At a dinner hosted by my writing group a woman named Teresa Funke spoke. she not only has several books published, but owns her own small press, which is, apparently, doing well. When discussing promoting her books she emphasized putting time into those activities which she enjoyed. She said that an author promoting their books should pick three things that they could be passionate about, because, if they weren't passionate about it, they wouldn't be able to follow through. I'm not passionate about blogging, which might explain why I've failed so miserably at keeping my blog going. What I am interested in, and passionate about, is teaching. That isn't to say that I'm great at it, but I do care about it, and I enjoy breaking things down and analyzing them, so, call this a personal experiment if you want, but I'm going to try my hand at teaching what I've learned about writing over the years. Fingers crossed.
If you're serious about becoming a writer, I would suggest starting with this. It isn't comprehensive, but it's a few things that you might want to take at least a few minutes to think about, and a few things you might want to be aware of. After some of the things I've seen, and stories I've heard, I'm a big believer in sending people into this industry with their eyes open.
Basics of Story Writing:
The first five 'lesson plans' are all connected in so much as they are five frames through which to examine your writing. By breaking the story down into these five separate frames, I believe you, as a writer, can better determine what your areas of strength and weakness are and address them more directly. And for those of you who are in writing groups, I believe that this will make it easier for you to figure out what it is about other people's writing that you find particularly strong or particularly weak, so that your advice can be more precise and meaningful.
Basics of Micro-Level Writing
Basics of Mid-Level Writing
Basics of Macro-Level Writing
Basics of a Connected Series
Basics of a Series Arc
Humor in a Story
Peer Review Groups
Agents
Marketing