The Day I Became an Author

     My son asked me to review a draft of a science fiction book he was writing.  I was happy to help him out since I had plenty of free time.  After being in the main stream corporate world for many years I was able to finally leave to pursue my goal of doing nothing. Well, it hasn't quite worked out that way but that's another story.

     So I set about providing comments and editing corrections for his book on my trusty laptop.  It took me several days to complete.  His first attempt was not bad.  Neither he nor I had taken more than the minimum requirements for literature and other English courses in college since we both matriculated with degrees in science.    So for a first attempt I was duly impressed.   Since then he has almost totally rewritten his book based on writing tips that he has learned on line such as composition, sentence structure and "showing" rather than "telling".      

     Now... for the day I became an author.  The day I finished my review of his initial attempt, I decided that I could write a book.  In prior years I promised that I would get around to writing a novel someday.  Equipped with a new sense of the possibility I started to write.  I made a very casual outline but I had a story to tell.  I have finally finished writing that story and now am in my own edit phase.  My son has returned the favor of a review and has given me many wonderful ideas on scenes that he felt would improve the story.  Thanks, Brian.

    So I feel like an author.  My only goal is to write something that is entertaining and I have great hope that I have accomplished that goal.  Now I would like to get the book into the hands of readers. People that will love it.   An entire industry has evolved for marketing and promotion of self published books.  This blog format is one but all of the other social media services are on the band wagon. 

   That too is the story for another blog but here is a little taste.  Twitter. That's right.  Marketing through Twitter.  

My last Tweet:

   

  After a lifelong background in left brain thinking I find that I can be creative. I simply write the scenes I see happening in my right brain.