Writing~Baby Step to Flight

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying."
– Friedrich Nietzsche

I have met very few people who haven't said that they have a story to tell. Close to 80% of the American public has an idea for or started the "Great American Novel." Less than 10% will finish writing it and of that, maybe 3% will ever see their novel in print. Sounds discouraging, doesn't it? But with every published work, there were steps that had to be followed.

Many publishing hopefuls keep their first novels in a box under their beds, and that's where it should stay. I can hear you now, "Aw, come on! It can't be that bad!" Oh yes, it can be. Ask any published author how bad their first attempts were and they will tell you. Writing starts with baby steps into writing. No one is a born writer. They had to learn how. No matter how famous they are, they didn't wake up one morning and become a published author. They had to learn how to write composition even if it was in grade school, read, edit text, reedit text, seek representation, and deal with publishing and promotion. Name an author who hasn't done extensive research on any given project and I'll show you an author who isn't published. And yes, you can be an author without being "published." Anytime you write, you are an author. These are the baby steps involved with becoming a published author.

Have you ever seen a baby go from the do-nothing-stage to running around terrorizing your house in an instant? I haven't. I'm the mother of four and I've watched the progression with pride of achievement. The first little wobble of the first steps to swaying back and forth to music in their simplified dancing...babies are cute, aren't they? You approach writing the same way. You have to learn to stand and walk before you can dance. Take a creative writing course at your local college, read incessantly, increase your vocabulary, take a refresher in proper grammar, all of it is important in life and writing. Learning is never a waste of time. For an author, writing is a dance that you never tire of.



Now, I'll discuss blogging as a published work. As a blog writer you are being published worldwide. Don't be confused by this, once you open your pages to someone else...you are a published author. No one can write your story as well as you can. This heyday of blogging proves that. I've read numerous blogs over the past few weeks. In writing a blog do you think of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, or do you just write because you can? You have an important point to make, right? Think about what you are blogging about. how distracing to you is mispelings, gramtec erros adn such when u r tryin to read? If you read the previous line and went, huh? Don't laugh, I've read it. You get my point. The point is take pride in what you write and correct (edit) it and use the spell checker offer above your compose screen (it's that little icon with the check mark and "ABC")before you publish it. I have a writer friend who can't put two sentences together without a dictionary and thesaurus, but that's okay. He's attempting to learn and taking baby steps to achieve it.

You, as a blogger, ask in forums to find a readership. You obviously have something to share. Take pride in what you have to say and put your best foot forward. A number of literary agents and publishers frequent blogs. The search for the authors of the future may be somewhere in Bloggers or some such blog. I got my start with a letter to an editor, too many years ago, and a commentary on a little known subject. It could happen to you also. In writing baby steps are important, learning to write well, and flying into publication are all achievable by following the steps. Write on!

The Illiterate Computer Literate

Today, I've spent almost the whole day on this computer updating my website and reading through HTML how-to's until I'm cross-eyed. I honestly thought I was trying to do something simple in my blog space...add a button to access my disclaimer and copyright information. As a writer I always protect my rantings and ravings, and writing with my copyright. I just didn't want it to appear on the bottom of my page in tact.

Well, one hour turned into two hours, into five hours and now eight hours. I've had one of those days and totally DOH! moments where my brain doesn't engage properly. Thank you Rat for all your help because you have been trying to show me the obvious and it's just not sinking in. He asked me if I was dizzy...now you can take dizzy in a couple of different ways...either a nut or the spinning around sort...I'm both at this point. I messaged him back and told him that I was a dizzy, old broad trying to some new tricks. I'm a dinosaur. Although my age in my bio says 49, it should read 49 and holding. Today is just adding more gray hairs to my head.

I'm not a total computer illiterate. Once upon a time,I made pretty good money as a programmer. That was back in the day, when Bill Gates said all the average home computer would ever need was 640K of memory...then he created Windows. When I first started with computers, programs were copper disks and punch cards, and computers filled an entire room. I kept up with the times when COBOL, Pascal, and even Basic came on the scene...then came the programming explosion. C, C++, C+++++++, and HTML came on the scene and were changing things faster than this old dinosaur could keep up. I do know enough HTML to get myself in trouble and actually do from time to time.

I was just beginning to run circles around Windows XP and then comes VISTA with all the bugs and patches. I just bought a refurbished laptop because it still had Windows XP on it. It's not because I don't like challenges, because I do. I'm one of the original Don Quixoites tipping at windmills. Fortunately, I know when I'm licked and I call for help. When something irritates me so much I actually start yelling and hitting inanimate objects. It's time to walk away and call it a night, kick the habit, and play Scarlette O'Hara...I'll think about it tomorrow.