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Words

As a writer using the Eng­lish lan­guage, I have only the 26 let­ters of the alpha­bet to com­pose my books. On the oth­er hand, there are an esti­mat­ed six hun­dred thou­sand words (!) in the Eng­lish lan­guage from which I can choose.

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Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook Eighth Edition

Sharing a Story is Profound

There is some­thing about an out-loud read­ing expe­ri­ence that clings to peo­ple. The desire for a shared sto­ry? How ancient that prac­tice must be. 

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Books Close at Hand

I can­not remem­ber a time in my life when there were no books close at hand. I have a vague but real mem­o­ry of being gift­ed with a book by my father when I was some­where about the age of four or five. 

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Photo from Dreamstime by Zita Stankova

Starting a New Book

I’m about to start on a new book … there is a reg­u­lar process by which I will go for­ward in this new undertaking. 

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Poppy

The Title

Decid­ing on a title for your book seems sim­ple, even easy, but in fact, it can be com­plex and hard.

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The Road from Nowhere

Books by Their Covers

A look at dust jack­ets and ISBN num­bers. Beyond all else, dust jack­ets con­sti­tute the first mar­ket­ing of a book, the point when a poten­tial read­er (bor­row­er or pur­chas­er) encoun­ters the book.

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manuscript revision with red type and handwritten notes

On Paper

One source I researched said, “Screens are excel­lent for quick ref­er­ences, search, and short texts. Print­ed pages are often bet­ter for deep, sus­tained read­ing and comprehension.”

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human authored logo from Authors Guild

Human Authored

If you write books the way I do, and you get them pub­lished through a tra­di­tion­al pub­lish­er the way I do, a fair amount of crit­i­cism will come your way.

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door opening into another reality

From First to Last

What if I told you about a writer’s say­ing: “You can’t write a good first line until you write a good last line.”

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