March 24

I believe we are a race of story tellers. Our history-stories, our religions -stories, our current events-stories, gossip-stories. No wonder so many people tell me- Oh, I have a great idea for a book. I'll write it one day. It's sure to be a best seller. *smile*

But writing a book is hard work. First you tell the story-then you make it a book. You have to learn about the rules of books- point of view, grammar, sentence structure, action, dialogue, adding all the five senses so that the reader is grounded. Once you do that you send it out to have someone read to see what you missed-and then you write it again. Next you have to sell it to an agent and an editor-who most likely have ideas of their own to add-so you write it again. Then you have to sell it to booksellers and readers. Once you've done all that- everyone wants to know- when you'll do it again... what took so long... you know, they have this great idea-sure to be a best seller, if you write it for them, they'll give you a cut of the cash...maybe 20 percent-it was their idea after all...