cj Sez: Wishing you the luck of the Irish.
I spent March 16 at the Mobile Literary Festival, and I’m
sorry if I missed seeing you.
Carolyn
Haines, Susan
Tanner and Rebecca
Barrett, the Madcatters who write about Trouble,
the Sherlock of Cat Detectives joined by moderator Cj
Petterson at the Mobile Literary
Festival for a panel on "The value of shared characters.”
The whole day was a fun event—complete with best-selling
authors, a TV celebrity author, and the managing editor of a newspaper. We’ll have
to do it again next year. Let’s plan on it, shall we?
Tips from my personal How To folder together with points
gleaned from one of today’s workshops:
1.
Don’t wish it, don’t dream about it, do it…Decide To Write.
2.
Make a plan to write at least a paragraph a day for
three months. (I’ve read that it takes that long to create a habit.) If you don’t
have a story idea in mind on day one, start journaling. Whether it be a
personal morning journal of the day’s plans or an evening journal of the day’s
events, write something. You’ll find your “writer’s voice” in those journals,
and you never know when the words in them might become the nucleus of your next
novel.
3.
Commit to learning the process … the do’s, the don’ts,
and the must-haves, especially good grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills,
either your own or a hired proofreader.
If you’re serious about becoming a published writer, those
three bullet points will help you get started on that path.
***
That’s it for today’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on,
and I’ll try to do the same.
cj
Mirabel Campbell is a brilliant but bored scientist and
amateur astronomer who wants to trade in her microscope and telescope for a
career with a little more excitement. When she spots what she thinks might be a
new comet in the California desert night sky, she abruptly gets her wish and
her life is transformed into nothing less than high adventure. International
intrigue, hired assassins, and a romantic hero with an Irish accent abound in
the midst of all that fast-paced excitement.
OPENING EXCERPT: I am
not going to die. I am not going to die. Mirabel squeezed her eyes shut as the
plane’s wheels lifted off the tarmac of the small landing strip on the
outskirts of Mendocito, California. Her throat worked, but she couldn’t swallow
her fear of leaving the ground with nothing but a thin slice of sheet metal
beneath her.
NOTE: Print copies of my books are becoming scarce. HOWEVER,
you can support an indie book store and order a signed copy of my books here: The Haunted Bookshop
Drop me a note to sign up for my quarterly newsletter: cjpetterson@gmail.com
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