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Writing is not a one-person job

We all need writing help. In my last writing retreat, Deb Cavanaugh mentioned something that I didn’t know (not the first time). She said that Harper Lee was essentially not alone in writing To Kill a Mockingbird.  Based on my own experience, I can believe it. Lee did write the first draft, then titled Go Set a Watchman, and it was purchased by J.B. Lippincott & Co. However, it was in need of a lot of work. Therese von Hohoff Torrey, known as Tay Hohoff and a literary editor for Lippincott, was assigned as Lee’s editor. Over a period of nearly three years, Hohoff and Lee worked together to finish the book which Lee eventually re-titled To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee didn’t expect much, but after Reader’s Digest printed a condensed version, the book took off. It won a Pulitzer Prize and is still in print today, over fifty years after it was published in 1960. The lesson I took from Deb and this story reminds me that there is a lot of work in writing a book and a lot of help is required. My editor, Tammy Salyer, has been my Tay Hohoff. I don’t expect my work to reach the heights of Harper Lee, but Tammy’s help is just as important. If you decide to write that book that has been banging around in your head, go ahead. But get the right help along the way.  Find an editor like Tay or Tammy and make your work shine. Don’t imaging that you can do it all alone. And it will take some time. Be patient, remember Harper Lee. What do you think?

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My first blog post ever.

This is a re-run of my first blog post ever on my own website. New to Tumblr. I’ll  update a few more over time to get you to the latest. Writing to me is fun.  Laying out your ideas so they make sense and then hoping that others find it fun as you did when you were writing.  My first book wasn’t really a book, it was my doctoral dissertation . . . but my committee chair kept calling it a book, and in a way he was right. Just not a book many people want to read.  In fact, at my graduating university all the dissertation “books” are kept in a locked cabinet with no lights. Nobody goes there unless it’s a candidate wanting to see what other people did. My second book was a real book, non-fiction on leadership (Leaders are Made Not Born). It was the result of years of thinking and procrastinating (8 of them) which finally got done after about a year of hard work and lots of editing. It was fun writing, but let me tell you the hardest part of writing (from my point of view) is the editing. I suppose there are a few writers out there who breeze through the draft and then have some minor re-writes, but my guess is not many escape the pain of re-writing and editing. And editing after the editing. So it is with my new ventures. I have three SF books in draft. That was the fun part.  Two have been through one edit and are now being re-written by me. Oh the pain! So you ask, why do it?  Because the fun part outweighs the editing part. When I was thirteen years old, I had already read all the military action adventure books in the Bakersfield Library. So imagine a thirteen-year-old trying to knock out his first book then. I only got through about three pages before my then short attention span drove me off to some other place. But I never forget about the possibility. Many years later, I’m back at it. This time, however, I think I’m more focused than a thirteen-year-old. I won’t tell you my age other than to repeat what Samuel Clemens said when asked his age: “As old as my tongue and older than my teeth.” I hope you want to keep tuned to this adventure as I make my way forward. I’ve started a blog on my website and if my media smart friend Kristie can help me, I may show up in other places . . . but I’m not too keen on Twitter. We’ll see.