Writing for publication
isn’t as easy as one thinks.Some of us
are naturals at this, but nothing about my learning process has ever come easily,
still I love to learn and write. When someone suggested I
write a blog, I did my homework.It was
similar to a weekly column I wrote for three years, so I thought it would force
me to keep deadlines and exercise my “voice.”It’s been mildly successful. I wrote two children’s
stories and they both placed in the top ten in a national contest, so that gave
me some encouragement. I dusted off a book I wrote that a publishing house
rejected ten years ago, so I spent a year fixing it and pitched it again; this
time to an agent. She not only rejected it; she trashed it. It sits in my
office licking its wounds. Two other books are going through their fourth or
fifth rewrites. I’ve lost count. Most of my writer friends
write straight into their laptops, no notes, no outlines.They let “their characters lead the way.” They’re
called pantsers because they …