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 p