Hi all posters (and lurkers) on 4um
I just posted the below on LP, and I am now posting it here too
LP was down when I was in the final stage of publishing my book
So I was here those whole 3 weeks
In fact I ordered my proof copy when I was still on 4um
So you all know a lot more about it than LP posters
because I confided it all to you when I was here It was actually published on August 17th
I was still on 4um
but for some reason I was too shy to say it when I was here
or say it on LP when I went back
Today I summoned up my courage
and just now posted the below on LP
I want to post it here also, because I want to express my gratitude to 4um posters
They gave me just as much encouragement as the posters on LP
From the very start, when I said I was thinking of writing a novel
I am so grateful to all of you
You have been so kind to me
The best way I can express my gratitude to posters on both forums
is in this post I wrote about how I started writing and how I published myself
I put in my suggestions and experiences, because they worked for me
All I want is for everyone who ever dreamed of being a writer, to realize they can do it
It is easy and fun
I love you
Palo
my post on LP below
Hi fellow posters (and lurkers too)
First of all I want to thank all the posters on LP for the encouragement you gave me while I was writing my novel and encouraging me to publish it. Maybe I am closer to ya’ll than my RL friends and relatives, or you know me better, but I got far more encouragement from you than I got from RL friends and relatives. That is very sweet of you and I appreciate it.
November is National Write a Novel in a Month and a month before this past November, my friend Lisa in Tucson told me about it, and suggested I do it. As you all know I was completely caught up in the election that last week in October. I was on LP 24/7.
Plus I was used to writing short stories and posting them on an internet blog (the stories are mostly about my yesterday) -- I never wrote a novel and didn’t know how.
So I just wrote polite thank you back to Lisa and went back to posting on LP. But thank God she pushed me. Because when November 3rd rolled around, I decided to give it a try. And to my big surprise, I loved doing it.
I just went to my machine when I woke up with cup of coffee and pack of cigarettes, and wrote for 45 minutes each morning for 3 straight weeks. I still spent my afternoons and evenings on LP. I was doing it for a week when Lisa encouraged me to register at the site ( NANO) (it is free) and then I received their pep-talk emails, which they sent out to everyone.
Lisa was doing it too, even tho she had never written in her life, she is a painter.
But this is a great way for anyone who has ever dreamed of being a writer to do it. Next November there will be another one, you all are such great writers, I hope you consider doing it too. All you have to do is write for 45 minutes each day for month of November. No editing! No re-writing!
You can begin by telling about your yesterday too, but after you have done that several times, start to write a story which is long enough to hold your interest to keep telling it for a while. This will give you experience in narrative (telling a story) and there is very good chance that in the middle you will “find your own voice.”
This means right in the middle of telling your story, suddenly you hear a voice in your head dictating a different story. This one is about your earliest childhood, it is all things you have forgotten, and the voice is different, it is in the first person (even if you have been writing in 3rd person) and it is very personal. And you will love it.
If this happens, immediately stop writing what you were writing, and instead start writing everything you are hearing. This is called “finding your own voice” as a writer, it makes writing so easy and fun, you just take down what it says -- or as they say “you get out of the way, and the story writes itself.”
This is the way I became a writer back in NYC. I was in my late 20s then and had just been fired from my job. My husband was Wall Street Messenger, earning tiny salary. But he said “why don’t you write, I will support you.” So I wrote three tiny 2 page stories about my yesterday and then sat down to write long story, I wrote it in 3rd person and it was about a love affair before I met my husband. That topic interested me enough to keep telling the story.
But right in the middle of it, I was a few weeks into it, I heard that voice communicating a whole other story. It was my littlest little girl experiences. I describe this experience as learning how to balance on a bicycle. One day they are supporting you, and you are pedaling, and then suddenly out of nowhere, you balance. You can ride a bike. You never thought it would happen to you, even tho you watched all your friends do it, because it looks like magic.
It is the same way with writing. You push yourself along telling a story, and then suddenly you balance. You hear that voice and simply take down what it says. The story writes itself, you get out of the way.
But you can only learn how to balance on a bike when you are on a bike, and you can only hear your own voice, while you are at the machine writing. But it is as natural and effortless as learning how to balance on a bike. It comes to all.
For November is National Novel in a Month (NANO) I didn’t go over and look at it or register there, till I was doing it for a week or so and was totally into it. I didn’t read their pep-talk emails (which was to encourage us to keep going) but Lisa did and really appreciated them. It was her first time writing.
