craft.

But it’s worth it .

Have you been trapped in The Land of Good Enough? How did you break free? Are you still struggling there? Why are you afraid to step away? I love hearing from you!

Remember to check out the new Worldwide WANACon. This is an affordable, on-line conference with some of the top talent in the industry delivered to you right in the comfort of home. No travel, no pile of extra expenses, ALL AWESOME. We even have AGENT PITCH SESSIONS!

Again, I LOVE hearing from you…

To prove it and show my love, for the month of February, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of February I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Lies that Can Poison Your Dreams–Don’t Eat the Butt in 2013

Happy New Year! Today we are going to revisit a favorite series of mine that I call Don’t Eat the Butt. Why? Because typing “butt” makes me giggle. Besides, when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions, I guarantee most of you vowed to 1) start your novel 2) finish your novel 3) land an agent 4) self-publish 5) be better about checking in with your parole officer.

Maybe that’s just me .

Kristen, Why Are We Talking About “Butts” and What Does This Have to Do with Writing?

We’re getting there! Geesh! Patience.

I like to think about stuff.

A lot of stuff.

Probably far too much stuff.

Anyway, I wonder about the first person who ate an oyster. Was it a dare? Someone lose a bet? What about mushrooms? There are 100,000 known species of mushrooms, yet only 2,000 are edible. How do we know this? Someone had to eat the bad ‘shrooms then pass that knowledge down for posterity (after he stopped seeing snakes).

Who volunteers for this kind of stuff?

But the most fascinating culinary assassin, in my POV, is the puffer fish. There is only ONE TINY PART of the puffer fish that is not deadly. Oh, and if you don’t know how to cut a puffer fish correctly, you can unwittingly unleash deadly poison into the non-poisonous part.

Marty: Wow, crazy, Dude. This puffer fish kind of tastes like chick–…*grabs throat and falls over foaming from the mouth*

Fred: Note to self. Don’t eat the butt.

This idea of the puffer fish made me start thinking about our careers as artists. There are a lot of common misperceptions that can leak poison into our writing dreams if we aren’t careful. Thus, the DETB (Don’t Eat the Butt) lessons are designed to help you guys spot the toxic beliefs that can KILL a writing career. My assistant Chuy (pictured above) is here to help.

In short, Don’t Eat the Butt, It’s Chuy.

This shall be your mantra.

I will not eat the butt. I will not eat the butt. I will not eat the butt. (Romance authors stop sniggering, please. Thank you.)

No butts about it.

bada bump *snare*

Some of us have been there, done that and got the butt-tasting T-shirt. I am here to hand down what I have learned from being stupid enough to eat the literary puffer butt and survive. Watch, listen and LEARN. The smart writer learns from her mistakes, but the wise writer learns from the mistakes of others.

Yeah, you’ve got all these shiny resolutions. Yay, for you. But I am here to help you turn resolutions into reality so we need to get your thinking straight. Battles begin and end with the mind.

Without further ado…

DETB Lie #1 I’m not a real writer until I have

• a finished manuscript
• landed an agent
• am traditionally published
• am selling enough books to quit my day job
  
• am writing full time
• have spent my retirement funds earning an MFA in Creative Writing

This is crap and don’t eat it. What yahoo decided that we aren’t real writers until we meet some silly outside standard of validation? On what plane of existence does this make ANY professional sense? We are writers the second we decide to take this career decision seriously.

Screw aspiring. Aspiring is for pansies. Takes guts to be a writer..

Think of it this way. As writers we are entrepreneurs (refer to this post). Do entrepreneurs use the term aspiring? I am an aspiring restaurant owner. Oh, I am an aspiring landscaper. I am aspiring housekeeper.

NO.

If I want a house-cleaning business, the second I gather all of my cleaning supplies and a vacuum together in the back of my SUV and print off some business cards, I am a house-cleaning business. Even before my very first client.

In fact, I cannot land my first client until I first call myself a business. Who is going to let me into their house wielding a toilet brush if I approach them with, “Hi, I am an aspiring housekeeper. I’m still learning the best ways to get rid of soap scum, but maybe you can hire me even though I am not, per se a “real” housekeeper?

Again…no.

The title is not something we earn it is who we are. Our title defines our level of commitment. 

Here’s a news flash. There is no license requirement to write books (though it might be a good idea).

Profession by Certification

Doctors, lawyers, accountants, and nurses are professions that require outside certification. This is why they cannot call themselves “Doctor” or “Counselor” or “R.N.” until they take certain exams and pass various levels of professional vetting.

When it comes to being a DOCTOR, we are not a REAL DOCTOR until we have gone to medical school.

Profession of Results

Writers are not the same type of profession. We don’t need a license, an MFA, a finished novel, or an agent to call ourselves writers. We are writers when we decide to write.

Now, we might be bad writers, lazy writers, untalented writers, unpublished writers, pre-published writers but we are still real writers. We are a profession defined by results, not intentions or certifications.

Lose the Literary Training Wheels…NOW

Why Writers Fear the Title

When we decide to use the professional title writer, it is a sign to others that we are no longer hobbyists. Others will expect a certain work ethic to go with our title.

I feel many writers fear using a professional title because we invite a new level of accountability. We fear failure and so we hedge with euphemisms like “aspiring author” so that we can goof off and write when the fancy strikes.

We can never become a professional author if we won’t first claim being a real writer. How we define ourselves affects our choices, how we spend our time, and what we are willing to sacrifice. Those who will not first call themselves WRITER are almost certainly doomed to fail.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work. ~Stephen King

Writers are professionals who treat their writing as if it is their first, second or even a third job. They have a solid work ethic and they know that they have to ante up and take the consequences for better or for worse. They are mature and no longer playing Literary Barbies with their characters.

The world does not reward perfectionists, it rewards finishers.

So best of luck with 2013, and I will do all I can to help you guys grow and mature and have the dreams of your heart.

Remember! Don’t Eat the Butt…It’s Chuy

For those who need some writer love and support, please join us over at WANATribe, the social network for writers. No ads, no spam, all awesome. We have digital Jell-O shots.

We are not alone!

We also have a wonderful lineup of classes at WANA International. Our digital classroom is state of the art. Learn from home and at your own pace. I HIGHLY recommend Agent Secrets taught by Literary Agent Laurie McLean. She is a FABULOUS teacher and is very savvy with the new options in the Digital Age.

What are your thoughts? Opinions? Fears? What keeps you from claiming the professional title?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of January, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of January I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.