Near the end of the month Lisa told me to go over and register my word count. For Novel in a Month they want 50,000 words or 170 pages. Every word I had written had many typos in it, but it didn’t matter, their robot counter counted it. And because I was so close to what they wanted, the next morning I wrote one more chapter. And then wrote “the end.” I had done it.
I enjoyed every bit of it and actually loved my novel, even tho I didn’t think it was any “good.” I just liked sitting down every morning and saying what my yesterday was like. I had started off trying to make it a real novel by telling about my friend Ruthie’s new love affair, but if she didn’t call me to update me, I just wrote about my life (my yesterday and some other things). So only the first few chapters are about Ruthie.
At NANO they said “don’t edit your novel now, wait till March, just put it away.” And I thought “GREAT! who wants to fix gazillion typos.” When March came, I got it out, but it was so much work to fix all those typos, and I didn’t think it was any good (I couldn’t understand why I had loved it so much when I finished it), I decided to forget abut my novel and just continue writing new stories.
But in May I got email from NANO again saying, everyone procrastinated, no one edited their novel, but if we edit it by June 1, CreateSpace owned by Amazon will publish it for free.
What an offer! I could not resist. On May 3rd I sat down and fixed all the typos (I did not do any rewriting). It took few weeks, and then got out their email for the link to Create Space owned by Amazon which will publish it for free.
Guess what! CreateSpace owned by Amazon publishes any book written by anyone for free, but you have to do all the work yourself. No one even reads it. You have to format it for a paperback book, all they do is press a button to print and bind it, and post it for sale on Amazon.
When I saw the technical work involved in formatting my novel into a paperback book I was terrified. I didn’t even know what they were talking about or how to do any of it. But I was too deep into it to quit. I wanted to publish my novel now, I didn’t just want it lost on my computer.
It turns out CreateSpace has community boards. And there are angels on it (people who have published lots and lots of books, are completely experienced) and they walk us newbies thru everything. Ones even less experienced than me, they wrote their book and don’t even know how to indent a paragraph or what a tab is, or how to edit it.
It turned out everything which seemed impossibly hard when I first heard about it, is not hard, you just press a button in your word processing program. But of course I needed to learn from the community boards which button? where? things like that. They have the patience of saints there and love to help.
My friend Helen did the cover for me. She had to do front and back and spine, but they had template there, and she is experienced with computer, not like me.
It did take me 3 months to do it, I had to learn everything. But now I am going to publish the stories before I wrote Novel in a Month, and this time I am not scared about formatting it for paperback, plus all the things I learned from doing my novel, I now know.
I tell you all this because it is God’s gift to writers. That we can publish ourselves. CreateSpace also does videos, and music, photography books, painting books, comic books. Anyone who expresses their creativity has this wonderful opportunity now to have their work posted on Amazon for sale. I see it as a gift from heaven. Lulu does this too, but I got hooked on CreateSpace, because it is on their community boards where I learned what I had to do, and how to do it.
It was first started by Lulu.com. Everyone at CreateSpace started there, because Lulu makes it so much easier to do it. They don’t expect you to know anything. Both Lulu and CreateSpace are free, they publish your book for free. This is a gift from Heaven.
Most publish at both places, CreateSpace is owned by Amazon, the book is posted on Amazon. But if you want your book in “bricks and mortar” bookstore, you have to publish it at Lulu too. I haven’t done this yet, my book is just up on Amazon now.
I tell you all this to encourage you to go for it! If I could do it anyone can. I want all your dreams to come true, you are gentle, kind, generous, helpful, loving beings you deserve all happiness. And you have been very good to me. I appreciate it.
Here is the link on Amazon to my novel, Ruthie Has a New Love by Anne Wilensky. I chose Wilensky as my pen-name because when my parents went down to City Hall in Manhattan to get married, they discovered both their moms maiden names were Wilensky. My dad’s mom was born Goldi Wilensky, and my mom’s mom Sophie Wilensky. Anne is my own real name. You can see Helen’s great cover up on the Amazon link.
Of course you are invited to read it. If one part doesn’t interest you, try another part. Some of you will like it, some of you won’t, then just pass it on. All I want is that anyone who would like it, find it.
I do not know if this book would exist if it were not for all your loving encouragement.
Thank you.
I love you
Palo